When I came through the Pavilion doors last Friday for the American Basketball League Condors’ inaugural game, there was a small combo by the concessions playing simpy Kenny G-style jazz.
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I had expected the Condors’ first game to be an event, and it was. After monitoring ticket availability throughout the week to make sure we could just walk up and get in, I was spooked into driving down earlier in the day to get tickets by a Sun-Times report that the game was close to being sold-out. This may have been Condors management gamesmanship that backfired. Our $10 tickets were excellent, in the third row of the upper deck. (I can say from years of watching the boys’ Public League championships that there are no bad seats at the Pavilion–not for basketball, anyway. The last row of the upper deck is closer to the floor than most seats in the United Center.) And though TV declared the game a sellout just as we were leaving the house at 6 PM, there was plenty of room to stretch out when the game began. The Pavilion seats 7,800 for basketball with its east side curtained off, and the official attendance was 7,060 (I think the first announced figure of 6,050 was closer to the truth). But it was a lively, avid crowd, and just about all the Pavilion concession stands could handle (the lines were long even without beer sales–one of the hardships of a game in a college facility).
I was expecting not just expansion basketball but November expansion basketball, and the only thing uglier than November basketball is October hockey. It was the Condors’ first game, and their opponent, the Nashville Noise, may well turn out to be one of the poorer teams in the ABL. (The Condors would lose the next night to the Rage in Philadelphia by a score of 73-56, dampening the opening-night optimism.) In short, I wasn’t prepared for how involving the game, and especially the players, would be. The Condors mopped the floor with the Noise, winning 84-67; they were more fluid on offense, while playing a fundamentally sound woman-to-woman defense. The chauvinist in me was tempted to give much of the credit to head coach Jim Cleamons, Phil Jackson’s old Bulls assistant back in town after a short and disastrous tenure (little of it his fault) as coach of the Dallas Mavericks. Ferocious defense was always a hallmark of the Bulls, and Cleamons has brought that emphasis to the Condors; there were even a few glimpses of the triangle offense at the other end of the floor.
Through the blowout the Condors remained the main attraction, even with the usual high jinks during breaks in play. Like the Bulls, the Condors resort to a “Dizzy Bat Spin” contest, and even at a women’s game there was no escaping the Village People’s “YMCA.” The typically sexist Flight Patrol cheerleading squad consisted of eight women in tight pants and halter tops and five men in T-shirts and sweatpants–though one of the men did try to spice things up by unsnapping one side of his sweats to bare a little thigh. Connie the Condor, the team’s official mascot, was introduced with emphasis on her sexiness, and she even had a little lipstick on the tip of her beak (though keeping in mind that she’s a bird of prey, I suppose that could be blood). But the Condors also unveiled a pleasant slow groove of a theme song at halftime (“Chicago, are you ready? / The Condors, they have landed”) and a funky “Jiggy Break” at the end of the third quarter that beat the Bulls’ scoreboard snack race by a long stretch. They also received some support from Bulls players Ron Harper (dressed up in coveralls to toss up the ceremonial first ball) and Bill Wennington, coach Tex Winter (ever a basketball gentleman), and former Chicago high school star Juwan Howard. All were there to offer their endorsement during the NBA lockout, but by the end of the game the Condors had shown that they didn’t need anyone’s endorsement. Most combative of all was forward Tausha Mills. She almost got into a fight pulling down a rebound in the first half, and coming down with one in the second half swung her elbows left and right and knocked Nashville point guard Saudia Roundtree to the floor. When Mills offered to help her up, Roundtree rolled away and got up screaming at her. Take that!
