November 24, 2009
Learning to love all
Thank you WNBA for allowing me to appreciate Diana Taurasi’s game. Even tho I grew up in New England, I would never consider myself a UConn fan. But they do play a part in peaking my interest in basketball, I remember that the UConn/Tenn championship game was the first game I watched on tv, and I realized how much I didn’t know. I didn’t know that Tenn was one of the top teams in the country, I had never heard of Pat Summitt. Whether it was guilt for not knowing about Tenn; wanting to cheer for the top dog; or wanting to see a woman out coach a man (up to that point the only coaches were male or mother’s of a player on the team) I became an instant Tenn fan, which in turn made me Anti-All-Things-UConn. (that might have changed if my high school team went to UConn’s camp, but unfortunately that fell through). So of course I hated Diana Taurasi, (it was as natural a hatred as Red Sox fans hating Derek Jeter). I thought she was over rated, cocky and spent every final four of her career cheering against her – which was really frustrating.
But then came the Detroit/Phoenix finals. I pretty much hated the Shock (that’s another blog) and liked Cappie so I found myself cheering for Diana for the first time and found it much more enjoyable then cheering against her. I still wouldn’t consider myself a fan of hers but I have the utmost respect for her game and you can’t fight the fact that the women is flat-out a winner. And I guess technically I cheered for her first during the Olympics, but that wasn’t so much cheering for her, or all the other UConn women on that team, as it was cheering for American – as corny as that sounds. So thank you WNBA for releasing me from Diana-Denial.
