Sports
Proven TalentPanthers, Sting draft picks rely on performance, not “potential”
by Susan ShackelfordThe pro teams in this town all need to put fannies in seats, and the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Sting recently had major opportunities to do something about it through top draft picks. Some people think they blew it. I believe they decided to go about things the old-fashioned way: obtaining proven personnel to help them win ball games. If the victories come, the fannies will follow. While the Panthers won’t play until late summer, the Sting will find out soon enough. Training camp opens Wednesday, May 2, and their first game is a month later. They open the season at home against the Los Angeles Sparks (at 6pm June 2).
In the first round of their respective drafts, the Carolina Panthers picked University of Miami linebacker Dan Morgan, while the Charlotte Sting selected University of Georgia guard Kelly Miller. Dan Morgan and Kelly Miller? You won’t see them smiling on Wheaties’ boxes anytime soon. They haven’t dominated the local sports headlines, and suffice it to say, won’t spur a rush on season tickets.
So what gives? In a nutshell — performance and need. These players were among the best collegiate performers at what they do, and they each appear to have the work ethic to make it in the pros. Most significantly, they’ll shore up key areas for each team, helping them attain the most important marketing plum for any club, from Little League to the pros — wins.
Neither team had access to a franchise player — one who is so outstanding that you choose him or her regardless of existing personnel. In these drafts, Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick and Australian center Lauren Jackson had already been snapped up by the time our local teams picked. So the Panthers and Sting opted not to gamble on potential or a well-known name, going instead for players who can make an immediate impact.
Unfortunately, for years, the Panthers have been known as a Run Over, Run Around and Run Through Us team. They haven’t been able to effectively stop the ground game — which is as fundamental to winning football games as crossing the goal line or splitting the uprights. Ever since their moment in the sun — reaching the NFC title game during the 1996-97 season — the Panthers have languished in the bottom third of the NFL barrel in rush defense. Last season the Panthers’ defense ranked a miserable 27th out of 34 teams.
Topping that off, the Panthers have gone for the gusto — in this case, potential — in most of its other top picks, and the team has come up short. Luck hasn’t been on the Panthers’ side, either. Who would have thought the team’s first top pick (1995), quarterback Kerry Collins, would be such a head case in Charlotte? Or, that 1997 top pick Rae Carruth would now be sitting in prison?
So Morgan — a nationally acclaimed linebacker from a top-flight football program — looked mighty good to the Panthers. One of the reasons fans haven’t heard much about him is that college football isn’t king in Charlotte. May never be. It bows at the throne of college basketball. Furthermore, top defensive players are at best a ways down the gridiron’s glamour list, trailing, in this order: quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers.
Here’s a brief look at Morgan’s credentials: This past season, he became the first college player to win the Dick Butkus, Bronko Nagurski and Chuck Bednarik awards in the same season. While the Nagurski and Bednarik awards are for overall defense, the Butkus honor singles out the top linebacker. A four-year starter for the Miami Hurricanes, Morgan had more than 100 tackles every season and ranks alongside other Miami linebacker greats Ray Lewis, Jessie Armstead and Mike Barrow.
Picking 11th in the first round, the Panthers didn’t have a shot at the biggest names, but they filled a big need nonetheless. And they were right not to gamble this time, to go for as much of a sure thing as you can.
We got the guy that we were looking to draft and we feel good about that, said Panthers Coach George Seifert of the six-foot, two-inch, 240-pound Morgan.
Sting Coach Anne Donovan said something similar about Miller, a five-foot, 10-inch guard who can play the point or shooting guard.
We got exactly what we wanted, she said. She’s a two-time All-SEC (Southeastern Conference) Player of the Year and a two-time Kodak All-American.
In contrast to the Panthers, the Sting had a shot at all the players but one. That’s because the Sting had the second overall pick. Once Seattle snapped up Australian center Lauren Jackson with the number one pick, Donovan could have picked shooting guard Jackie Stiles or center Ruth Riley, both marquee names from the 2001 NCAA Women’s Final Four. But Donovan elected to go with someone who excels at the position where the Sting feels most vulnerable — point guard.
Olympian Dawn Staley’s knees are like glass, and she’s polishing them for only one more year, most likely. Her back-up, Niesa Johnson, probably will miss all or most of the season with a blood disorder, which sidelined her most of last season. We needed a point guard, Donovan said. This (the draft) was my baby, and I feel good about it.
Stiles, a media darling out of Southwest Missouri State, is a freelance artist on offense who needs to play shooting guard or small forward to ignite her fireworks. Point guard? She’s not played it, so converting her to that position in the pros didn’t seem wise.
As far as Notre Dame’s Riley, Donovan said she passed on her as an inside player because of 6-6 Summer Erb, hobbled last season by a foot injury and excess weight. She’s a big body that’s going to help us, Donovan said. Erb, who starred at NC State, has dropped the extra pounds in the off season, team sources say.
The Sting also acquired 6-5 Clarisse Machanguana from Los Angeles in an off-season trade, picked up 6-4 Tammy Sutton-Brown of Rutgers with its second-round pick and has 6-4 Cass Bauer, who played valuable minutes in last summer’s injury-riddled campaign.
But Donovan admits the marketing danger in not picking one of the high profile names with the team’s top pick.
People who don’t know women’s basketball well may not know her (Kelly Miller’s) name, especially since Georgia didn’t go that far into the playoffs this year, Donovan says. But Kelly hit the winning shot to give Georgia the SEC title this year, and she has averaged double digits in scoring since she was a freshman. People can expect to see solid play on both ends of the floor. Great kid, great work ethic. Comes from a winning program and the best conference in the country. It doesn’t get any better than that.
It won’t get any better than that if Miller can help the Sting immediately. Which she likely will, since Donovan is planning to run a three-guard offense most of the time. Having Miller, Staley and WNBA All-Star Andrea Stinson on the floor at the same time could invigorate their motion offense. Miller made 46 percent of her three-pointers this season, which will take pressure off Staley and Stinson in that department. Staley can concentrate on being the floor general, while Stinson can focus on what she does best, the transition game.
In today’s marketing-driven society, a big-name performer is often seen as the way to lure people to the arena or stadium. But if that big name isn’t what the team most needs in skills, or if his or her abilities don’t develop as expected, the team stumbles and fans grow weary. Charlotte is a fickle sports town, one where winning is truly everything. The Panthers’ and Sting’s top draft picks appear to have taken them closer to filling their needs and returning them to contenders. Time will tell.
Circle Up
Congratulations to Jennifer Capriati on her second win in three months over the world’s number one tennis player, Martina Hingis. The latest victory occurred in the championship match of the Family Circle Cup, one of the first tournaments Capriati played when she turned pro as a young teenager. The other was the Australian Open championship in January. . .During the tournament, did anyone notice the odd headline on an otherwise outstanding column in the Charlotte Observer on women’s tennis? Writing from the event in Charleston, Scott Fowler talked about the strength of the women’s game and how the men’s game is suffering from few stars and the boredom of their power game, exacerbated by improvements in racquet technology. While he painted a picture of women’s tennis as exciting and competitive, the headline (written by someone else) suggested the women were holding an afternoon tea party on Daniel Island, not a professional sporting event. The headline was: Women’s tennis: Sugar and spice and everything’s nice. Ask Martina Hingis if she thinks that captures the essence of her hard-hitting final with Jennifer Capriati. Ask the other players about their matches. You’ll get a different take. Such stereotypes of women’s sports need to go where that headline belonged — the trash.
cap: Panthers draft pick Dan Morgan
This article appears in May 5-11, 2001.
