Long-time women’s basketball writer Lois Elfman profiles Sue Bird for the Syosset Patch, a Web site covering Bird’s hometown. The focus is on Bird’s year-round basketball schedule, and the break she took from it to spend time at home in New York this winter.
“I can go to an island and sit on the beach almost anytime,” said Bird before heading back to Moscow for her sixth pro season in Russia. “The one thing that I feel like I miss out on in life is really being around people—my friends, my family.”
So she spent October through December just being around home—dividing her time mostly between her mother’s Syosset home and New York City, where her older sister lives.
“Something as small as my sister and the New York City Marathon, which she ran for the first time,” Bird said. “I got to see it. She got engaged, as did my best friend. I was able to celebrate with them. It’s the little things you miss when you’re away so much. Other than letting my body rest, that’s really what I wanted to do. I just wanted to be around.”
Down in Australia, as the WNBL campaign winds down, the media is wondering whether Lauren Jackson will be back for another season Down Under.
“After this season I will be heading back to America to live in Seattle and play for the Storm in the WNBA,” Jackson told The Daily Telegraph.
“But if I can get another contract – a big contract – here in Australia I’d be home in a heartbeat. If Canberra can come up with the money I’d stay.”
Carrie Graf, the former Storm assistant coach who is the head coach of the Canberra TransAct Capitals, isn’t counting on having Jackson next year. “The starting offers in Europe will be well over double that [what Jackson is being paid this season],” she said, “and I just don’t think that money is around in Canberra.”
The Daily Telegraph also reports that when the Capitals take on the Sydney Uni Acuvue Flames this weekend, it will be Jackson’s first game in Sydney since January 2004.
E-mail feedback
RSS Feed