“Biggest Travesty of Them All”: Sheryl Swoopes & WNBA Legends Demand What Extinct Houston Franchise Denied Them Years Ago
They just needed four words to express the league’s ignorance. Sheryl Swoopes and the other two WNBA icons have broken their silence after more than two decades, highlighting the league’s biggest travesty of all. The Houston Comets dominated the W during the first four years, becoming the league’s first dynasty. Despite this, they have not received what they deserve for many years.
In a recent social media video, Hall of Famers Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson, and Cynthia Cooper, known as the Big Three, demanded that the league give them the long-overdue distinction of hanging their jerseys in the rafters. The Houston Comets’ four-year league-defining reign was coming to an end.
“I mean, I wasn’t too happy about it. I just, for me, it’s really sad to see a team that was so dominant in the beginning of the WNBA winning four straight back-to-back-to-back-to-back championships… but it’s disappointing to know that we don’t have a place that we can call home, where we play, and a place where we can actually retire our jersey. So, for me, it’s very disappointing to know that Houston no longer has a team,” Sheryl Swoopes detailed her experience when the Houston Comets, the club she played for, were disbanded and then merged with the Houston Rockets in 2008.
That’s when Cynthia Cooper intervened and shared her thoughts on the matter. “I think for me, when you start talking about Tina Thompson, Hall of Famer, Cheryl Swoopes, Hall of Famer, there is no reason why they should make it to the Hall of Fame before their jerseys are retired,” reasoned Cooper.
She further stated, “There’s no reason. And that’s the biggest travesty of it all,” while she went ahead and said, “Rockets, let’s go. Let’s retire these women’s jerseys.”
The impact they have left on the WNBA has been the talk of the town forever, but, they are still deprived of the real honor they deserve.
The rise and fall of W’s first dynasty
The Houston Comets, like the Halley’s Comet, have become increasingly rare since their beginnings. From 1997 to the year 2000, the Comets won four consecutive WNBA titles while posting an overall record of 98-24 and lost only two playoff games during that time.
As a result, it became the second basketball team and sixth overall in team sports to accomplish this record, with Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper, and Tina Thompson dominating the sport and becoming the league’s original Big Three.
“The Comets were the impact,” said Tina Thompson. Indeed, the squad developed the league’s critics. In 1997, their average attendance increased from 9,703 to 12,602 by 1998. While it slipped to 11,906 in 1999, it rebounded to 12,255 during their four-peat.
Cynthia Cooper won two MVP awards, Sheryl Swoopes won three, and Tina Thompson was named an All-Star four times. Theirs was the first women’s professional team to visit the White House Rose Garden, and Swoopes was the first player to receive a large shoe sponsorship contract.
The Comets gave the league and the sport everything, but after eight years and the team’s last championship, it was dissolved before the league’s 20th anniversary.
