Public appearance all in day's work for Bird

TACOMA — Just off I-5, exit 129, in the southern-most tip of Tacoma, is Fern Hill. It's a low-income, diverse community that most folks breeze through in their SUVs while talking on tiny cellphones.

Even though her team was traveling to today's nationally televised game against the Portland Fire, the Storm's Sue Bird didn't breeze by Fern Hill on the chartered bus. She got out of her rental car and walked up the sidewalk leading to the freshly painted blue wooden doors of Fern Hill Elementary School.

With its red-brick exterior, the school offers a modern day flashback for Bird, 21, as an elementary schoolgirl a decade ago in a New York City suburb.

Happy children run around the four-sided stone pyramid in front. To one side is a knot-holed tree reminiscent of "To Kill a Mockingbird," where kids climb, kick and lean on cozy, sunny days.

Of the 603 kindergarten through fifth-grade students, 38 percent are white, while the rest are black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Native American. And 55.1 percent are on free or reduced lunch.

Jared MacMullan, a brown-eyed, sandy-blond-haired future NFL hopeful, is among the eclectic cluster of kids. On Friday, he strapped his bicycle helmet to his head and boarded his chrome Mongoose bike to school.

All Jared, 11, cared about was the playground rumor that Kaylee Sison, a third-grader, had swung a deal through her third-year, season-ticket-holder parents to get Sue Bird to come to Fern Hill.

This would be Bird's first community appearance as a rookie guard in the WNBA, the No. 1 pick in April's draft. She graduated from Connecticut in May with a degree in communications and has aspirations of being the next Linda Cohn or Robin Roberts at ESPN. She recently met President Bush because, along with her UConn teammates, she went 39-0 and won the NCAA title. It was the second time UConn had accomplished an undefeated season.

But while standing in a spring outfit at the White House, Bird thought her college career would have truly been successful if she had graduated with honors.

"I missed it by that much," Bird said.

The Sonics, her NBA brethren, have highly organized community appearances.

Bird didn't get any of that. The WNBA, still the NBA's little sister, tipped off its sixth season over Memorial Day weekend. Despite the glitz and glam of the WNBA commercials viewers will see this afternoon on the ESPN2 broadcast, the league is as touchable as Mount Rainier seems on a sunny day.

As Jared filed into the intimate Fern Hill Gymnasium with about 300 other kids, Bird was in her standard off-court business uniform: trendy, faded bellbottom jeans and a gray "Storming the Sound" long-sleeved T-shirt. Her naturally curly dark brown hair was pulled back in the standard ponytail.

Jared and his gang can barely hold still once Bird takes the microphone and starts chatting about the Storm, her favorite books, and what college she went to. A rainbow of white, black and brown hands flutter in the air for no apparent reason. Boys jump up and break-dance for her. They beg her to dance, but she doesn't. They fade to a hush when she says "listen."

When they ask if she could beat the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, she answers honestly.

"No," she says. "I could probably at first ... until he started dunking on me."

And when she offers to play one-on-one with the first kid who can tell her how many teams are in the WNBA, a volcano of children reach for the top of her head guessing every number from 2 to 35. After five minutes of letting them paw all over her, Bird finds a little girl who guesses the right number.

Sixteen.

Noticeably tired from exposing herself for about an hour, Bird signs autographs for every child.

Jared gets an autographed newspaper photo of Bird in her uniform. He says he's going to pin it on his wall as soon as he gets home.

"Right next to Spiderman," he says.

Jayda Evans can be reached at 206-464-2067 or jevans@seattletimes.com.

Information in this article, originally published June 2, was corrected June 10. A previous version of this story stated Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm handed out "What Would Jesus Do" bracelets at a recent appearance at Fern Hill Elementary School. One of the students at the school gave her the bracelet as a remembrance.