Trying To Get A Dunn Deal
LIN DUNN, NEW COACH OF SEATTLE'S EXPECTED WNBA FRANCHISE, HAS RUN SUCCESSFUL COLLEGE PROGRAMS AND A WINNING PRO TEAM. BUT SHE SAYS SELLING A NEW TEAM TO A CITY THAT IS MOURNING THE LOSS OF ITS OLD ONE "WILL BE MY GREATEST CHALLENGE."
Honey, Lin Dunn can walk into a college student's kitchen and whip up soup to write home about. And we're not talkin' Cup-O-Noodles, sugar.
Now Dunn, a former ABL Coach of the Year, has been asked to bring some of her Southern-style home-cookin' to get folks here bubblin' about the WNBA.
Thing is, most still mourn for the Seattle Reign, which folded with the ABL last winter. And there isn't a team or logo to rally around - not until the city secures 5,500 season-ticket pledges, Dunn's first goal as coach and general manager.
"I'm supposed to be a builder, honey," said Dunn in her Tennessee twang. "I go in and build basketball programs. Goin' in and gettin' 'em started off the ground floor, that's a real challenge and that's somethin' I really enjoy."
She's had to start from scratch before.
Shoot, Dunn, 52, has been doing that since the days her father had her and younger brother Bud combing their neighborhood to find sawdust for the pole-vault pit in their backyard. This was in the early 1950s. You know, back when girls weren't supposed to sweat and certainly not pole vault.
Lin and Bud dug holes in the ground for their broomstick poles anyway and vaulted over a bar that was some 8 feet in the air. And with a quick fixing, the area could be converted into a high jump or long-jump pit. All homemade by the kids under dad's guidance.
"Our basketball hoop was Daddy diggin' a hole and putting a telephone pole in it and nailing a basket to it," Dunn said. "We did all kinds of things to play softball, football, baseball - anything. I grew up in that atmosphere. We were always into sports."
Dunn's father was a Purina feed salesman after his days running track for Vanderbilt. So along with the athletic ability and craftsmanship, he also taught her how to sell.
Intertwining Southern charm with basketball savvy, Dunn hasn't stopped since.
She has spearheaded four college programs and improved one pro team, the now defunct ABL Portland Power. But when it comes to creating Seattle's unnamed WNBA franchise, Dunn said, "This will be my greatest challenge ever."
Selling Seattle
The heavy Italian-made sweater and black pants didn't help her blend in.
But how's a Southern gal supposed to blend into Ballard's aptly named Yankee Diner, anyway?
It was 80 degrees outside, and the 70 adults in T-shirts and shorts were trying to escape the heat. Dunn was simply cold.
"Y'all gotta remember it's 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity where I'm from," she said.
Dunn may have seemed out of place, but in moments no one noticed.
Whiffs of greasy food floated through the air, and drinks made the rounds while six television screens blared the WNBA matchup Aug. 9 between the New York Liberty and the Orlando Miracle. Everything was set for a rowdy basketball party.
Except for the spectators.
The publicized "fun viewing party" with the new Seattle coach was really Dunn's first stab at spreading her charm and wrangling in season-ticket buyers. Yet this crowd and the combined 400 gathered to watch the WNBA playoffs at McCormick & Schmick's twice last week wouldn't be easily wooed.
Most wore their Seattle Reign T-shirts or pins and still carried the pain of losing their beloved team. Behind the sincere smiles were tough questions: "What role did the NBA play in the ABL's closure?" and "Will this team have the same community involvement as the Reign?"
No matter. Dunn swayed from table to table flashing her cheeky smile. She answered every question and spun a funny one-liner into every chat.
"How many players are teams going to be able to protect?" someone asked.
"I like the idea of two," Dunn replied with a straight face. "And I know Indianapolis, Miami and Portland (the other expansion teams) agree with me. Now, my longtime friend Van Chancellor from the Houston Comets won't return my calls. . . . I don't know why."
She was talking to one person, but her commanding voice with the soothing Southern drawl grabbed everyone's attention. The crowd gave a hearty belly laugh at the response, then Dunn answered the query seriously.
"Really, teams should be able to protect four players," she said. "Then we'd have a chance to be competitive because all of the good ABL players are gone. And there isn't going to be an influx of college talent. The league has to help us be competitive."
At commercial breaks, Dunn turned into a game show host, giving away WNBA notebooks, shirts, hats, basketballs and a free joke, of course, to fans with the correct trivia answers. By the end of each gathering, at least 20 people had placed $50 season-ticket pledges.
"She's from the South," said Derek Whiteley of Queen Anne. "What more do you need to say? She's got that Southern hospitality, and she's hilarious. You can't help but like her."
People like Lin Dunn. They gather around to hear her talk about anything from basketball to Seattle's strong coffee. "I think I'll stick to my Folgers or just drink milk," Dunn said.
But at last count, Seattle had just 2,550 ticket pledges with a little more than a month left to secure the 5,500 need to keep the team. In September, Full House Sports & Entertainment, the business arm of the Sonics and the WNBA team, plans to kick off a big marketing campaign. But can Dunn beat the deadline?
"I'm relentless," she said. "If I run into this wall, I turn that way and I'm going to figure out a way to get there. We're going to get there. We're going to have women's pro basketball in Seattle. And we're going to win."
Those Wonder Years
It started in a small gym with rickety wooden bleachers, faded gold and black school colors, and steel nails on the wall in the basement for a makeshift locker room.
For two years, 1965-66, the Dresden High School Gym was Dunn's personal playground. She was 5 feet 8, with sea-blue eyes, a long, brown bouncy ponytail, and a jump shot that burned opponents most nights.
"I don't think Tennessee had ever seen a player like her," said Carrie Thurston, Dunn's younger sister. "She had this gorgeous shot and was so athletic. Naw, they weren't ready for her."
Dunn scored about 2,000 points playing the vintage half-court, six-player game, "because anytime I touched the ball, I'd shoot," she said. Dunn was named all-state and set several school scoring records. Yet, after graduation, her basketball career was over.
Title IX, which gave women equal rights in collegiate sports, wasn't passed until 1972, and by then, Dunn's days of playing basketball were behind her. She did play intercollegiate tennis and badminton. But the only basketball offered then was recreational; none of the Tennessee schools had intercollegiate teams.
"She was `Ms. Everything,' " Thurston said. "Our house was like a shrine with all of her photos, ribbons, rings, and . . . trophies. But I think it was really hard for her not to be able to play basketball in college. She played other sports, but it wasn't the same."
When Dunn graduated from college in 1970, the school started a basketball team. Pat Summitt, who would become one of the best-known coaches in the women's game at Tennessee, was one of its first players.
"I played for two years in high school and loved it but it was over," Dunn said. "You know, I had this taste of competing and it was gone. . . . I never really satisfied my thirst to play. The next best thing was to get involved in coaching."
Her first job was starting the women's basketball program at Austin Peay in Clarksville, Tenn., when she was 23. She also coached the volleyball and tennis teams, sponsored the cheerleading squad and taught eight physical education classes.
She was paid $7,000 and an extra $500 for chaperoning the cheerleaders to men's basketball and football games. She didn't receive anything for coaching the other teams.
There were no scholarships. The basketball team didn't even have real uniforms. They wore the men's hand-me-downs and taped athletic tape to the back for numbers. Road games meant squeezing into Dunn's red 1966 Impala and driving six hours to play Vanderbilt or Tennessee Tech.
Sometimes, they'd roll out sleeping bags and sleep on the court floor because they couldn't afford hotel rooms. Most of the time, the team would drive back after the game, arriving at 5 a.m.
"I thank the Lord we never had a wreck or anything," Dunn said. "We'd sing songs on the way back, you know, to keep the coach awake."
In 1977, Ole Miss called to have her start its program. The school offered a salary of $15,000, and she could say goodbye to teaching.
"Shoot, I thought I was rolling in money. Whoa! $15,000!" Dunn said.
After a season, Dunn moved on to start the team at Miami (1978-87), then to Purdue (1987-1996).
Eight 20-win seasons later and a Final Four appearance in 1994, Purdue opted not to renew her contract in March 1996. The university said it would be "best served under new leadership," but it never gave more reason after Dunn's repeated questioning.
Rumors swirled. Dunn was tied to everything from recruiting violations to shoe-contract improprieties to misconduct in her personal life. None was ever substantiated.
"People said wild things, just wild things," Dunn said. "That was the thing I was most concerned about in my loss was the perception, because of the way it was handled."
Dunn sued Purdue for damage to her reputation, receiving a $100,000 settlement. Ultimately, the university issued a statement trying to dispel the rumors.
"But by then," Dunn said, "who cared?"
Dunn was the most successful coach in the school's history with a 206-68 record and one of the top three coaches in the conference. Attendance increased from 500 her first season to around 6,500 her last season. Yet at $65,000, Dunn ranked eighth in pay among coaches in the Big Ten. Her assistants were the lowest paid.
Always a winner
The locker room was quiet. The kind of quiet you expect when you're playing for a 5-17 team and your coach has just retired. Such was the state of the Portland Power when Dunn was hired.
She walked in and scanned the faces. There was Natalie Williams, DeLisha Milton and Katy Steding. All were talented but not playing like it. And in her first speech as coach of the last-place team, Dunn pointed out their strengths and told them just how sorry their play was.
"But she did it in a funny way," said Linda Westin, the team's general manager. "She joked about how they led the league in all the worst categories, like points given up, and the players started laughing. They immediately bonded with her."
It was an unlikely pregame pep talk, but after the midmorning chat Jan. 2, 1998, the group went out and beat the Richmond Rage 79-63. And the team kept winning.
Ten months after being fired from Purdue, Dunn was back on the sideline building another program. She may have been out of a job, but Dunn has never been out of the game. She keeps notebooks on the top college teams, scouting reports on key players and an eye on unknown talent. Unemployed, Dunn still toured summer camps and had DirecTV beam in every ABL, WNBA and college game imaginable.
"I can't watch a game without thinking about what I'd do, whether it's wanting to call a timeout or get thrown out of the game," she said.
Her continued quest for knowledge helped Dunn turn the ABL's worst team into Western Conference champions with a 21-17 record in 1998. Williams was named league MVP, the Power had the second-highest attendance average and Dunn collected Coach of the Year honors.
"She brought a confidence with her that we definitely didn't have before," said Steding, now the community liaison for Portland's WNBA franchise. "And when your leader is confident, it's contagious. But she also has this hard-nosed way about her that players really respond to, and she's motherly - you know she cares about you. She won't accept anything but your best, so you play hard for her."
But on Dec. 20, 1998, Dunn coached her last victory.
After the Power beat the San Jose Lasers, Dunn traveled to Dresden, Tenn., to celebrate Christmas with her family. Before doing a little holiday shopping, she caught CNN's broadcast about the ABL filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. She was jobless. Again.
"I knew I was going to coach again, though," Dunn said. "It's what I do. . . . I just didn't know where."
Six months later, Seattle called.
And Dunn was ready with notebooks full of offensive/defensive characteristics on each of the 12 existing WNBA teams, with a vault of game tapes ready to break down and a list of players who would believe in her tough style of coaching.
Lin Dunn was ready with her should-be-patented formula on how to build a winning basketball team.
No place like home
Through the turmoil at Purdue and the ABL closing, Dunn was able to find a positive: her family.
When Dunn was a freshman, her father died of a heart attack at the age of 46, leaving the family with nothing. They had no financial support, and Dunn's mother, LaRue, then 44, was an unemployed, high-school educated housewife. But LaRue held the four children (Lin, Bud, Carrie and Mary) together by working as an administrative assistant for the state of Tennessee. The job barely paid the bills, but all four kids eventually graduated from college.
With the lag-time between her jobs at Purdue, Portland and now Seattle, Lin Dunn has been able to spend time with her mother, now 77.
"She's an inspiration, and it's nice to be able to tell her that," Dunn said. "I wouldn't have had the time if I was still at Purdue or with the ABL, so that was a positive - going home and being with her."
The family's house on Cedar Street in Dresden is home base for Dunn, who is single. When she slips back into the town of 3,000, she is treated like a celebrity. Everyone wants to say "Hi y'all," and her career dealings still grab bold headlines with the tag, "Dresden's Dunn."
And folks especially look forward to Dunn whipping up her signature soup. You never know what kind it'll be; she just surveys the fridge and creates a masterpiece from whatever's there.
It's not as simple as soup, but the WNBA hopes she can do the same here.
"I've had a unique journey," Dunn said. "I know I'm approaching the autumn of my career, and one goal from here on out is to do what I love to do, which is coach, and enjoy every second of it.
"But first we have to sell some tickets!" ------------------------------- LIN DUNN FILE
COACHING RECORD Team Seasons W-L Pct. Portland (ABL) 1997-98 45-30 .600 Purdue 1987-96 206-68 .752 Miami (Fla.) 1978-87 149-119 .556 Mississippi 1977-78 25-15 .625 Austin Peay 1970-76 67-55 .549 Totals 1970-98 492-287 .632
Highlights: -- Won ABL Western Conference title in first full-year with team -- Named 1998 ABL Coach of the Year; Coached Purdue to a Final Four appearance in 1994 -- Won three Big Ten titles and had eight 20-win seasons with the Boilermakers -- Won gold medals as assistant coach of the U.S. 1992 Olympic, 1990 World Championship, and 1990 Goodwill Games teams.