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What: “WE GOT NEXT, The Story of the WNBA’s Inaugural Season.”
Price: $14.99.
This well-edited, 40-minute video pretty much captures all the highlights of the NBA’s first-year venture into women’s pro basketball, right down to the delightful halftime and pregame speeches by Houston Comet Coach Van Chancellor, delivered in his syrupy Mississippi accent. .
During a late-game timeout vs. Charlotte in the league semifinal game: “You play hard for five minutes and you gonna break Charlotte!”
During a timeout vs. New York, in the WNBA championship game: “If the pain hurts, reach down there and get a little bit of it!”
But the most compelling coach-to-players remark was delivered on Day 1 of the season, when New York played at Los Angeles, before an announced 14,284 at the Great Western Forum. The camera and mike were aimed at a coach, Linda Sharp (who didn’t make it to the finish line, getting fired 13 games into the season.)
Just before the opening tip, she tells her starters: “Put on a show for these people.”
And they did, all summer long.
The video captures teenage girls with painted faces, celebrating the triumphs of their favorites and displaying grief at their failures; and the dancing coach, the charismatic Cheryl Miller of Phoenix.
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