women|sport

courtesy Dutton Books

This is the first book to weigh in on the surge in popularity of women's college basketball, arguably America's fastest-growing sport. Lauren Kessler's 303-page account of a season in the life of the Oregon women's basketball team was not inspired by a passion for the sport. Like many women who grew up in pre-Title IX America, she knew few girls who were serious about sports and even today remains curious about how women reconcile femininity with athleticism. But after watching her first women's game, Kessler, who runs the graduate program in creative nonfiction at Oregon, became hooked. "These women I was watching,'' she writes, "these hard-muscled, hard-charging women on the court, they were challenging what it meant to be female. I had to know more about them."

As she finds out more about them, so does the reader. Kessler, who was granted full access to the Ducks' program during the 1994-95 season, weaves lively, satisfying profiles of almost every member of the team--right down to the bench warmers--into her narrative. Most compelling is her portrait of coach Jody Runge, who, less than a year after reviving the flat-lining Oregon program, becomes involved in a nasty seasonlong contretemps with the school over its noncompliance with Title IX. But while Kessler admires Runge's resolve and coaching acumen, she steers clear of the role of cheerleader. Indeed, she portrays Runge as a sometimes aloof, quick-tempered individual whose anger at perceived slights of her program too often seemed to deaden her and her players' joy for the game. Runge, who apparently anticipated a more hagiographic look at her program, has accused the author of excessive negativity. Some Ducks players have dismissed the book as "tabloid'' material. Neither Runge nor her players, though, have disputed the book's accuracy.

Kessler would have been better served by avoiding the pedestrian game accounts that sometimes slow the narrative. And while she writes about the players' disgust with their second-class status in the Oregon athletic department, she never explores their thoughts about their coach's battles over the same subject. Nonetheless, Full Court Press is an important book, as is the period it chronicles. During the 1994-95 season, women's basketball came in from the margin: Rebecca Lobo led Connecticut to the NCAA championship and appeared on Letterman, Sheryl Swoopes had a shoe named for her, and once-indifferent marketing types started laying the foundation for not one, but two women's professional leagues. But these developments are of secondary importance to Kessler. What interests her most is reminding the reader of the quotidian problems that still lie beneath the game's shiny new veneer.

--Christian Stone