Donna Dunn is a basketball fan. Not your everyday, read-the-sports-page, talk-about-it-at-the water-cooler basketball fan. No, Dunn is rabid. She has never missed a home game. She speaks with knowledge about opposing teams. She stays so focused during games that she refuses to talk when the ball is on the floor. One more thing. Dunn, 37, keeps a shrine. Two wide bookshelves in her
basement in North Portland are filled with ticket stubs from the first season, game programs and team pictures. A blow-up of one player is prominently displayed. Dunn collects every promotional item given out to the first 5,000 fans at home games. If she can't make it out of work in time, she makes sure her partner gets there early. Two more things. Dunn is gay, and the object of her attention is not the Trail Blazers, but the American Basketball League's Portland Power. Perhaps the worst-kept secret in Portland pro sports is the extraordinary percentage of Power fans who are lesbian. Obviously, it's impossible to determine how many lesbians make up the 5,000 or so fans that attend Portland Power games in Memorial Coliseum, but it may be as high as 40 percent. From women who are longtime sports fans and participants to those who have never paid any attention to stick-and-ball events, Power games have become the hottest
ticket in town for Portland's diverse lesbian community. For many, it's more than just a basketball game; it's a celebration of a rare moment. It's about watching women blast through the mindset that says only boys can be physical, only men can be strong. It's about the excitement of knowing there's a new generation of girls who are growing up without the choke of that limit. It's also a community organizer's dream: thousands of people in your target population gathered under one roof for 22 nights. Pam Monett, chairwoman of the board for the Lesbian Community Project, intends to take full advantage of it. On Nov. 22, she is hosting a Power Dance at the Ramada Inn following the game. There's an obvious and natural match between women's basketball and the lesbian and gay community, says Power Coach Lin Dunn. "So many of those people have been battling all their lives for opportunity. They've been battling against discrimination, so when they see something like a women's pro league, it's a cause. So they just jump on the bandwagon and support something that's pro-women. And some people say that's because all the players are lesbian. I don't think that's accurate at all." Nevertheless, unlike the women's pro golf and tennis circuits, the American Basketball League isn't so nervous about acknowledging its lesbian following--sort of. The official corporate line is that the fan base of women's professional basketball is three-pronged: families with at least one daughter; senior citizens; and the euphemistic "single professional woman." Portland Power General Manager Linda Weston is more direct. The team advertises in Just Out, and Weston acknowledges that many of the local corporate supporters have
a lesbian connection. But she rejects the notion that women's basketball attracts only lesbians. She says the fans are simply women turning out to watch incredible female athletes. She is also quick to point out that Power games are a family environment. They are for everyone. Gail Davis and her partner, Janice Bender, bought season tickets this year after encountering excited Power fans in the lesbian community wherever they went. "There's not another darn thing like it," says Davis. "I've never seen anything else that attracts such a lesbian crowd." Davis, 47, who handles advertising for her partner's real-estate company, says she didn't follow sports while growing up in Portland. For her, the intoxication of women's basketball is new. Powerful female role models in popular culture come along too infrequently, she says, and those that do are too often wearing skirts and toting husbands. But at basketball games, there is no shortage of women to be awed by. "Two teams of strong women, at the center of attention, competing with everything they have. It makes think you can do anything," she says. "It makes you wonder what else is possible." This dynamic isn't unique to Portland. Pamela Lewis covers women's basketball for the Long Beach Press Telegram. She says that in the Los Angeles area, the ABL's Stingrays see a large amount of lesbian support. The Portland Power team includes Natalie Williams, widely considered one of the best players in the world, and Olympic veteran and Lake Oswego native Katy Steding. Last year the Power had the worst record in the league. Midway through the season, the team hired coach Dunn, who led Purdue to the NCAA Final Four in 1994. This year Portland is the league leader, with a 10-3 record. Portland is also a league leader in attendance--usually drawing around 5,000 fans a game. It's difficult to say whether Portland's very open lesbian community contributes to the team's popularity, but it can't hurt. Power star Williams attributes much of the support for the team to Portlanders' enthusiasm for sports and their intense team loyalty. As she points out, "Look at how people support the Blazers, and they haven't won a championship in 20 years." Leaving Portland to play away games can be depressing, Williams says. "It's disappointing. We get fired up for our games because the fans are so loud. When we went to Philly, I was expecting something a lot bigger, and they only had a little over a thousand people. It was not at the exciting level it's supposed to be." Weston, 51, says that accessibility, rather than appeal to lesbians, is the key to the Power's strong following. There is an autograph session after every game, and afterwards the players often head over to Cucina!Cucina! at the Rose Garden to hang out with the fans. Team members also made more than 70 personal appearances last year. They go into the schools and read to kids. They appear at malls and senior centers. The players, Weston says, are personally invested in the notion of being available. Williams says she has no interest in staying aloof from fans. "Look at Michael Jordan," she says. "You can't touch him." It is hard to imagine Jordan pitching in the way the Power players do. One recent event had them working on a Habitat for Humanity "women-built" house in North Portland. The project is part of Habitat's program to teach women the construction trade while building a house for a low-income family. The Power players were all over it, nailing beams, sawing plywood and painting the front porch, all the while smiling for the Channel 6 television cameras. "None of them were forced to come here," Weston says. "It's not in their contracts, they won't get docked if they don't. They genuinely want to do it." Power fan Davis says she hopes the team will be around for a long time. In terms of unifying the lesbian community, she says, it works like nothing that has come before. "If it were gone," she says, "I don't know what would replace it." |
