David Levine
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Posting in full, because I doubt most here are subscribers:
Lindsay Whalen’s legacy, through the eyes of two kids who couldn’t turn away
Jon Krawczynski
In a sea of young women who came out to salute their hero, there was a 3-year-old little girl who was seeing Lindsay Whalen in person for the first time.
On what may have been Whalen’s final home game, the Minnesota-born girl’s Minnesota-born father wanted her to be in attendance at least once to watch perhaps the most impactful Minnesota-born athlete ever to wear a uniform.
At home, the girl plays on a Playskool basketball hoop in the basement with her 5-year-old brother, the boy saying he is LeBron James and the girl hollering, “I’m Lindsay Whalen!”
She hasn’t even begun to think about whether or not she truly will want to play sports. But if she does, the opportunities afforded her will be so much richer thanks to the woman she came to watch on Sunday night.
On Lindsay Whalen Day, she climbed into the family SUV with mom, dad and brother, traversed the skyway to Target Center and sneaked down near the court for warmups to watch Whalen stretch and give her a wave. She then scaled the escalators to her seat in Section 232, a portion of the upper deck opened by the Lynx to specifically accommodate the groundswell of humanity coming out to pay tribute to the state’s favorite daughter, as Cheryl Reeve likes to call her point guard.
Whalen burst onto the scene 20 years ago, a fiery, flashy and ferocious player who brought a streetball flair and an indomitable spirit that was too big for the Sports Pavilion to hold. In doing so, she lifted the Gopher women’s program to unprecedented heights, then made a pit stop in Connecticut before returning home to spearhead the WNBA’s greatest dynasty.
And yet all of her success — a Final Four, four WNBA titles, two Olympic gold medals — pales in comparison to the revolution she has inspired. Title IX was adopted in 1972 to help address gender equity issues in sports, but it was a long, slow climb for girls and women in the first three decades of life with the new federal regulations.
In the last 10 years, participation numbers for girls and women in Minnesota have exploded, according to a report from the National Federation of State High School Associations. The number of girls competing in high school sports in Minnesota has jumped 17 percent in the last 10 years, giving the state more high school female athletes per capita than any other state.
Whalen joined the Lynx nine years ago. But she hasn’t just played. She’s been ubiquitous. She is on radio and television to promote the sport. She’s holding camps and marching in parades to grow the game. As Steve Rushin pointed out in Sports Illustrated earlier this summer, she has a hard time saying no, but that agreeable nature has led to an unprecedented level of local popularity for a female athlete.
“She could run for governor and win,” Reeve said, without even a tinge of hyperbole.
Girls wear No. 13 because of Whalen. Girls aren’t afraid to talk a little trash or bark at an official because of Whalen. Girls know there is a place for them on the court, the field or the rink in large part because of Whalen.
And now it’s almost over. The Lynx play on Tuesday night in a one-game playoff against the Sparks in Los Angeles. Should they win, they would have to win another road game on Thursday, against either Connecticut or Washington, to get a chance for another home game for Whalen before she retires. It’s been a long, tough season for the proud veteran team this year, so nothing is guaranteed.
With that in mind, Sunday’s regular-season finale offered a basketball community its last sure-fire chance at showing its appreciation for all that Whalen has done on and off the court.
The little girl’s parents didn’t want to miss the chance for her to see it in person. So the family trudged up the stairs to Row S, pulled the Lindsay Whalen commemorative cards off of their seat backs and handed them to the mother for safe keeping. The girl had been at a Timberwolves game as an infant, but this was her first time in the arena when she could really soak up the atmosphere and at least to begin to appreciate her surroundings.
All around her there were girls and women, boys and men who had come to see Lindsay one last time. In her section was a group of adolescent girls in the gold and black of Hutchinson, the town Whalen put on the map. Just down her row was a blonde-haired girl maybe a year older, laughing and dancing and cheering with the crowd. Sitting right in front of her were a mother with the salt-and-pepper hair of someone in her late 50s and her adult daughter who kept looking over her shoulder to watch the girl take it all in.
The girl took to the game and the ambiance like she’d been born there. She clapped when everyone clapped. She yelped when everyone yelped. She danced when everyone danced.
Her parents have never known her to exhibit patience or attention span, but the game seemed to consume her.
“Are the Lynx winning?”
“Where’s Lindsay?”
“C-Fense! C-Fense! C-Fense!”
Hey, you can’t nail ’em all. And truth be told, the Lynx went through large portions of the game against Washington playing something closer to c-fense than defense.
Her brother was equally entertained. He went to a Lynx game last summer and had been pestering his father to take him back again ever since. He understood the gravity of the evening, that it could be Whalen’s last game, and he kept an eye out for her bright green shoes so he knew every time she was on the floor.
This game was as important for the boy as it was for the girl. In experiencing it, he could see how a women’s player could command — and deserve — respect and adulation. More than 13,000 people came out for the game, forcing the Lynx to open the upper deck. Concession lines were long. Concourses were packed. And they were all there for Lindsay.
The boy could understand that he was watching a game that was fun, skilled and getting more popular by the year. He could see why his little sister always wants to play with him, always wants to keep up with the boys and, if given the chance, can hold her own just fine.
And he can also show his sister how much they have in common. She likes to watch basketball, and he does, too.
The girl probably didn’t quite understand the bigger picture on Sunday evening, that a Minnesota legend was essentially saying goodbye, that a community was saying thank you, that the odds were against ever seeing Whalen wearing the No. 13 in front of them again.
But even after the game was over, even as all the action had stopped and Prowl had silenced his drum and Whalen shifted from playmaker to jokemaker in the postgame ceremony to honor her 15 years in the league, the girl still stood transfixed. There’s no way she got Whalen’s crack about needing Becky Taylor, wife of Lynx owner Glen Taylor, to change her lasagna recipe to vegan later in her career to accommodate a healthier diet.
There’s no way the girl could grasp why Reeve was choking back tears while talking about a glorious nine-season run with Whalen as her point guard. But something clicked.
As the postgame ceremony dragged on well past her bedtime, her father looked over in concern that the cuddly mogwai everyone in Section 232 had fallen in love with while watching her jive and dance and cheer was about to turn into the gremlin that rears its ugly head when fatigue kicks in.
“Nita,” I said, “I think it might be time to get going.”
“No,” she replied. “Lindsay is still talking.”
So we stayed and we listened.
I’ve covered Whalen for nearly a decade now, and her retirement has been maybe the biggest sports story in the state for more than a week. Under normal circumstances, I should have been in press row on Sunday night to chronicle the event and a state celebrating its favorite daughter. As a writer, you live for the big stories and the big moments.
But all I could think about was MY favorite daughter. As a father, you are constantly trying to find the right words to help raise your children the right way, to guide them along and instill the proper values and ideals. But this night felt like the rare opportunity to show both of them, rather than tell them.
Owen and Nita may be too young to fully remember all of the details from this night once they grow older. But the hope is that it will serve as a piece of foundation, something that gets embedded into the subconscious and sits there in the backs of their minds to help them as they try to find their way.
For Owen, understanding that women’s athletes can be cool and fun and entertaining just like the men. That they deserve the chance to thrill us and disappoint us and bring us all together.
For Nita, another dream to consider, another path to follow, another role model that can stand on equal footing right next to Kevin McHale, Neal Broten and any other male athlete to ever call Minnesota home. Another reason to never back down, never give in and never take no for an answer (except when your parents say it’s time to go to bed).
My wife and I have watched Nita grow into an athletic, competitive, hilarious and supremely confident girl. I say it all the time, but the swagger in her walk and the certainty in her talk slay me on a daily basis. And truth be told, she can drive us crazy sometimes with her stubbornness.
When I listen to Reeve talk about her upbringing, when I’ve had the chance to chat with Whalen’s parents about the little girl who would grow into the icon, the similarities are striking.
I’m not saying Nita is the next Lindsay Whalen. There may never be another.
But thanks to Lindsay, Nita can grow up knowing that she at least has a chance to be.
https://theathletic.com/482255/2018/08/21/lindsay-whalen-legacy-lynx-through-the-eyes-of-two-kids-who-couldnt-turn-away/
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