Making the WNBA
It was never a bad day when she got sick in high school and could stay home. The flu, a cold, a fever, whatever. The actual feeling awful part was no fun, of course, but the spinoff benefit was tremendous.
She’d become a huge fan of women’s professional basketball. The WNBA in particular. A league she dreamed of playing in but one that gets hardly any air time north of the border since there are no franchises here. This absence of coverage meant finding broadcasts was nearly impossible. Just catching highlights usually required some serious digging online. Even then, it was sporadic.
However, in its non-primetime hours, NBA TV would sometimes show replays of games.
“If you were home sick in the middle of the day, you might catch some,” Saicha Grant-Allen says.
Despite the fact that it’s still difficult to find games to watch here, the 21-year-old will be able to see a lot more of the league in the future, and she won’t even have to get an upset stomach to do it.
Late last week, the Glendale Secondary School grad became the only Canadian taken in the league’s draft — and just the second Hamiltonian ever, after Shona Thorburn in 2006 — when she was selected in the third round by the defending champion Los Angeles Sparks.
It’s a huge, huge deal for the sixfoot-five centre. A woman who would’ve been among the last people you would’ve expected to reach this point if you’d asked even five or six years ago.
Hamilton is a basketball hotbed, especially for girls.
Great high school programs take the best player from a number of outstanding rep programs that have taught these youngsters the fundamentals since they were tiny. Many of the top players basically came out of the womb dribbling a ball. Not Grant-Allen.
For years she was in dance and gymnastics. Yet, when she hit six feet tall at age 12, dreams of long careers in those activities were derailed. You just don’t see many lanky performers in either.
“My torso was apparently too long,” she chuckles. “Everything about me was too long.”
The fact is, her sudden height wasn’t all that exciting for her for a bunch of reasons. Through Grades 6 and 7, she was rather selfconscious about towering over the other girls and most of the boys. School dances were awkward. Thinking everyone is staring at you isn’t comfortable. In the summer after Grade 8, mom suggested she try basketball. Suddenly it all came together. She made a rep team right away and was really good. As she started learning the sport, she started falling in love with it, too. Quickly, she became a huge fan of the game and idolized women’s hoops legends Tamika Catchings and Tammy Sutton Brown.
She became a star at Glendale, was drawn into the Canadian developmental program, earned a scholarship to the University of Dayton where she excelled for four years and became an alternate on our national team.
Which brought her to draft day. Sitting in the living room with a couple friends in her place at school, she watched the selection process unfold. The Sparks coach had been in touch so Grant-Allen knew there was some interest. No guarantees, though.
She’d been told she’d likely be getting a freeagent invitation to the Sparks’ training camp to try out even if her name wasn’t called so there was a safety net. Even so, being drafted would be much, much nicer.
“Seeing your name is still the cherry on top,” she says.
So she waited. Round One finished with no mention of her. Nobody named Saicha GrantAllen was mentioned in Round Two, either. Which just left the 12 picks in Round Three.
When the New York Liberty took their player at No. 10, things were getting tight. The Sparks were up next. It was now or not at all.
Bingo. Immediately her phone began buzzing like it had been possessed by a million bees. Everyone was texting their congratulations. The woman who started playing the game just a few years ago was now just a short step from the top of the mountain.
Once the hugs had been given out and the replies had been typed, she began realizing the challenge facing her. She leaves Thursday morning at 6 a.m. for Los Angeles. Training camp starts Sunday. The first exhibition game is in two weeks. It’s tight. Especially with her final university exams starting on Monday. “It’s really inconvenient,” she laughs. She’s not complaining.
sradley@thespec.com 905-526-2440 | @radleyatthespec Spectator columnist Scott Radley hosts The Scott Radley Show weeknights from 7 to 9 on 900CHML.