Columnist Steve Guiremand: Frohlich becomes a role player

Steve Guiremand

Friday, May 24, 2002 | 9:01 a.m.

Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. He can be reached at steveg@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-2324.

When Linda Frohlich takes the floor at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for her WNBA debut on Saturday morning, she'll see about 30 familiar faces, including longtime Lady Rebels broadcaster Bob Blum, in the stands.

Cynthia Ritchie has seen to that. The longtime Lady Rebels' booster has put together a one-day bus trip to Los Angeles to make sure the three-time Mountain West Conference Player of the Year has a rooting section at her first professional game.

But Frohlich fans making the trip, or those who simply decide to watch the nationally televised game on Channel 3 at noon, shouldn't expect the 22-year-old German to make a big impact in the game against the defending WNBA champion Los Angeles Sparks.

Although the 6-foot-2 Frohlich left UNLV with school career records in scoring (2,355 points) and rebounds (1,124) -- not to mention billboards -- playing in a league like the WNBA is a whole different level of competition.

Players in the WNBA are bigger, quicker, faster and much more experienced. Many have played in the Olympics. Some are in their 30s and have been playing professionally for more than a decade.

Compare that to the Mountain West Conference, where it can be argued that BYU's 6-foot bulldog-like center Jennifer Leitner was the best player of the conference the final month of the season.

Frohlich's team, the New York Liberty, lacks height. She is listed as a forward/center, which means there's a chance she could be matched up for part of Saturday's game against the most dominating center in the WNBA, 6-6 Lisa Leslie of the Sparks.

Of course, that's if Frohlich even gets to play much. In New York's final preseason game on May 18 against the Houston Comets at Madison Square Garden, Frohlich played just nine minutes and scored two points, going 0-for-3 from the floor while grabbing four rebounds in a 62-48 victory.

Still, Liberty head coach Richie Adubato has been quoted in the New York media as saying that he hopes Frohlich can make a key contribution this year.

Stay tuned. ...

Frohlich's college coach, Regina Miller, was the object of rumors for the vacant University of Minnesota opening. Ironically, local media outlets were contacted by an anonymous caller spreading that rumor the same afternoon that Miller was meeting with senior associate athletic director Jerry Koloskie about a contract extension. Hmmm. ...

For the record, Miller still has one year left on her UNLV contract and Rebel athletic director John Robinson said nobody from Minnesota had contacted him and asked permission to interview Miller. Robinson, who has gone out of way to pump up the Lady Rebels, said he also expects to have a new deal in place with Miller sometime this summer.

With another top-notch recruiting class on the way and a potential first-round WNBA pick in guard Constance Jinks, it is hard to believe that Miller would walk away from a Lady Rebel program she helped revitalize through her strong recruiting efforts. But if she did decide to move on, Robinson's first call should be to former Colorado State coach Tom Collen, who took the Vanderbilt head coaching job a few weeks ago only to have to resign a couple of days later because of a discrepancy about the number of masters degrees he had listed in his media bio. Collen and BYU's Jeff Judkins did by far the best coaching jobs in the Mountain West Conference last season.