Alison Bales Back With the Dream

On the Atlanta Dream Facebook Page, one can see members of the Atlanta Dream - or at least those members invited to training camp - at work at the Brookhaven Boys and Girls Cub and at the NFL/Youth Education Town center. Among those who have pictures in the albumb are Erica White, Tatum Brown, Brittainey Raven....

...and Alison Bales??

Yep, the photographic evidence is clear - Bales is back with the team, or at least, during the training camp. The other Dream player in the picture is third-round draft choice Brittainey Raven.

So where has Alison Bales been all this time? This newspaper article from the Dayton Daily News tells the story. During last season, Bales ended up in the Phoenix Mercury training camp but was waived on June 3, 2009. In the off-season - when most players travel to Europe - Bales heard nothing.

“Overseas, a lot of times, is just kind of inconsistent,” she said. “You never know where you’re gonna end up: ‘Oh, you’re gonna go to Latvia.’ Then two days later it’s: ‘No, Latvia is a no-go, but there’s a team in Israel. ... And another team in Turkey is interested, but your old team there is being difficult.’ ... Then it’s: ‘Oh, there’s a team in Siberia that wants you.’ ... I’ve heard all that this year.”

In the mean time, Bales figured that she had better begin planning for a career outside of basketball:

“I’m not ready to be done yet with basketball, but I also figured I better have a backup plan for all this or I’d just end up so frustrated,” she admitted. She had graduated from Duke with a double major — biology and cultural anthropology — so now she began taking pre-med classes at [Wright State University].

In the meantime, she has decided to cast an eye towards medical school, but still hoped that a team would pick her up:

This spring, it seems likely she’ll end up back in a WNBA camp, though jobs are more scarce than ever with 12 teams and now just 11 players per roster. To prepare herself, she’s spent several months going through intensive, thrice-weekly workouts with trainer Andrew Winkler of Fast-Twitch Performance Enhancement in Centerville.

And now, it looks as if Bales has been given a chance to catch on with the Dream. If you're interested in Alison Bales, I'd read the article - it's a clear, consice update as to what Bales has been doing, complete with a peek at some of the anxieties of a professional athlete with her feet in two different worlds.

“Seeing my friends starting to get married and having babies,” she said with a smile and shrug, “and me still holding onto the basketball dream, it kind of made me feel like I haven’t quite grown up yet.”