Edwards, Other WNBA Stars Becoming Role Models for Girls

Michelle Edwards was 14 then, and grown men huddled on the sidelines at Sparrow Park in Cambridge, Mass., and challenged teenage boys to play her one-on-one. To a chorus of oohs and occasional ha-has, she broke down foes with head fakes, crossover dribbles and hesitations. Sometimes she lost, most of the time she won. Concrete casualties and courtside crowds alike called her by the nickname she had earned: Ice.

“She lived up to that name because she was so smooth,” Chris Jones said, recalling his playground battles with Ice. “Everything she did on the blacktop was cold.”

Now 32, Michelle “Ice” Edwards has dribbled from the concrete courts surrounding her South End Boston neighborhood to the hardwood floors of the Cleveland Rockers of the WNBA. In between, Edwards starred at Cathedral High, the University of Iowa, a league in Italy and on the 1991 Pan American Games team that won a bronze medal.

The boys Edwards schooled in the early 1980s are long forgotten. To a large extent, she is, too.

On a balmy summer day, two teenage girls playing one-on-one at the Shelburne Center in Roxbury, Mass., took a break to test their knowledge of local hoop heroes who fine-tuned their skills on area playgrounds. They remembered Patrick Ewing, of course. And Dana Barros. But Michelle Edwards? The name didn’t register. The girls resumed their game on the court, the same one Edwards played on about 14 years ago to earn a spot on a U.S. Youth Games team.

Later, when they left the gym and passed Shelburne’s brick wall of fame, they walked by a glass frame containing a black-and-white action photo of Edwards. The only mention of Ewing or Barros was in a yellowed Boston Globe newspaper clipping pinned nearby about two teenage boys inspired by the NBA stars.

For years, the only sneakered path to professional basketball led women to Europe. Those who didn’t want to go abroad were forced to tuck away their farfetched dreams of playing professional basketball in the United States and use their college degrees to get jobs. That all changed in 1996, when two U.S. professional leagues announced they would begin play. The American Basketball League’s inaugural season began in fall 1996 and the WNBA took the court for the first time last summer.

Finally, girls have a concrete professional goal and can abandon the unrealistic goal of being like Mike, and try to be more like Michelle.

Pat Summitt, the women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, says she’s seen an increasing number of parents who bring their daughters to watch WNBA stars such as Edwards, Rebecca Lobo and Sheryl Swoopes, and ABL standouts Jennifer Azzi, Saudia Roundtree and Dawn Staley. Just as countless boys have dreams of dribbling and dunking their way to the NBA, girls can now envision a similar path.

“These kids have female role models, and certainly more than one or two,” says Summitt, who has coached the Lady Vols to six NCAA titles, including the last three. “It’s a shot in the arm for our sport and serves as a source of motivation for young girls and gives them a goal much higher than before.”

Jennifer Pelaya, 14, says watching the WNBA and ABL on television lured her to the hardwood for the first time last year. She was so impressed by the Houston Comets’ Cynthia Cooper, the WNBA most valuable player who seemed to move so effortlessly and score with such ease, that she started working on her own game at the Boys and Girls Club in Ventura, Calif. Her goal: to prove to the boys at Ana Capa Middle School that women can take care of business on the basketball court.

“A lot of boys say girls stink at basketball and can’t play,” Pelaya said. “Boys at school say we look like dorks wearing NBA jerseys. But now we can put on our women’s jerseys and shoes and show them basketball is no longer an all-guys sport.”

As publicity and fan interest continues to increase, the women’s game will be elevated to a new level, Summitt says.

“These kids are serious about basketball now,” Summitt said. “There’s a motivation level unlike anything in the past. It’s not just about developing all-American collegiate players but about developing professional athletes. This should improve the level of commitment and competition.”

The professional leagues have given Jasmine Holmes something to shoot for. The 12-year-old from Ventura, Calif., has altered her dreams. She still wants to be a lawyer, but she wants to play in the WNBA after she finishes law school.

“I was always interested in basketball, but I could only watch the NBA,” Holmes says of the years before the two professional women’s leagues started. “My dream then was to play college basketball and become a lawyer. But now, I’m looking forward to setting my goals a little higher and making it to the WNBA.”

Edwards didn’t have that luxury. Even though she spent most of her teenage years mastering the game, Edwards felt each power dribble, each electrifying pass, each in-your-face jump shot was building toward nothing. Other dreams seemed more realistic, more attainable.

After playing nine seasons in Italy, Edwards packed up her ball and gear last year and returned to the United States. With time working against her, Edwards wasted none of it establishing herself as a WNBA star. The 5-foot-9 guard starred in a McDonald’s commercial with Detroit Pistons forward Grant Hill and her number 44 Cleveland Rockers jersey is a hot seller nationwide.

Sometimes -- like the time Los Angeles Lakers prodigy Kobe Bryant walked up to her at the NBA All-Star Weekend and introduced himself -- Edwards can’t believe where she is, what she’s doing and how people are starting to notice her.

“I was dreaming of becoming an architect, or the first black Olympic skier,” Edwards said. “Basketball for women wasn’t really an option when I was younger. I thought it might happen, but I didn’t think I would be a part of it because I would have either retired or been doing something else.”