From The Host's Chair: A Full House of Aces | 7/3

Callan McClurg
Jul 4, 2016
12 min read

For a time from 2004 until 2006, I had not been keeping up with Women's Basketball as often as I had been as players I come to know had moved on from the college game or bigger and better things. In March 2006, I was in 6th grade when that season's NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament had just gotten underway. The rest is history from here.

The Tennessee Lady Vols were a two seed set to face the fifteenth seeded Army Black Knights in the Cleveland Regional of the tournament in Norfolk, Virginia. The game was going to be nationally televised in San Diego on ESPN that night. I had flipped over to ESPN to catch the pregame coverage before changing the channel to a hockey game being shown on FOX Sports Net West, until the hosts and analysts began their breakdown of the "Players To Watch." For a good part of the breakdown, the broadcast team had talked very heavily about Tennessee Forward/Center...Candace Parker...about the season she was having, her style of play and how she played the game.

So instead of watching the game, I watched the Tennessee/Army game to see what all the hype was about. Nevertheless, Candace Parker began the first player to ever Slam Dunk in a tournament game not once...BUT TWICE as the Lady Vols cruised to a 102-54 victory to advance to the next round. Her game and performance instantly got me back into the sport because it was a player who brought a high level of energy and excitement to the game every night. While Tennessee was bounced by the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Regional Finals that season, the play of Candace Parker would keep me locked into her games and career from that point forward.

Fast forward to April 2008. Even though I had missed much of the Tournament that season, I had tuned into the National Championship Game on April 8th when Candace led the Lady Vols into the title game against the Stanford Cardinal. Behind a big game from Parker, Tennessee defeated Stanford 64-48 to win back to back National Championships and the eighth in school history. For her outstanding play throughout the tournament, Parker was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. A long and career changing night in St. Petersburg, Florida...was just beginning.

The following night, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) held their annual player draft in St. Petersburg, the site of the NCAA Women's Tournament Final Four. The Los Angeles Sparks owned the top draft pick after coming off a 10-24 season in 2007. Just mere hours after winning her second National Championship with the Lady Vols, Parker was selected with the first overall pick by Los Angeles of the draft. Parker's pro career was officially underway playing alongside WNBA legend Lisa Leslie and under former Lakers star and Sparks head coach Michael Cooper.

The next day at school I headed to English class to begin the back half of my day. Our warmup assignment was to write about what you thought was the big news of the day. "BINGO! Why not write about seeing your favorite player getting drafted to play professional basketball?" What was only supposed to be a three paragraph warm-up for the other students...turned into a three page essay from the biggest sports fan in his class. Candace Parker being drafted number one overall in the WNBA Draft was worthy enough of being my topic for the assignment, worth the three page I wrote, the cramping hand I had from writing, and the perfect score plus extra credit I got for it as well.

Skipping ahead to 2012, my senior year of high school and to my last year of playing Baseball. I was one of four seniors on our varsity squad that season. During the winter, we were able to pick our jersey numbers for that season. Of course, senior privileges include picking your number. A few numbers that I worn playing sports were available for my taking, but in the end...JERSEY NUMBER 3 would be the number I'd wear on my back for my last season of playing sports, and was the best choice I ever made in my career. I ended the season as the leader in every offensive category, a perfect Fielding Percentage, a Win on the mound, and an All-League Team member...along with claiming the Most Valuable Player Award as well. That season is also infamously remembered and known for my Dad, who was a member of our coaching staff calling me CPM3...a mixture of my full initials and the jersey number I was wearing that season...a very fitting attempt to nickname me after CP3...thanks for embarrassing me Dad...

Springing ahead to May 2014 at a local HomeTown Buffet. It was my parents and myself having dinner a week before my 20th Birthday and my folks had asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate. My Dad wanted to go to a concert, but it was three days before my birthday. Instead, I said "I want to go see Candace Parker play on my actual birthday!" The Sparks opened their 2014 season at home on my birthday (May 18th) against the Phoenix Mercury. Not only would this mark my first visit to STAPLES Center...but it was something I had always wanted to do while I was in Middle School, and that was to watch Candace play in person instead of on Television.

While the Sparks lost to Phoenix 73-69 that night, the night was still memorable for me as the game went to halftime when I was able to lean over the tunnel railing to snag a high five from who else...other than CP.

The high five from Parker had a lot of meaning for me, but I had one bigger goal when I went up for another game that season, and that was to try and get an autograph and a photo with her after the game had ended. I was sitting in Section 118 that night, the nearest to the Sparks bench/tunnel and eleven rows back from the court. After the game concluded and since she didn't play, she was the last player to leave the court. As she normally does before and after her games at STAPLES, she walks over to the courtside seats facing the opponents bench where her husband Shelden Williams and her fiver year old daughter Laliaa sit for each game and chatted with them for a brief moment.

As she made her way back towards the tunnel, I scrambled to grab my prized 8x10 photo of her slam dunk from her rookie year in 2008 and my Sharpie. By that time, Candace had stopped and signed for a few fans that were on the floor. I leaned over the rail, photo and sharpie ready and yelled "CANDACE!" In by far the most memorable reaction I've ever seen an athlete give a fan, her face had lit up when she saw me, perhaps because she had recognized me from my interaction with her on Twitter and Instagram. It was a look that I have NEVER seen from ANY athlete given to me whenever I've asked for their autograph. Candace signed the photo, I shook her hand and said Thank You so much! Boy, the night got even better after this! After I got Candace to sign my dunk photo, I got a Direct Message on Twitter from one of my friends who told me she got me a voucher to the Sparks player postgame autograph session, which featured second year forward Farhiya Abdi...AND CP.

It was probably the fastest I've ever run to get something that I've always wanted. A mad dash from my section practically around the arena and more scrambling to pull out something else for Candace to sign for me. I whipped out two photoshop photos I had made for her that I posted on Instagram and had printed out just in case I did get her to autograph something else.

When the time came to see her at the Autograph session, I remember when I moved down to her side of the table, telling her "Wow Candace, Twice in one night?" We exchanged a little conversation since I only had so much time with the players. Candace asked me "Are you coming tomorrow night?" I started laughing and said "Candace, I would love to but I'll be on vacation to Hawaii pretty soon and I can't make it." She did tell me "Well, come on back for the Playoffs." We exchanged a hand shake, shoulder bump and a goodbye that included her saying "Take care and see you soon," before I exited the line.

Our paths would not cross again until September 2014, when my entire career changed forever. I had been chasing my college degree from a broadcasting school in Los Angeles when I had a project to do, which was to interview somebody one on one. I had pondered the idea for a few days, until I said to myself, "I'm going to interview Candace Parker." I decided to reach out to her about a week after the Sparks were eliminated from the WNBA playoffs just to ask her if she could take maybe five or ten minutes to do an interview with me for the sake of a grade for school. At first, I wasn't expecting her to return my message due to the busy daily life of both an athlete and a mother of a young daughter...talk about capturing lightning in a bottle.

"Let me know when you need it by."Three days later, Parker replied to my interview request by simply saying The biggest shock and wave of emotion I rode that entire day after receiving that message was when it hit me that a professional athlete is willing to take time out of their busy schedule to talk to a college student was something extraordinary. However, patience and perseverance would be essential for me during this time for Parker, who was slated to travel with the US National Team for the 2014 FIBA World Championship Tournament in Istanbul, Turkey. Instead, she stayed back to have a minor clean-up of a nagging knee injury that she dealt with for the latter half of the season.

Three full weeks went by without any type of response about a time or date for us to have our interview, but as mentioned patience was key in this situation. I reassured myself daily by saying to myself "I'm on her radar, she did okay the interview, don't be that person..." Don't be that one person that will consistently ask her every hour, minute and second about doing the interview, because then I would make me look bad and may have burnt my bridges with her in the future, but patience did perceive and win at the end of the day. By night's end on September 25th, Parker was able to find some free time in her schedule and saying YES, she was game for the interview and to send my contact info to her so she could get a hold of me for the interview and that we'd do it the next morning. The night before the interview, for the first time I think ever in my life I was a nervous wreck. I could not fall asleep until around 3:30 or 4am and the interview was at 8:30am. This was indeed the most nervous I've ever been, simply because this was the first time ever that I'd be able to interview a professional athlete yes, but at the same time it's an athlete that I've watched since her college career at Tennessee, and in a way I've built a friendship sports fans could only dream about having with a pro athlete. We were slated for an 8:30am start to the interview, but she had gotten held up at her daughter's school and that she needed another 30 minutes, I told her it wasn't a problem and that I was on her schedule to start and not my schedule. Ultimately, a half an hour turned into two hours with the infamous LA Traffic. At 10:30am, we got started, and while I had set my expectations for five or ten minutes with her, instead for FOURTY-ONE minutes, we had an incredible one on one conversation about her growing up and her careers across High School, College, WNBA and International Basketball, then we stepped off the court and talked about a few of her favorite things and her favorite teams to watch before we wrapped our conversation. After the interview was posted later that day, it spread like wildfire from my friends, family, WNBA writers, Candace herself...and even her Dad Larry also listened and help spread the word about the interview. This was by far, the most rewarding and successful day of my young broadcasting career. The interview went on to get a perfect score and was featured in the school newsletter the following week.

Moving forward to the present time of 2016. Almost two years after our interview, Candace was the lone interview guest I did not have the chance to say Thank You to in person as she did not play in the first half of the 2015 season after electing to give herself a break from the year round grind that is playing professional basketball, which is major uphill climb for Women's Basketball players as they aren't giving the same luxurious contracts as their NBA counterparts. I had attended three games during the 2015 season, all three games without seeing her play since the games I attended were before she made her return to the team. Parker's return sent the Sparks to the postseason for a league record fifteenth time in franchise history, but the ultimately succumbed to the eventual champion Minnesota Lynx in a gritty three game series.

I finally found free time from my summer work schedule to catch a game in Los Angeles when the Sparks hosted the Atlanta Dream at a Thursday matinee start time of 12:30pm PDT. The goal of saying Thank You was all that mattered on that hot Thursday afternoon in Downtown Los Angeles. After getting inside STAPLES Center, I was seated two sections away from the Sparks tunnel and some of the players had begun early pre-game warmups, and it was just my luck that she was one of three Sparks players warming up for the game. I had stood in the closest row of touching distance for the players to give high fives. After warming up for about fifteen minutes, Candace and assistant coach Amber Stocks started heading to the locker room, when Parker broke away from Coach Stocks to shoot me a smile and a high five. I let her know I'd see her after the game to chat with her.

As the fourth quarter got underway, I moved my seats to the first row of my normal section, 118 which is the closest section to the Sparks tunnel and bench. The Sparks would win the game 84-75 for their WNBA best fifteenth win of the season. As the players left the court I was able to get high fives from the entire Sparks team. Candace gave a postgame interview to the in-game host before leaving the court for the locker room. As she made her way towards the locker room, she let me know she'd be back to see me after she finished some postgame interviews and treatment from the team's training staff.

However, those plans were derailed by arena security as we were asked to leave the lower bowl and asked to wait outside the venue. If you're lucky enough to know certain places or the surrounding areas around STAPLES Center and L.A. LIVE, you'll know that you can spot players from both teams leaving the arena and walking across the street for food, the visiting team hotel or catching a ride to the airport. The closest parking lot to STAPLES Center is Lot 1, used by STAPLES Center employees, the Los Angeles Convention Center adjacent to the arena, and for the four teams who call the big office home. A fan perimeter is set up near the parking lot and used for all sporting events at the arena for fans to meet and greet the players at. The waiting game to see players included seeing Layshia Clarendon, Tiffany Hayes and Reshanda Gray from Atlanta and a few Sparks players who had left the parking lot to head home for the rest of the day. We had killed an hour and half of waiting time at the lot as we were in no rush to get stuck in the infamous Los Angeles traffic to head back to San Diego.

Until a Smokey Grey and Orange car had stopped at the red light prior to exiting Lot 1 with the passenger window rolled down and hearing a familiar voice say "Yo! What's up dude!". Sure enough, it was the player that for twelve years has kept me a fan of Women's Basketball...Candace Parker stepping out of her car and walking around the setup perimeter to come and see me and my friends. We spent about five or ten minutes together, the same amount of time I thought she would have given me for our interview two years prior. After a huge hug, we were finally able to get our photo taken and I was able to get my jersey from her MVP and Rookie of the Year season in 2008 signed and it continue with a brief conversation, more so me finally getting the opportunity to thank her in person for taking that much time out of her day to let a college student interview her for a school assignment. After we decided to go, we embraced one last time, with our mini get together ending with Candace letting me know..."We'll be staying in touch."

I've been a fan of this sport for half my life, I'm 22 and have been a fan since I was 12, and this is the reason why I have been...and always will be a fan of this game. And just for old time sake..."THANK YOU CANDACE!"

...and those are more thoughts about the WNBA and Women's Basketball world...FROM THE HOST'S CHAIR <>