A pointless gesture

I am a man and I am a big fan of women's basketball.

There, I said it and I'm not going to waste space explaining my interest to knuckle-dragging troglodytes who think that barefoot and pregnant is as much as women should aspire to.

That said, I don't understand why the WNBA continues to try to throw itself at the feet of people who couldn't care less about its product.

I'm speaking specifically about the "dunk" that Chicago center Sylvia Fowles threw down at the end of the league's All-Star Game Saturday. The word dunk appears in quotes for two reasons. One, the other nine players on the floor cleared out to allow the 6-foot-6 Fowles to flush it through. Second, Fowles missed the first attempt with a running start, before hitting the second.

Simply put, the dunk is not a part of the women's game, and hasn't been since West Virginia's Georgeann Wells because the first collegian to do it more than 25 years ago. The primary reason is there aren't many women who can do it, but I'd like to believe that even if, say, one woman per roster in the pro or major college game could, they would use it sparingly because there are other more fundamental ways to score. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate a nasty tomahawk as much as the next person. But, if I go to an NBA or men's college game and I don't see a dunk, I don't feel cheated.

To the larger point, Fowles' dunk just feels like one more attempt to make those aforementioned troglodytes pay attention. And they won't. As a matter of fact, I can practically guarantee that the ones who host sports radio talk shows and the ones who listen will bust a gut laughing at Fowles and the rest of the league as early as drive time tomorrow if they aren't doing it already. And if the people who run the league could simply live with the fact that there is a part of the American sports fan populace who will never accept the legitimacy of women athletes and nurture those who do, things would be fine.

Instead, the WNBA, in large measure, continues to ignore the professional women, the African-Americans, the families with young children, the older fans and yes, the lesbians, who embrace it, in search of the Holy Grail, the young men who drool over Erin Andrews, who tune into SportsCenter for bombs, home runs and dunks, and think boxing is too subtle.

At some point, hopefully before it folds, the WNBA's leaders are going to have come to grips with the notion that their product is better than a lot of the people they're selling their souls to bring in.