Columnist Ron Kantowski: Frohlich’s WNBA future placed in limbo

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 | 9:25 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

On Saturday, I received an e-mail from the Lady Rebels' unofficial booster club confirming a bus trip to Phoenix in July to watch former UNLV star Linda Frohlich play for her new WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury.

On Monday, I received a follow-up that said "never mind."

That's because Frohlich on Saturday was put on waivers.

Unless she is claimed by another team, which is doubtful, given that whoever would claim her would have to match her $40,000 salary and fit it under the WNBA's minuscule salary cap, Frohlich will most likely wind up playing for another team at a reduced salary, or perhaps even not at all.

"We're in the middle of that right now," said Erica McKeon of Bruce Levy Associates International Ltd., Frohlich's New York-based agent firm.

McKeon said there were a couple of situations that prevented Frohlich, whose UNLV jersey was retired last season, from sticking with the Mercury.

When she signed with Phoenix, the team was still being coached by former Notre Dame and NBA star John Shumate, who since has been replaced by Carrie Graf. Plus, the Italian league in which Frohlich plays during the winter precluded her from arriving in Phoenix until May 9, not allowing her much time to get acclimated to new coaches and teammates before training camp.

Frohlich spent her first two WNBA seasons with New York, after being selected by the Liberty in the second round (26th pick overall) in the 2002 draft. She appeared in 16 games as a rookie and 26 in her second season, when she averaged 8.2 minutes per game.

Her playing career overseas, on the other hand, has blossomed. Frohlich was one of the top players for Rovereto, averaging about 16 points and eight rebounds this season.

Around the horn

UNLV women's basketball coach Regina Miller ran in the famous (or infamous) Bay to Breakers in San Francisco on Sunday, covering the 7.4-mile distance in an hour and seven minutes. The race is notorious for runners wearing outlandish costumes -- or none at all -- although Miller said she made it a point to stay ahead of the competitors in their birthday suits. "But I did see people in Elvis and Village People costumes," she said by telephone Monday, where she was sightseeing in the Bay Area. ... Running back Larry Croom on Friday received the Wayne Nunnely Outstanding Contributor to UNLV Athletics Award, an honor which at this time every year reminds me what a giant favor UNLV did Nunnely by firing him as football coach in 1989. Nunnely, who at the time was only the fifth black Division I-A head coach in NCAA history, has gone on to become on e of the NFL's top defensive line coaches, having spent the past six seasons with the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers have! led the NFL in yards per carry allowed in three of the past five seasons. ...

Remember the Idaho Steelheads, who some in the local media had written off after they fell behind our Wranglers two games to zero in the first round of the ECHL playoffs? Well, for supposed dead fish, the Steelheads are still swimming in some pretty deep water, having taken a 2-0 series edge against one of the best named franchises in pro sports, the Florida Everblades, in the Kelly Cup final. ... You can usually judge a fringe sport by the number of laser beams and the volume of the rock music that is played during the pregame show, but that doesn't mean the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association hasn't done a fantastic job of introducing the cowboy sport to a new audience. Still, based on the modest crowd of 4,372 that turned out for Saturday night's finals of the Pace Picante Chute-out at the Orleans, the sport still hasn't totally caught on here, regar dless of how many of those giant belt buckles are purchased at Sam's Town every year. ... If a new professional indoor rugb! y league gets off the ground, don't be surprised if the Orleans winds up hosting a team, or perhaps even the entire league. Based on an Internet film clip I saw, the local arena could easily offset any overhead costs involved with indoor rugby by the beer concession alone. ...

After having spent the past two Sundays watching the UNLV baseball team and its opponents launch baseballs into the stratosphere, it's apparent that college baseball needs to do one of two things to protect the game's integrity: Either switch to wooden bats or allow the team swinging the aluminum pipes to just two outs per inning. Had the Rebels scored just four more runs in Sunday's 24-10 victory against Utah, it would have equaled the Utes' 28-10 win against UNLV on the football field last year. ... In that his car qualified in the middle of the front row for the Indianapolis 500, you'd need Clark Kent-type vision to notice that Englishman Dan Wheldon's car was carrying a small Palms hotel-casino decal. Michael Andretti, who owns Wheldon's car, has been known to frequent the Palms' restaurants and nightclubs during his occasional stops in L as Vegas. ... It's too bad Cimarron-Memorial grad Brad Thompson isn't pitching against somebody like Tampa Bay instead of the Southern League's West Tenn Diamond Jaxx on Wednesday, or he'd be a shoo-in for the National Association of Professional Baseball's record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched, which has stood since 1907. Thompson, who pitches for the Tennessee Smokies, the St. Louis Cardinals' Double-A affiliate, stretched his scoreless innings string to 43 1/3 in a 10-0 victory against the Carolina Mudcats on Friday.