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In perfect silence
Posted: Friday August 06, 1999 04:23 PM
WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- To hear it from U.S. pitcher Danielle Henderson , you would think her two perfect games in softball competition at the Pan Am Games were mere flukes of fortune. The 42 batters who have struck out against her in 52 plate appearances? Must have had sun in their eyes. The one baserunner she's allowed so far in Winnipeg? Dawn Johnson of the Bahamas managed to hit a single off Henderson. Horrible performance on Henderson's part. Send her to the showers and hide the soap. The only problem with Henderson's emergence as the U.S. team's phenom is that she has to talk about her least favorite subject: Danielle Henderson. "I'm sorry," she tells you, raising her voice all the way to a whisper, "but I don't have too much to say." Just three years ago Henderson was a wide-eyed spectator at the Atlanta Olympics, too shy to approach Dot Richardson , the U.S. team's slugging shortstop, and ask for an autograph. Since last year, however, when Henderson graduated from the University of Massachusettes and became the Minutewomen's pitching coach, she has had to speak up a bit more often. "When I first got to UMass, I wasn't a very good pitcher," says Henderson, who didn't begin hurling until 10th grade but chalked up a lifetime collegiate pitching mark of 108-35 with 72 shutouts and 1,343 strike outs. "Just a big kid who could throw hard. Now people listen to me. It's funny." Henderson still tries to keep her success a secret. She never bothered to call her parents in Commack, N.Y. after her initial Pan Am outing July 29 against Colombia, so her mother Carol read about her daughter's first perfect game over the internet. "She yelled at me for that," says Henderson, who decided not to call home after her second perfect game five days later. "I just thought it wasn't a big deal." Parker is back on target There was a time after her first Pan Am Games when Denise Parker was supposed to reinvent the way people looked at archery. At 13, she was already one of the world's best at a sport that happily accommodates athletes old enough to be her parents and her parents' parents. Before millions of viewers she talked archery with Johnny Carson, taught Katie Couric to handle a bow, and shot arrows like nobody else her age ever had. When the Reagans needed an archery primer, Parker was their photo op. "All that feels like another world now," she says laughing. "Who was that girl?" That girl won Pan Am gold in individual and team events in 1987, captured a bronze medal in team competition at the 1988 Seoul Games and systematically assaulted the record books, setting nine national indoor marks and a world standard for 18 meters of 1187 points (out of 1200) that stood for five years. When the U.S. Archery Association named her female athlete of the year in 1989, the male recipient was national champ Ed Eliason , age 56. Parker placed fifth in both individual and team events at the 1992 Barcelona Games, but felt she'd have to do better four years later on home soil. In 1995 she moved from Salt Lake City to San Diego to train full-time. Parker would get word that her Korean rivals were shooting 300 arrows a day and feel compelled to shoot more. "I started flinging arrows to count numbers," she says. "I thought 1996 was going to be my year. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I started to tense up and instead of going out to win, I was going out not to lose. I was shooting scared." Parker dropped to 10th place at the U.S. Olympic trials and chucked her bow in the garage. "I was burned out," she says. "And I wasn't sure I'd come back." In 1997, Parker graduated with a marketing degree from Westminster College in Salt Lake City and that summer became the editor of Archery Focus, her federation's official bi-monthly publication. The all-encompassing position with the 48-page magazine included duties as photo editor, layout editor, assignment editor and occasional writer. The following spring she resumed shooting and jumped into a new sport called ski archery, a cousin to biathlon in which competitors ski cross-country, stop to shoot and ski penalty laps when they miss their targets. "My arms were so tired from skiing, she says. "I'd get ready to shoot and think, `This isn't my bow. It's way too heavy.'" Parker placed 12th at the 1998 ski archery world championships in Cogne, Italy, helping the U.S. team to a bronze medal. Last month she won her fifth national archery title, blasting the field by 47 arrows and looking like someone who'd retrieved her missing edge. "It's funny how your perspective changes," says Parker, who is the top qualifer after the preliminary rounds in Winnipeg. "I was walking around at 13 like I really belonged, didn't have a care in the world. Now if I saw a little 13-year-old walking around here like that, I'd probably want to hit `em." Parker is too good spirited to be serious. But don't push her. Her aim is true. Women with a goal They are Generation Next, the Mia Hamms , Michelle Akers and Brianna Scurrys ofthe 21st century. The U.S. women's soccer team won a gold medal in Winnipeg with what was essentially a "C" team, far enough down the food chain that perhaps even the U.S. men could give them a game. After beating Mexico 1-0 in Thursday's final, the players learned what it was like to follow in the cleatsteps of legends. "All this is happening because of the World Cup," said Marcia Wallis , the team's leading scorer at the Pan Am Games (seven goals), minutes after receiving her gold medal. Wallis had just walked off the field with the prize draped around her neck and had to step back and count the young girls in volunteers' shirts who were crowding her, offering their backs for autographs. "Is that Bonny with a "y" or Bonnie with an "ie?" Wallis wanted to know. "You want me to use the pen or the big marker? The marker writes better but you'll never get it off." Wallis recalled having 20 people over at her house in Los Gatos, Calif. when the U.S. defeated China during the Women's World Cup final and "screaming my lungs out" when Brandi Chastain -- the woman who coached Wallis' team to a state title three years ago when Wallis was 15 -- scored the decisive penalty kick. Defender Catherine Reddick , who scored the team's only goal against Mexico, was in the stands in Pasadena for the World Cup finale. "I'll never forget seeing that game," she says. "Ever since then when people would ask us if we're the World Cup team and when we said, 'No, we're their understudies,' they've been disappointed. Goalkeeper Hope Solo recalls meeting Scurry, the keeper whose key save on a penalty kick against China had set up Chastain's heroics. "I talked to her when I was 11 or 12 and they were playing an exhibition game," Solo says. "I was in awe then. I'm still in awe now. We had our own expectations here. We're not the World Cup team. Every team will be compared to them from now on." The American squad in Winnipeg was the youngest and least experienced of those in the five-team tournament. Coach Jay Hoffman chose a team from those players of the Under-18 squad who were left after the Under-20 team swiped the five best from that age group to play in the Nordic Cup tournament in Iceland this week. (Two others are playing for their club teams at national club championships in Orlando.) "Some players here will be World Cup stars in the future, but it won't be easy." Hoffman says. "The depth in this country is so strong right now. We tried to play down what the World Cup team did, because we had our own job to do. But every one of these players understands the door that's been opened for them." Sports Illustrated writer-reporter Brian Cazeneuve is covering the Pan Am
Games for the magazine. He will file periodic Insiders for
CNNSI.com.
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