Jennifer Azzi, For Example
Funny, I started my blog and then, the next day, got a call from my friend, let’s call her Ronald, who works for the WNBA. (She tells me I can’t use her real name because it might get her in trouble. For that reason I’m torturing her with the alternate moniker.) She called to tell me what a mooj Jennifer Azzi is. Apparently Ronald was spending a work-related day with all these basketball madwomen, includng the league MVP for multiple years, Cynthia Cooper. But Azzi apparently made an impression on her over and above everyone else. I don’t know what she did or said (she didn’t leave the details on the message) but I’m not surprised. She’s a total badass independent woman. Check her out: http://www.jenniferazzi.com/AboutJennifer.aspx .
It’s worth mentioning that Ronald’s a mooj too. Way back in 1997, I believe it was, I dragged her and a bunch of my non-sports ffan NYC girlfriends to the inaugural game of the New York Liberty for the newly birthed WNBA. I thought it was going to be a significant historical moment, which it was, and that we could support the team, which we did. They were playing the Phoenix Mercury; I’ll never forget because the Mercury was loaded with moojes, but the one that made the biggest impression on me was Cheryl Miller. She was Reggie Miller’s sister and a star in her own right back in the day–played in the Olympics and early women’s pro ball, changed the game itself. And she showed up coaching her Mercury in a tuxedo, this tall, gorgeous, confident African American woman, striding around the sidelines, effectively saying, “I’m not going to show up in a skirt suit, not even for this. I’m wearing a tux!” All of us twentysomething lesbians were in awe. A few seconds after the game started, though, we all fell in love with Liberty point guard Teresa Weatherspoon, but that’s another story.
Ronald really knew nothing about basketball that first day, but she obsessed with it and within a few years was flying down to Houston for finals games. Then she quit her life in another industry and, with virtually no related experience, landed a job representing female basketball players in their advertising and team contracts. Now, almost 10 years later she works for the league itself and knows all of the women who became her heroes. Not just knows them but hangs out with them. Women’s pro-basketball is her life now and these players are part of her world.
So while Ronald may think Jennifer Azzi’s a mooj, I think Ronald is. Even though she won’t let me use her real name, which loses her a couple of mooj points.
