Fighting Spirit a Perrot Trademark

Kim Perrot is remembered not only for her courage in fighting the cancer that took her life last Thursday, but the tenacity and stubbornness she used to achieve a 1997 dream--of making a WNBA roster.

The feisty 5-foot-5 point guard graduated from Southwestern Louisiana in 1990, then bounced around the European pro leagues, playing in four countries in four seasons. When the WNBA geared up in 1996, few outside Louisiana knew of her.

When teams formed, she started making calls, asking for tryouts. She was turned down by everyone until she connected with Houston.

“When I started drawing up names of players to consider for that first season, I had 20 point guards listed and Kim wasn’t one of them,” said Van Chancellor, the Comet coach.

That was last Friday night, just after the Comets had arrived at the Great Western Forum for their game with the Sparks. The team had had 24 hours to digest the news of Perrot’s death but everyone obviously was unprepared.

Players wept and Chancellor used a tissue to wipe away an occasional tear.

Yet in his grief and in his slow Mississippi drawl he was able bring her spirit back to life for a dozen reporters.

He described a 1997 meat market-like tryout at Houston’s St. Thomas High. Dozens of players were present. Two from that tryout made the roster, Perrot and Tiffany Woosley.

Perrot soared. Woosley, no longer in the league, sat.

Perrot drove, goaded and quarterbacked her team to two championships. She played the game with mesmerizing energy and unmatched aggressiveness.

“I teased her a long time about that tryout,” Chancellor said.

“Wherever I went on the floor, I’d hear different people say things like, ‘You’re gonna keep Perrot, right, Coach?’ It was, like, every 20 feet. I always accused her of planting those people, around the gym, to do that.

“I thought she was too wild, a wild hare . . . and she thought I was too conservative, a Mississippi coach with no flair for the game.

“She was the best defensive player I ever saw in the women’s game. She would guard you for 94 feet. And she was the best I ever saw at stopping the ball.

“I’ll never forget a letter some woman wrote me our first season. It said, ‘When are you going to quit jerking Kim Perrot out of the games? Point guards like her are so hard to find, but coaches like you are a dime a dozen.’ ”

Chancellor and Perrot’s teammates participated in a memorial service Monday at Houston. Perrot will be buried today after a private ceremony in her hometown, Lafayette, La.

SHORT SHOTS

Did anyone else notice? Of the five WNBA games played Saturday, the last day of the regular season, the smallest crowd was 11,460. The range was 11,460 at Cleveland to 19,839 at Washington, an average of 14,696. Even so, the WNBA season average came in at 10,207, off last summer’s 10,869. The Sparks logged a 7,625 average, slightly off its 7,653 in 1998.

The firing Saturday of Cleveland coach Linda Hill-MacDonald leaves only two coaches of the original eight WNBA teams at their original posts, Chancellor at Houston and Cheryl Miller at Phoenix. . . . The Sparks’ Lisa Leslie and DeLisha Milton will get no rest after the playoffs. They will join the U.S. Olympic team for a tournament at UC San Diego on Sept. 9-12. Competing will be the four top gold-medal candidates for the 2000 Olympics--United States, Poland, Australia and Brazil.

The Salt Lake City tornado Aug. 11 peeled off several large sections of the Delta Center’s roof. The Starzz, luckily, were in Minneapolis. Large pieces of debris fell onto the floor and into the seating areas, one big enough to crush a steel handrail. The basketball floor was wrecked by rain damage and has been refinished.

When the WNBA’s labor agreement expires in 2002 and first-class air travel for tall players goes back on the table, the players will have an ally in Orlando Woolridge. The Spark coach blames the long Aug. 13 Houston-Washington flight in the coach section for 6-6 Nina Bjedov’s back injury, which kept her out of three games.