Columnist Dean Juipe: WNBA ‘fun’ but Allen quits

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Sept. 1, 1998 | 10:39 a.m.

It was fun, but once around the Women's National Basketball Association was enough for Sonny Allen.

"It was a very enjoyable season and it worked out well, but I've decided not to do it again," Allen said Monday from his home in Reno, referring to his one-season stint as an assistant coach with the WNBA's Detroit Shock. "At my age, it was just too much. It was a quick season and I liked that, but I was with the team for five months and never got home once."

Allen, an amazing 545-346 as a college and professional coach and the former head coach of the World Basketball League's Las Vegas Silver Streaks, had never coached women before joining the Shock staff. He helped the team to a 17-13 record as the Shock finished one game out of the playoffs and averaged better than 10,000 fans for 15 home games.

Allen is 62 years old and hoping to find work as an advance or college scout for an NBA team.

"About the only thing I'd take now is something with the NBA, and I think I'll be able to catch on," he said. He has NBA experience as an assistant coach at Dallas, and has scouted for Charlotte and Golden State.

He reiterated what he said back in Detroit's training camp, mentioning that the players were easy to coach and that the women's game attracted more families than are seen at men's games.

"It's a different group," he said. "You can hardly afford to take your kids to an NBA game, but that's not the case in the WNBA. It reaches a different audience, with lots of families and young girls looking for role models."

Allen added that he expects the WNBA to swallow its winter competitor, the American Basketball League.

"I think within the year the ABL will fold and the WNBA will pick up the three or four strongest franchises," he said. "The ABL has too many financial problems and no TV contract. The WNBA, with its association with the NBA, doesn't have either of those problems."

Allen asked about the reaction to Las Vegas being awarded a franchise in something called the International Basketball League and wasn't surprised to hear most everyone is skeptical the team will ever play a game. The IBL plans to begin play in 1999, although league president Thaxter Trafton said "I had some people pushing to open this year" in light of the NBA lockout. "We studied it but it just wasn't feasible." ... UNLV is a discouraging No. 115 in the new Sagarin football rankings, with only nine Division I schools ranked lower. Sports Illustrated has the Rebels at No. 98 out of 112. ... Sixty-five percent of all drafted NFL rookies are out of the league within three years. ... NFL general managers say the current weakest position around the league is defensive line. ... If you haven't seen Steffi Graf in a while, she looks a little different at 29 years old. Graf, who won her first tennis tournament in 15 months over the weekend, is fit and has matured into something of an elder statesman in a sport that caters to teen phenoms. Knee surgery kept Graf out of the public eye for most of the past year. ... He sounded like he wasn't kidding but the facts don't support Hale Irwin when he says "I'm not playing as well this year as I did in 1997," as he did over the weekend while winning his sixth PGA Senior Tour event of the year. Irwin's win at Boston pushed his 1998 earnings to more than $2.2 million.

Out on video now after a relatively short run in the theaters is "The Boxer," a 1998 movie that's more about Ireland's internal conflicts than it is boxing. If you can tolerate rough language and a little violence, take this as a recommendation. ... The new TV show that features Reno's Mills Lane settling civil disputes in his role as a judge has more audience interaction than predecessors like "The People's Court." The show runs daily at noon. ... The annual Western Outdoors News bass tournament at Lake Mead is scheduled for Sept. 21-23. Callville Bay will be the host marina and $50,000 in prize money is available. ... It's hard to imagine the Colorado Rockies ever convincing a free-agent pitcher to sign with them again after what has happened to Darryl Kile this year. He was 19-7 with Houston last season but is 10-14 with a 5.74 ERA this season, with half of his starts in hitter-friendly Coors Field. ... Roger Maris actually hit 62 home runs in 1961, but he lost one to a game that was rained out before it became official in Detroit. ... Fifty-nine players with ties to Southern Nevada played minor-league baseball this summer and it looks as if Green Valley's Kevin Eberwein and Durango's Alan Webb had the most promising seasons. Eberwein, a third baseman with Clinton (A) in the San Diego chain, hit .308 in 55 games. Webb, a pitcher with Western Michigan (A) of the Detroit chain, went 10-6 with a 2.48 ERA and allowed only 105 hits in 165 innings.

Of the top 25 players in the current men's professional tennis rankings, only three -- Andre Agassi, Petr Korda and Cedric Pioline -- are married. ... It seems impossible, given that they play in the same conference, but the Denver Broncos and Miami Dolphins have not played since 1985. They are playing this year, which means quarterbacks John Elway and Dan Marino will square off for only the second time since they were drafted in 1983. ... There is some very real pressure on Notre Dame football coach Bob Davie as he enters his third season running the Irish. Consider: Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz each won national titles their third season at Notre Dame. Davie, meanwhile, had a team that went 7-6 last year and the Irish open with defending national champion Michigan this week. ... Another Notre Dame curiosity: It hasn't had a player drafted in the first round by an NFL team in four years. ... The New York Yankees are winning games at an unbelievable and record pace, and it's all the more amazing because their lineup isn't loaded with superstars -- at least compared to the 1927 Yankees and this "Murderer's Row" of sluggers: Earl Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri.