Amid the dust, both dinginess and thin crowds of Denver Coliseum, the Colorado Xplosion planted seeds for women ’ s basketball’s growth and stabilization.
The unheralded team was in the center of excellence in girls ’s basketball in 1996 as one of eight franchises in the American Basketball League. The ABL launched that October because the state ’s women’s basketball team, after the spike in the sport’s popularity following Team USA’s gold medal run in the Atlanta Games.
And 21 years after the ABL folded, former guard Debbie Black reminds Colorado sports fans of the indelible, albeit missed, influence of the Xplosion. The team won the Western Conference its first season and made the playoffs in its next in a league which dominated the WNBA, which began a year after, in gift.
“Straight up, we’re the league,” stated Black, now an assistant coach at UT Chattanooga. “It was a whole different degree of girls ’s basketball which nobody in the nation had seen at that time, aside from the Olympics … The ABL was competitive, and we were among the best teams. The Xplosion helped set the standard you see in the WNBA now. ”
As soon as the ABL was founded in 1995, the 11 players from the 1996 Olympic team and rights to the country ’s leading college players must be dispersed among every one of the original eight teams in the winter league. However four of the Olympians — Lisa Leslie, Rebecca Lobo, Ruthie Bolton and Sheryl Swoopes — carried out to play in the WNBA, that began in the summer of 1997.
That was problematic for its Xplosion, that were in line to get Swoopes. Consequently, Colorado ended up with no Olympic participant and was thus awarded two picks before the 1996 draft as compensation. But without a star, the franchise’s prospects.
“We were 3-8 in Christmas, we then won 12 in a row,” ” original Xplosion head coach Sheryl Estes said. “We switched it around completely. We won the conference championship which year with a lot of players which other coaches weren’t appearing at (in the scouting process). ”
Hyoung Chang, The Denver PostKeisha Anderson of the Colorado Xplosion controls the ball against Media All Stars Chris Dempsey in the 1st half on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1998 in the Regis University field house in Denver.
With those compensatory picks, the Xplosion chosen guard Edna Campbell, that turned to some 1997 all-star, and Sylvia Crawley, a talented 6-foot-5 forward who made national headlines with a blindfolded slam from the league’s 1998 dunk contest.
Colorado’s original starting five was rounded out by forward Charlotte Smith (third-round selection), Black (sixth-round) and Robinson (eighth-round). Black was called the 1997 ABL Defensive Player of the Year, and Robinson earned Rookie of the Year honors because the Xplosion completed 25-15.
“We weren’t supposed to be great,” Estes stated. “But it aided individuals didn’t have a whole lot of egos — everybody was there to perform and prove themselves. ”
That was the case for Black and Robinson. Black played eight years professionally in Australia before her time with all the Xplosion, and unlike the Olympians and high-profile Division I stars that were guaranteed a place in the start-up league, the scrappy guard suffered a rigorous tryout.
“The tryouts were in Georgia, and now there were about 500 women attempting out,” Black recalled. “I flew from Tasmania and I would ve believed it had been a hoax. I was started by them in the ‘C’ team with all the unknowns, and I needed to work my own way all the way up to the ‘A’ team and then just hope I have drafted for a chance to play in the countries. ”
In the event of Robinson, an unidentified gift out of the NAIA degree at Southeast Oklahoma State, she had been playing for its fates of her career as well as the development of girls ’s basketball.
“The ABL ingrained the idea in people this is a profitable thing — we just needed to determine how to get it done the perfect way stated Robinson, now an assistant for its Dallas Wings. “At that point, our attention as players was to not generate income. Our attention was to earn a league to give us opportunities to perform professionally in this nation and construct the sport in the United States. ”
Money gave the ABL an aggressive edge on the WNBA. And it was money, or the lack of it, which resulted in the ABL’s folding one-third of the way through its third year, with nearly all its players eventually landing in the WNBA.
Robinson explained the ABL as “the financials, ” and a participant ’ s team backed that up. The players owned 10% of the league and were paid well, with the minimal salary set at $40,000 for its first year. Olympic players made up to $150,000 that year, and salaries went up across the board in the next season.
For Black, that meant going from making $70,000 her first period to signing a second, $1.2 million deal before the 1997-98 season. Robinson cashed in too, moving another year and a sponsorship with Reebok. That dwarfed the WNBA pay range in the time, which in December 1996 The Los Angeles Times set at “$20,000 to $50,000”, albeit for a shorter period.
“Our team had the center, it’d the family sense, and it had a dedication behind paying for the players and placing the emphasis to the players,” Estes stated.
Steve Simoneau, The Associated PressFILE — Colorado Xplosion’s Sylvia Crawley slams home a dunk during the first girls ’s slam-dunk competition at Disney’s Wide World Of Sports Complex through the secon annual ABL All-Star weekend in Orlando, Fla., in this Jan. 17, 1998 picture. The ABL opens its year Thursday.
But with all the WNBA in direct competition — and together with all the NBA’s advertising and money behind that rival venture — the ABL was all but assured to be short-lived.
“Everybody needed it to keep going, but earnings didn’t meet with expenditures,” stated John Nillen, the team’s general manager. “It’s that easy. The grade of the drama, the gift, it was all there but the revenue stream to support it wasn
Even though the ABL had the distinct advantage in overall gift, the WNBA dominated in sponsorships and TV contracts with NBC, ESPN and Lifetime. The ABL’s more small TV bundle only featured two tournament series games on CBS, plus 16 games on Fox SportsNet.
“In retrospect, the ABL strove to perform the league the perfect way and also have it during the basketball season, but didn’t understand the obstacles the league could confront in competing with college football, professional football, college basketball and guys ’s basketball,” Estes stated. “There’s not enough TV time in summer time to get a women s league. ”
Attendance waned league-wide. For the Xplosion, who divide their home games between the Coliseum and McNichols Arena, attendance dipped from an average of 4,103 in the first season to 2,484 from the season.
The disparity in TV contracts and decrease in presence was accompanied by other omens such as the ABL, such as when the league’s MVP, Nikki McCray of the Columbus Quest, modeled for the WNBA after one season. Even though, the team going bankrupt and suspending operations 13 games in the Xplosion’s third season blindsided many.
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“We were getting paid well, therefore we’d ’ve taken cuts in our salary to help keep the team going,” Black said. “I only wish the league would’ve come to the players and we could have all tried to figure something out. ”
No more WNBA franchise came to Denver in the Aftermath of the ABL’s folding, even though the Colorado Chill of the National Women’s Basketball League played in Loveland from 2004-06. Regardless of the absence of top-tier professional girls ’s basketball in a city which was after a column of it, Estes argues the best legacy of the Xplosion and the ABL is that the league not only competed against the WNBA — it laid the base for the rival team in the first location.
“Both the NBA and the ABL saw the opportunity after the ’96 Olympics in Atlanta — the gold medal, and the year the federal team spent on all of the attention and the road they had gotten,” Estes stated. “They saw the opportunity, but I believe the creation of ABL resisted the NBA to begin the WNBA. Along with the achievement of the ABL led to what we all wanted — girls ’s basketball in the United States. ”
Revisiting bygone Colorado expert teams
A glimpse at different professional sports teams in the state that were a part.
Colorado Crush Wide receiver Damian Harrell made attempts to pull on the jersey of Chicago Linebacker Dejuan Alfonzo who intercepted the ball in the end zone intended for Harrell. (Crush wide receiver Willie Quinnie #80 is currently at appropriate ) The Colorado Crush matched up against their arch rivals the Chicago Rush at Pepsi Center Arena.
Denver Falcons, United States Hockey League, 1951
Denver Racquets, World Team Tennis, 1974
Denver Comets, International Volleyball Association, 1977-80
Denver Gold, United States Football League, 1983-85
Colorado Chill, National Women’s Basketball League, 2003-06
Colorado Crush, Arena Football League, 2003-08
Colorado Crush/Colorado Ice, Indoor Football League, 2006-17
Aurora Cavalry, International Basketball League, 2006
Colorado Crossover, International Basketball League, 2006-07
Rocky Mountain Rage, Central Hockey League, 2006-09
Denver Aviators, National Indoor Football League, 2007
Denver Dynamite, Premier Arena Soccer League, 2008-14
Denver Cutthroats, Central Hockey League, 2012-14
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