Miller Is a Marked Player, and She Has Marks to Prove It

Tuesday morning, three days after the fall, Cheryl Miller was still hurting. The concussion and the sprained neck she suffered in a circus fall at the Sports Arena Saturday night were sending out pain messages.

It’s been that kind of season for USC’s Miller, who is probably the greatest female basketball player ever and certainly the most famous and the most colorful. She is a running, jumping, diving, showboating legend in her own time.

She is bigger in her sport than Reggie Jackson, Magic Johnson or Martina Navratilova in theirs. She is bigger than The Refrigerator.

And that’s part of the problem.

Here’s how a rival team’s assistant coach describes the reaction of that team’s star player to any mention of Miller: “She has a Pavlovian response,� says the coach. “Say ‘Cheryl Miller’ and her temperature goes up, her pulse goes up.�

And Cheryl Miller, most likely, goes down.

Miller’s medical box score this season includes four discolored eyes, from flying elbows; one cut eyeball, from a flying fingernail, the cut requiring four stitches in the eyeball; the neck and head injuries, and numerous bumps and bruises.

That’s not counting her bike accident. The chain snapped on Cheryl’s bike a month ago, sending her flying over the handlebars. Neck sprain.

What’s going on? Is the sport that Cheryl pulled up out of obscurity ganging up on her? Are opponents finally getting even for all the magazine covers, all the trophies, all the points scored in their faces, all the hotdogging? There is a definite Cheryl Miller backlash.

“It’s almost like sometimes I’m being punished for being good,� Miller says. “There are always some people who hate winners. I guess I’m like a gunfighter. But I’m tough, I’m like Clint.�

Except that Cheryl is a lot more emotional than Dirty Harry. Don’t call her a hotdog, though.

“I still have never heard a definition of a hotdog,� Miller says, a little defensively.

I looked up “hotdog� in the dictionary. Next to the entry was a picture of Cheryl Miller.

A hotdog, Cheryl, is someone who shoots her jumper, then leaves her arm up in the air, the wrist cocked in shooting position, as she retreats on defense. A hotdog is someone who, when woofed at or roughed up by an opponent, points mockingly at the scoreboard (a habit she broke after her freshman season).

Some people like hotdogs. I love ‘em. Reggie Jackson’s freeze-frame home run follow-through brings tears to my eyes.

Some people do not like hotdogs.

Athletes almost always hate hotdogs on the other team. When Miller went down Saturday night, out cold, the UCLA coaches yelled at the officials that it was just another cheap theatrical stunt by Miller, a ruse to buy time. They quieted down when the stretcher crew was called out.

All this is not to imply that Miller has been consistently on the receiving end of cheap shots all season. Sure, some teams, frustrated by years of Miller’s unstoppability, resort to dirty tricks.

But Saturday’s spill was a no-fault accident, and some of her injuries have been self-inflicted. She is, for instance, one of the game’s great divers.

Early in Saturday’s game, Miller leaped over the UCLA bench to save a loose ball, sat down for a moment in a front-row seat--a nice hotdoggish touch--ran along the courtside aisle, vaulted the scorer’s table and got back into the action without missing a play.

There’s the diving, and then there’s the new look in women’s basketball this season. The officials are permitting the ladies to pummel, push and hand-check one another as never before. Lester Hayes should have such artistic license.

“I don’t think the (college) men are allowed to be as physical as the women,� USC Coach Linda Sharp says.

Miller shrugs off most of the hits, cries to the officials a little and plays on. Until now, sitting out a couple of games with her injuries, the bruising hasn’t slowed Cheryl down. She is the nation’s second-leading scorer, a terror on defense and on the boards, and USC is undefeated in conference play.

Critics notwithstanding, her popularity rages unchecked. In every city and town where USC plays, Cheryl Miller is the big story. At home she receives about 30 letters a day, more mail than any USC athlete since Marcus Allen. Miller is probably the most looked-up-to female in the city, and she takes that responsibility seriously.

“I kind of analyze myself,� she says. “I have to sit down once in a while and say, ‘Cheryl, are you being a good role model?’

“I try to be happy, personable, do well in class, go to elementary schools when I can, talk to the kids.�

You know, typical hotdog stuff.