Columnist Linda Frolich: Salary cap creates new situation

Linda Frolich

Thursday, May 22, 2003 | 11:12 a.m.

Linda Frohlich, an All-American at UNLV, is in her second season with the WNBA's New York Liberty. Find out what she's up to by checking out her website atwww.lindafrohlich.com

It's back to business. The competitive spirit was at an all-time high. Girls were diving on the floor for every loose ball. Every time the ball is shot, people were pulling and pushing for the chance to get the rebound.

Shots were shot with the same sense of urgency of a championship game. We'v just finished the time of year when dreams come true ... or reality shows its ugly face -- training camp!

Twenty girls were vying for 11 spots on the opening-day roster. The season begins tonight -- maybe the best time of the year -- but training camp is basically the worst time of the season.

I tried to be friendly (as usual!) with all of the girls, but at the same time I saw them and knew they were trying to get something that belongs to me: A spot on the New York Liberty's roster. But then I stepped back, caught my breath and realized that I was my own competition.

In my second WNBA year it is definitely not a physical battle anymore, but a mental one. As a player you have to understand that if you are able to prepare yourself mentally for training camp, then you will do just fine.

However this year, there was also a new ingredient that has been thrown into the pot.

Last year it was just about the best players that will make the team, but now there is a new element involved -- the salary cap. The cap is a limit on what the team's general manager can spend on the team salaries as a whole.

So, if you have a veteran who earns $70,000 and a rookie who is just as good of a basketball player, but whose salary is only $40,000 -- well, guess who was going to get cut. So in general, things are not that straightforward anymore: Everybody has to work their rear ends off to get, or keep, a job.

Now it is official: The WNBA is a profit-making business.

A lot of people ask me if I think that WNBA players should receive more money -- and I say of course they should. The way that I look at it is that we are the top 170 women in our profession. If I were one of the top professors in the world, I would be well taken care of financially. Not as a WNBA player, though -- or at least not yet.

And I am not mad about that, because I do understand that the WNBA is a new business and it takes time to reach that million-dollar salary range that all of us are dreaming of. We just have to keep working hard, and be patient, and things are going to come our way.

All of us women in the WNBA now have to make sure that we continue to lay down the foundation for women's sports ... so that the future women can make that "big" money!

Nonetheless, if you allow yourself to get wrapped up in this issue, you can easily forget that you have received the blessing to play basketball at its highest level. That all of the hard work is actually paying off, and that dreams are coming true in front of thousands of people in the biggest arenas of the world.

That's when we should never forget why we are actually playing basketball -- because we love the game.