Athlete Blogs, and The Potential Failures Of

I just took a look at a new blog entry by Chamique Holdsclaw. If these are her words, Holdsclaw can definitely write. It also looks like Armintie Price is starting a mini-blog on the Atlanta Dream web site. Price is off to a good start, mentioning the fact that she is working as an assistant coach for Mississippi during the off-season. A few athletes have blogs at the WNBA site itself.

The blogs are of varying degrees of quality. The best ones are the ones that give some insight into the team itself. The next best are the ones that give the best glimpses of the life of an athlete. What's practice like? How many times/hours does a team practice a day? What are the travel and living conditions?

Following that are blogs with an insight into the personality of the athlete. What are their favorite foods, movies, etc? Below that are when the athlete writes about unrelated topics, but some writes (like Chantelle Anderson) can make even that compelling.

I was directed to a blog entry by Becky Hammon, one of the most popular players around. What astonishes me is how little insight is provided. I'm more interested in Hammon than I used to be, primarily because she's on the Ros Casares team where Erika de Souza plays. Instead, the blog entry is more a treatise about positive thinking; Hammon's time at Ros Casares in mentioned briefly and almost off-handedly.

Athletes face a few problems in creating blogs, and WNBA athletes face particular problems. The first is that not every WNBA player is a writer, far from it. Like athletes in any sport, some players are adept with a pen or keyboard, and for others every character on the screen is a testimony to illiteracy. If you read the messages of some WNBA players on Twitter, it becomes obvious that some of them have problems with basic grammar. True, some are typing on tiny, tiny phones but for others I doubt it is the case.

The other problem is that WNBA athletes don't make a lot of money. If LeBron James wants to post a blog, he doesn't even have to type it if he doesn't want to. One of his entourage can do that, or someone at the NBA head office can do it - and I'd be surprised if the thoughts expressed were actually his own. Even if James wants to put pen to palimpsest himself, there will be at least an editor to clean up the text - he can definitely pay for not just a proofreader but for a web site manager. (For athletes making $10+ million a year, that might be a wise investment.) Whereas many athletes in the WNBA don't make much more per year than a low level clerk at the IRS. Web site management is an esoteric discipline, and the learning curve is too steep for many not to make a mess of it.

For some athletes (Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds) one point of having a website is to get around the restrictions of the press. Instead of a Boston sportwriter botching your message (or a San Francisco sportswriter letting out what a surly prick you are) you just go to your own soapbox on the web and let the fans hear the truth from your ears. This model doesn't seem to work for the WNBA, since the WNBA controls its message very closely and I doubt the league front office would let anyone go off the reservation. Kristen Mann accidentally strolled off message when she Twittered about how much she hated season ticket holder functions; you can bet the WNBA won't be making that mistake again.

The biggest problem, however, with athlete blogs is that posting isn't frequent enough. My contention is that there is only one thing that drives blog viewership - content. You can have the best Wordpress platform and the newest web gadgetry conceivable, but if you only post every six months, what's the point of having a blog in the first place? A blog is a conversation with the world, and if one party isn't speaking then there's not much of a reason to continue.

So here's my question to the readers: which WNBA athletes have the best blogs? A good blog should be at the very least interesting or should have frequent posts. Is there any WNBA athlete who is truly an excellent blogger? Chantelle Anderson comes to mind immediately, but are there others?

Chantelle Anderson Retires

Chantelle Anderson retires at age 28. She left on her own terms, and not too many people in this world can say that.

We've not heard the end of Chantelle Anderson. Far from it. Pleasant Dreams sends the best of wishes and the best of good fortune.

Chantelle's Lebanese Ways

Former Dream player Chantelle Anderson might have never played a minute for the Dream - but she's going to Lebanon to play there. Her newest Yardbarker post tells the story.

But I’m here playing basketball for the Lebanese National Team for the next three months. No, I’m not Lebanese by birth but somehow it’s legal so Ima go with it, haha. It’s nice to be back on the court and although it’s not at WNBA level, it’s a good place to get my rhythm back and get some game film to play in Europe afterwards. I’ve been here almost a week and I love it so far. So I figured I’d write and give y’all some initial thoughts and insight into my life over here.

Chantelle might be considered Lebanese for the purposes of playing basketball, but she's definitely American - she spoke with a young Iraqi named Abbas who told her his impression of America:

He began our conversation by asking what it was like to live in America. I told him it was cool but I had lived there my whole life so it was just something I was used to. His view of
America: a beautiful country with unlimited freedoms, nice people that readily accept and embrace other cultures, and the best rap music, lol (his favorite artists are 50 cent, The Game, and Eminem).

Oh yes. And great women's basketball, hopefully.

No Takebacks?

I reported with an earlier blog entry that Chantelle Anderson has informed the world via both Yardbarker and Twitter that she has been waived from the Dream.

The problem: the Dream haven't announced it. Neither on their own web page, nor on the WNBA Transactions page.

Could it be...possibly...that the Dream are either a) thinking of cutting someone else, or b) thinking of a trade deal which would not involve cutting Anderson loose, with Anderson being part of the deal?

This failure to announce Anderson's waiver is extremely annoying. Either the Dream need to announce it, or they need to let Anderson know that they are having second thoughts, or they need to let the public know that Anderson was mistaken.

UPDATE: The waiver has finally been announced on the WNBA Transactions page.

Chantelle Anderson Blogs About Being Waived

At her familiar spot at YardBarker. It's a very thoughtful post.

The first sign was when Coach stopped looking at me and correcting me in practice about three days ago. Then when we had our team dinner at the owner's house on Tuesday night, and the routine interactions with people I had been around for the last year all of the sudden seemed forced and fake, I knew something was up.

Chantelle Anderson To Be Cut From Dream Roster

From Twitter, via Slovydal, via Rebkell:

@MissChantelle Lettin every1 know I'll b cut by Atlanta 2mrw. Sucks but thats how it goes. Dont know where I'm going now. Agent is workin on it. Packing...

Very sad. Chantelle had high hopes for a comeback. She had taken the year off, had gotten healthier, had dedicated herself to the Dream organization and created a social media presence for herself that could have been a big thing for both her and the WNBA. Unfortunately, the three minutes of play she got last night wasn't an argument either on her side or the coaches' side for her to remain on the roster.

It looks like de Souza. I don't see the Dream choosing Lehning or Gipson over de Souza.

My very best wishes to Chantelle.

Sports Illustrated and Chamique Holdsclaw

It looks like a future issue of Sports Illustrated will be highlighting Chamique Holdsclaw of the Atlanta Dream.

Some conversation overheard on Twitter:

@Chold1 (Chamique Holdsclaw): Just finished part 1 of a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated. I was just doing some bball drills and then she took some stills.

@MissChantelle (Chantelle Anderson): Just got done talking to the SI reporter about Mique. Bout to eat and go work out.

Since I subscribe to SI, I'm looking forward to reading it.

Chantelle Anderson Launches New Website

Chantelle Anderson is becoming a real social media lion.

She's on Yardbarker! She's on Twitter! Where isn't Chantelle Anderson these days?

Well now, she has her blog up. ChantelleAnderson.com. Come and look at the one stop shop for all things Chantelle Anderson.

(As for the picture above, I'm guessing it was taken at Ron Terwilliger's house.)

Chantelle Likes Apartments, WNBA Player Gets Heckled

From Twitterer montageapts:

Meet WNBA Atlanta Dream player Chantelle Anderson at Montage Embry Hills Apartments on Thursday, May 2, 2009 at 6:30pm RSVP at 404-xxx-xxxx

Is this something done in association with the Dream, or something Chantelle's doing on her own?

And from Twitterer dakotaboy56:

Loved the 4th grader who heckled the WNBA player at school assembly today.

"Today" being yesterday, April 29th 2009. Apparently dakotaboy56 is a teacher in a low-income school district. We have no idea where this is, but inquring minds want to know!

UPDATE: About the apartments thing, we get word from @MissChantelle herself: "i don't know anything about that. i won't be there. haha thats funny."

Chantelle Anderson: Using "Lesbian" as Ju-Jitsu

There's an article by Chantelle Anderson at Yardbarker called "Why Men Hate Lesbians...." and I hope it will start a run of provocative articles written by WNBA players. Anderson is clearly marking her territory as an intelligent commentator and I hope it continues.

I didn't have much of a comment on the article, but the jist of it is that if (obstensibly) straight men like gay women as sexual fantasy figures, then why is "lesbian" the slur of choice by the red-bellied woodpeckers (RBWs) when applied to women's basketball players?

Anderson, in effect, has engaged in a form of verbal ju-jitsu. The short version of her article is "I claim that you men who knock the WNBA for its players being lesbian hate all lesbians. Prove otherwise."

This puts the RBWs in a bind. There are only three rational responses.

a) "Yes, I hate all lesbians." That makes the detractors homophobes and the detractor find himself becoming the outcast. Those who hate the WNBA become hate-filled imbeciles on the same level as racists.

b) "No, I don't hate all lesbians. I just hate unattractive lesbians." This answer is worse than a). It implies that the RBW who chooses b) as his answer is not merely a homophobe, but a hypocrite as well. He hates all lesbians, but makes an exception if they meet his sexual fantasy needs - in short, he hates except in cases where hatred would cause him inconvenience. At least out-and-out homophobes can claim consistency as one of their few virtues.

c) "Your claim is false. My hatred of the WNBA has nothing to do with lesbians, but is due to other reasons." In which case, those who propose c) as their reason are forced to resort to rationality instead of intimidation. For most of these RBWs, resorting to rationality is a disadvantage for them - they're just not very good at it.

The entertainment to be gained from people who claim c) comes from the fact that a supposedly rational person pretends to make a plausible claim to "hate" a sport. Chantelle Anderson's Yardbarker post promises not only present-moment entertainment in the comments sections but entertainment for many years to come. Her post was an act of ju-jitsu that Ultimate Fighting would be hard to match.

Atlanta vs. Connecticut on May 27th

It appears that there will only be one preseason game this year for the Atlanta Dream. This game will be at Philips Arena on Wednesday, May 27th against the Connecticut Sun. Ten days later, on Saturday, June 6th, the regular season opens at 7 pm against the Indiana Fever.

From what I've learned recently, Chantelle Anderson, Chamique Holdsclaw, Jennifer Lacy and Katie Mattera played in a pick-up game a couple of days ago, so you know that the future members of the Atlanta Dream are keeping busy. If there are any players dreading to take the WNBA court this year, most like they're not wearing Powder Blue.

P. S.: The 2009 WNBA Draft is less than a month from now. I plan on taking part of the day off.

Chantelle Anderson of the Dream Blogs NBA All-Star Game

Chantelle Anderson, who recently signed a training camp contract with the Dream, got a chance to go to the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. She blogs about it at a new link at the Atlanta Dream Diary.

The diary entry has a link to her picture gallery, which I recommend. She's a striking woman.

By the way, the pic above is of Chantelle with a NBA player. Can you guess who it is? Hint: He had to stand on a curb. :D

Chantelle Anderson Signed to Training Camp Contract

According to the 2009 WNBA Transactions board, Chantelle Anderson has been signed to a training camp contract in 2009 with the Atlanta Dream.

For those who follow the women's BB message boards, this is no news, and for those who have been following the Dream, this is no surprise. (Kasha Terry's being waived was news - I hadn't heard about it - but it wasn't a surprise.) Anderson has been doing all sorts of community work and interviews and talking about the upcoming season in the future tense as if she'd be a part of it.

There's that old saying from athletes: "all I want is a chance to prove myself". Anderson has now got her chance, although if Michelle Snow ends up on the Dream - and the rumbles of that happening sound fainter and fainter - it might be a snowball's chance, if you know what I mean.

Here's what I find interesting: some WNBA players get "signed" (Hamchetou Maiga-Ba, Ashley Robinson, Chasity Melvin) and some get "signed to a training camp contract" (Anderson, Yuko Oga, Crystal Smith).

So what is the difference between the two? It appears that being signed to a training camp contract is no guarantee of being signed for the season. Is there pay involved in being signed to a training camp contract, or are you just given the opportunity to participate? (Bring yer own shoes.) Is there an upper limit to the amount of people that can attend training camp?

I just find these sorts of things interesting.

Update: The press release from the Atlanta Dream.

Happy Birthday Chantelle!

All birthdays require at least ONE embarassing picture.

Chantelle Anderson hits the big 2-8 today. We either will, or won't see her in a Dream uniform this year, but I'm betting that the answer to that is that we will. Happy Birthday, and have lots of fun!

New Blog Post by Chantelle Anderson

Chantelle Anderson has a new blog post right here.

We get some clue as to how Chantelle has been keeping busy:

I've also been working out with our team trainer Dustin and teammate Nikki Teasley. He's been making us lift so much that none of my pants fit anymore. Oh well, I did always wanna be thick. ;)

She also writes about her recent appearance on MTV's "Made". Go check out the new blog entry!

Chantelle Anderson on "Made", December 6th 2008

I (like every other Dream fan) watched Chantelle Anderson on MTV's "Made". The premise of the show is that high school kids have a desire, and professionals "make" the kids into the objects of those desires.

In the episode on Saturday, the young man (I forget his name) serving as protagonist decided he wanted to try out for the basketball team. His brother played varsity basketball and his sister was a homecoming queen (I think). Our young wannabe, however, was not only as "soft as a marshmallow" (quoting a follow student) but was the school's resident drama queen.

Note the use of the term "drama queen". I don't think, in private conversation, that the kid would have denied it. You know how some people are in the closet? This kid was out in everything but saying "the magic words", basically 95 percent out of the closet. He's dangerously close to one of the characters in "Men on Film", the old In Living Color sketch.

Since the kid only has eight weeks to learn enough to play varsity basketball, an intense program is started to get this kid in some kind of basketball playing shape. And the kid whinges and moans and whines all the way through it, digging in his heels and undoubtedly embarassing his poor mother when she got around to seeing the episode in all its glory. The saga is complete with dramatic walk-outs and turn arounds by the young man in question. (Dra-MA!!)

So, they manage to drag the kid across the finish line. (There's a scene where Chantelle is literally holding the young man's hand and running ahead of him on a track in the early morning, and she says, "I'm not going to carry you around this track.") The kid manages to move from the "hopeless" to "fairly normal" on the physical improvement scale, manages to learn some good defensive skills like how to take a charge - his offense is hopeless - but does not make the final cut.

Here's what my wife and I were thinking: Chantelle Anderson and others take a lot of time out of their busy schedules to move heaven and earth to help this kid achieve his goal, and the little @#$@#$ ingrate completely disrespects them. At least, if Chantelle decides she wants to go into coaching, her future students will actually strive to be ballers, instead of having to be cajoled into it.

My wife also noted that Chantelle Anderson is strikingly beautiful. In some quarters, it's considered gauche to comment on the physical attractiveness of a WNBA player, the reasoning being that it sends the message that if women aren't physically attractive, then they're worthless. There is an exception to this rule - namely that one must comment on a player's physical attractiveness that if she's so attractive that you'd be considered a fool if you didn't notice it. Chantelle definitely falls into that category.

Chantelle Anderson to Appear on MTV's "Made"

The link is right here. (A pity I can't open MTV links from work.)

I've really missed this series. The entire concept is that there are teens that want to be "made" into things - a singing superstar, surfboarder, whatever. Chantelle is going to help some teen reach his dream of being a baller.

I loved the snarky take Television Without Pity has on the show. Sometimes the goals are just flat out unreachable. Sometimes the goals (tomboy wants to be actress, football player wants to be artist) are just sublimations for the day when the kid finally tells his parents "I'm gay". Generally, there's a scene where the kid reaches an obstacle in hitting his goal, usually to the tune of Beck's "Lost Cause". And at the end, we have the happy resolution.

It will be on Saturday, December 6th at 4 pm Eastern Time. Be there.

Nightly News

Who would have thought so much would happen overnight? Some of the big stories:

1. Amber Jacobs will be playing tonight at point guard for the Mystics when the Dream come to visit. The Washington post states that she hasn't been that comfortable at point guard, forcing passes and never being at ease. If the Dream have a chance to steal a win, it's with Jacobs. Of course, the Mystics could just put Beard right back in.

2. It looks like Chantelle Anderson has just been waived by the Dream.

Rumor has it that Anderson tore her ACL while playing for Turkey. It was thought that she'd recover and come back for the Dream. Guess not. So we lose her height and it looks like Katie Feenstra and Erika DeSouza will be sharing center duties for the Dream.

3. Bernadette Ngoyisa was acquired from the Chicago Sky to the Indiana Fever some time last night. Ngoyisa will be playing in tonight's Indiana/Connecticut matchup as the Fever try to keep the Sun from going 4-0.