Fresh Start for Feaster With New L.A. Coach
Even at the beginning of training camp and in exhibition games, you wondered if it was the same Allison Feaster.
She was leaner, faster and more animated than at any time in her first two WNBA seasons. Of course, it’s tough to be animated with a broken foot.
The 5-foot-9 wing from Harvard started fast but was injured at Sacramento, concluding her rookie season in only seven games.
She came into the WNBA as the Sparks’ first-round draft pick shortly after leading Harvard to a shocking first-round NCAA tournament victory over Stanford in 1998. It’s still the only time in NCAA history, men or women, that a 16th-seeded team has beaten a No. 1.
Last season, under coach Orlando Woolridge, she lost first her minutes, then her confidence. She finished the season chafing, standing eighth on the team in minutes played.
“I asked Orlando several times why I wasn’t playing and never got a straight answer,” she said recently.
“I tried to play hard for him, but when you’re not communicating with your coach, it affects how you play. With Coop [new Spark Coach Michael Cooper], it’s completely different. If I ask him a question about anything, I get a straight answer, no matter what.”
She said she finished last season with her confidence in tatters. No more, thanks to husband Danny. He played at North Carolina State and is in a Carson summer league while his wife displays her newfound confidence. The two met in high school in Chester, S.C.
She credited her off-season play in France and the support of Danny and Cooper for her renaissance.
“I played in the French women’s league, in Aix-en-Provence, which is near Marseilles,” she said. “Danny played for Le Havre, which is close to Normandy. We’d see each other about once a week at a little place on the Champs-Elysees or at a Paris airport hotel.
“I played for a very tough coach at Aix-en-Provence, and I think I became a better player. We played only twice a week, but there were two practices a day. I came back leaner, I know, but that’s more a reflection of the tough practices, I think. I wasn’t trying to lose weight.
“Danny was the major factor in my getting my confidence back. He was 100% supportive all through my French season. He’s the most important [reason] in my feeling now that I really can contribute to this team.
“And, of course, Coop made me feel the same way throughout training camp.”
To Cooper, Feaster is worth her weight in electricity.
“To me, Feaster is a great team person,” he said.
“She’s great in the locker room, great on the bus, great in practice. She’s all about pulling a team together and winning. Plus, she’s a fine player.”
Cooper said after becoming coach last November he called every Spark.
“I asked them all to report to training camp mentally ready, spiritually connected and physically fit,” he said.
“The two who did the best job of that were Feaster and Meek [Tamecka Dixon].”
Dixon shed even more pounds than Feaster, and her trademark drives down the paint are carrying more velocity than last year.
Feaster plays with renewed confidence.
“Allison is now in her second full year in the league, and she knows her role with us,” Cooper said.
“Defensively, her job is to go to the perimeter and take on a player who’s hurting us out there. Extend our defense, in other words.”
AROUND THE LEAGUE
Put this name down as one every women’s college coach in America will know in about 2006: Candace Griffith. She’s the 11-year-old daughter of the WNBA’s most valuable player, Yolanda Griffith of Sacramento, and she just reached 5 feet 3. “She’ll be taller than me,” says Mom, who’s 6-4. . . . The fast development of 5-5 Sacramento rookie guard Stacy Clinesmith hasn’t surprised her coach, Sonny Allen. “I live in Reno, so I saw her play [for UC Santa Barbara] about 10 times in three years,” he said. “To me, she’s got great court smarts. --I call her a natural basketball player who happens to be a point guard.” . . .
Although she didn’t play against the Sparks on Sunday, second-year pro Cindy Blodgett might be a nominee for comeback player of the year. Cleveland used its first pick in 1998 to select the Maine guard, who twice led the nation in scoring. But Blodgett was a bust at Cleveland and moved on to Sacramento last summer. Over the off-season she added considerable muscle and is now displaying a defensive intensity she lacked last year. In the Monarchs’ 77-56 win at New York on Friday, Blodgett played 13 minutes, and she and Ticha Penicheiro held Liberty guard Teresa Weatherspoon to three points. . . . Clay Kallam, in the June issue of Slam magazine, writing about why the Sparks gave away Serbs Nina Bjedov and Gordana Grubin in the expansion draft: “Are you sure the Clippers aren’t running this franchise?”