Guest columnist Linda Frohlich: New team can’t find right spice

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 10:06 a.m.

Former UNLV All-American Linda Frohlich, who is playing professionally in Europe, writes and occasional guest column for the Las Vegas Sun.

Las Vegas Las Vegas.

I'm glad to write to you once again. All this time I thought that I was providing a service to the community by writing this article, but I have found out that the community is actually doing me a service.

To be able to share my joys and pains, my ups and downs, is very therapeutic for me, and I missed it over the past couple of months. Writing these articles allows me to take my concerns off of basketball and focus on being Shel Silverstein and Barbara Walters in one.

What have I been doing? Where am I? A lot of you may wonder.

Well, I am back. Back in Italy competing with team Rovereto once again. And even though we are fortunate to have the same core team this year -- with Vickie Johnson of the New York Liberty, Tamecka Dixon of the L.A. Sparks, and a couple of Italian national team players, we have been less fortunate with the outcomes of our games.

Despite a couple of months of working together, we haven't managed yet to click as a team, which I find unexplainable ... I have played with Vickie for 11 months of the year for the past three years, so I know her game and she knows mine. Tamecka and I played in Rovereto my first year. We should be playing well together, but we are not.

It's like hard to grasp. I mean, have you ever made something to eat, and you put your heart and soul into it, but when you ate it something was missing? That one seasoning, but you just can't put your finger on it. That's what is going on over here at the moment. But like any good Italian chef, I believe that soon we are going to figure out that "the basil is missing."

Before Italy I was with the New York Liberty again. If you blinked you probably missed me. I had a short stay with them this year. In the middle of the season I signed only to a seven-day contract with New York, because before the offer came in, I had promised the German national team to join them for the Euro Qualifier.

With them I had a lot of fun, and it was a great honor and pleasure for me to compete for my country. We won our division and therefore are going to participate in the European Championship. I was able to play very well. I led the qualifier in points and rebounding.

With my time in Germany I was able to see an old friend whom I hadn't seen in a while, Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk plays basketball for the Dallas Mavericks. I am so proud of the success he is having. In Germany we shot a magazine cover together and had interviews.

Guess what? I will be in Las Vegas next week. I can't wait to be back. I have my third annual "Lebe Deine Vision" (Live Your Vision) basketball camp at the Doolittle Community Center.

While I am conducting this camp, I will be able to see many of my friends again and hope to catch a UNLV game.

With all of my travels around the world I can truly say that Las Vegas is still my home away from home. The community is special, and the living is quite unique ... with our Italian siesta between noon and 3 p.m. over here, and closing hours at 7:30 p.m., I miss being able to get a In-N-Out hamburger at 3 a.m. ... and with the silence of a winter day, I even miss hearing the sound of the restless slot machines in the 7-Elevens.

Viva Las Vegas!