Identical Pursuit
Fourteen years . . . and the memory lingers, like a treasured snapshot in an old album.
It’s from the Pam and Paula McGee family album. But for one moment in the summer of 1984, it went into a few million albums.
In the Forum, in the bedlam of cheers and the waving of thousands of little American flags, the women of the 1984 U.S. Olympic basketball team climb onto the platform and receive their gold medals.
One of them, 22-year-old Pam McGee, holding her medal, tries to look through the bright lights, seemingly confused, and begins to cry. She can’t find her identical twin sister, Paula, who didn’t make the Olympic team.
Then, seeing her, Pam leaps off the platform and runs to Paula at her seat. Paula is weepy too, and the sisters embrace.
And Pam, exactly as a screenwriter would have written it, puts her medal around her sister’s neck.
“This is for you too,” Pam tells Paula.
Now, at 35, as a Los Angeles Spark, Pamela Denise McGee has returned to the same building, talking about another basketball championship.
She’s back in Los Angeles, where she and Paula played on two USC national championship teams. She’s now a mom, a budding author, linguist (she speaks Italian, Spanish and some Portuguese) and an athlete keen on joining an elite club--those who have won NCAA, Olympic and pro championships.
If it happens, chances are Paula will be there for her again.
At the moment, the Rev. Paula McGee is the dean of chapel at Fisk University in Nashville. She retired from European pro basketball in 1992 and recently earned a master’s of arts and religion degree at Vanderbilt.
If the Sparks reach the summit this year, it will surely be written that a key date in the achievement was April 6, 1998--the date the team acquired the 6-foot-3 McGee from the Sacramento Monarchs in exchange for Linda Burgess.
The transaction startled many, particularly coaches and general managers of WNBA Western Conference teams, which brings a giggle from McGee.
“I heard people in Houston told Sacramento: ‘Couldn’t you have traded her to Charlotte? Or Cleveland?’ ” she said.
(Houston, defending WNBA champion, was moved from the Eastern Conference to the West to clear space in the East for expansion teams Detroit and Washington.)
The Sparks, who open their season Thursday at Utah, failed in the final regular-season game last summer to secure a playoff berth. With a loss at Phoenix the Sparks finished 14-14.
Much more is expected this year, and much of the optimism is pinned to McGee, a proven scorer and rebounder who’s expected to free up Lisa Leslie’s game in the low post.
“The days of double-teaming Lisa down low are over,” Coach Julie Rousseau said. “Opponents now have to deal with Pam too.”
Point guard Penny Toler anticipates a “double option” offense this season.
“Pam is a great add for us,” she said.
“Lisa was our first option last year and all the defenses knew that. This year we have a double option, and that’ll force everyone to play us straight up.”
The 6-1 Burgess started six Spark games last year and averaged 6.5 points and 4.2 rebounds. McGee started 23 games for Sacramento and averaged 10.6 points and 4.4 rebounds.
Those numbers should rise this season, McGee says, by way of pointing out she and her sister are now unidentical identicals. She’s 20 pounds heavier than her twin sister, and it’s mostly muscle. Her power game inside has been impressive in training camp.
“I got down to 175 pounds last year and I got knocked around all season. I spent the entire off-season with a personal trainer and I’m right at 200 now. I know I’m going to be more effective.”
A more effective McGee, she said, means a better Spark team.
“This is going to be a great team,” she said. “There’re no cliques on this team, everyone gets along and we’re all excited with what we’ve done in training camp without Lisa and Haixia [Zheng].”
Leslie and Zheng played in the women’s basketball World Championships in Germany and weren’t scheduled to report until Tuesday, two days before the opener.
Then there’s Allison Feaster, the club’s first draft pick. The 5-11 rookie led her team to successive exhibition victories over Sacramento, scoring 28 points in 27 minutes in the second game.
“She’s amazing,” McGee said.
“I don’t think she understands yet how good she can be. She was really nervous in her first game [at the Arrowhead Pond], but very relaxed for the second game.”
The Sparks tried and failed to deal Heidi Burge to Sacramento during the season last summer for McGee, who’d expressed unhappiness in Sacramento. Burge cleaned out her locker one day, bolted, then returned and apologized to everyone in sight.
Then the deal was done with Burgess, after Burge, unprotected in the expansion draft, went to Washington.
“I wanted out of there because I wanted to play for a championship team and I couldn’t ever see it happening in Sacramento,” McGee said.
“The guy who runs the Kings and the Monarchs is the same guy, Jerry Reynolds. They’re making him do two jobs [Kings’ player personnel director, Monarchs’ general manager] for the price of one, and it doesn’t work.
“With the Sparks/Lakers organization, the Sparks are separate. And all you hear is winning a championship, whether it’s the Lakers or the Sparks. It starts with Jerry Buss, goes down to Johnny Buss [Spark president], to Rhonda Windham [Spark general manager], to Julie and on down to the players.
“And they don’t talk about making the playoffs, they talk about the championship. It’s a great feeling, a real change for me.”
McGee didn’t sever all ties to Sacramento. She has moved into an apartment two blocks from the Forum, but may still retain her off-season home in Sacramento.
At the moment, her son, JaVale, 10, lives in Chicago with his father, and her daughter, Imani, 3, lives in Detroit with Pam’s ex-husband.
“When the season is over, I may bring my kids back to Sacramento,” she said. “It’s a great city to raise kids in.”
McGee had been at work on a novel when her literary agent asked her to shelve the project in favor of a McGee twins autobiography.
“It’s basically done, Paula and I are just fine-tuning it,” Pam said.
The novel will appear later under McGee’s nom de plume, Cleopatra Imani D’Amour.
“It’s a lifestyle novel, about an NBA player and the ego and emotion in his life,” she said.
Why not: “By Pam McGee?”
“I don’t want it to be seen as just a sports book,” she explained.
“It’s more about life. I don’t want to be put in a box.”
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At a Glance: Pam McGee
Age: 35
Position / size: Forward, 6-3, 200
Hometown: Flint, Mich.
Career highlights: Played on successive NCAA title teams at USC (1983,’84); finalist for 1984 Naismith Award; member of 1984 U.S. gold-medal Olympic team; played professionally n Brazil, Spain, Italy; was four-time Italian league all-star.
How acquired: In trade with Sacramento on April 6 for Linda Burgess.
Last season: Scored 16 points in June 27 game against the Sparks, 16 against eventual WNBA champion Houston on Aug. 24. Averaged 10.6 points and 4.4 rebounds.