Tall order: 6-8 Storm coach Donovan wants to make Storm stand out

Kamila Vodichkova stood on her tiptoes, stretched her left arm high above her head and still couldn't reach Storm coach Anne Donovan's hand in a routine huddle wrapping up practice.

Vodichkova, a 6-foot-4 center, giggled as she realized she was still hand lengths away from slapping Donovan a high-five.

At 6-8, Donovan towers over any team. Only San Antonio center Margo Dydek (7-2) and Detroit coach Bill Laimbeer (6-11) are taller in the WNBA.

Height is always the apex of every conversation.

"You'll get used to it," Donovan nonchalantly said.

Romeo has. The long-haired, gray cat with a white spot crawled his way to Donovan's nose recently to let her know she's not too tall to be planted with a scratch across the nostril.

Not that Donovan needs Romeo's frequent lessons in humility. A Naismith and women's basketball Hall of Fame member, the native of Ridgewood, N.J., is as casual as Sunday afternoons.

If it weren't for her height, you would never guess she scored two key baskets to help defeat Yugoslavia in the gold-medal game of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Or that she's a three-time All-American from Old Dominion, surpassing Nancy Lieberman as the Monarchs' most decorated player.

Since the United States won gold in the 1996 Olympics, the WNBA has been calling "ollie, ollie oxen free," for some of the true pioneers of women's basketball. Minnesota guard Teresa Edwards, a four-time Olympian and co-founder of the defunct ABL, nixed her four-year WNBA holdout and will be a "rookie" this season. Former point guard Ann Meyers is a broadcaster. Donovan has a place to coach.

But do many people know much about her as a player?

"Heck no, they don't," said Edwards, who played on two Olympic teams with Donovan. "And it's not just her. There's a lot of former players people don't know about. But I don't think they care.

"These kids really didn't have to fight. They graduated, and there was a league right there for them to play in. They don't know what it's like to struggle and fight to play this game."

Don't call me 'sir'

Maybe it was her cropped black hair. Or lanky build.

The presumption stayed the same.

"Excuse me, sir," someone might say when bumping into Donovan at the mall.

At 41, she said it no longer matters.

"But as a teenager, it was heartbreaking," said Donovan, who was 6 feet in high school. "People just don't think."

The youngest of eight children, Donovan's family was treated like The Addams Family or the Coneheads. Their four-bedroom white home with black shutters was known as the place where the tall people lived.

"We'd walk through the mall, and people would stare," said Mary Grab, the third youngest, who stands 6-3. "Here's these two girls that are not that very well endowed, with thick glasses, and we're a foot taller than everyone. Andy adapted a lot more quickly than I did, but it was still pretty tough."

Donovan's father was 6-6, her mother was 5-11 and her brothers and sisters ranged from 5-11 to 7-1.

And they all played basketball.

In fact, basketball was where aggressions were worked out when their lovingly strict mother tossed them out of the house for misbehaving. Donovan's father set up the hoop and took the older children to their practices and games.

"We were the joke before the boys games, though," said Kathy Donovan, who is 15 years older than Anne. "They didn't start getting serious about women's basketball until Annie was in grade school."

Anne's father died of a heart ailment when she was 5, however. Her mother took over running the house while working at a women's center and collecting social security. Six of the eight children received athletic scholarships to college, which helped.

Anne was the best in the bunch, but it took a clunky MVP trophy received when she was in the fifth grade to make her realize she could play. Suddenly, she wasn't just tall. She was skilled, agile and determined to become the best.

After setting 15 individual records at Old Dominion, Donovan went on to become a three-time Olympian. She also played professionally in Japan (1983-88) and Italy (1988-89), practically living out the images portrayed in the movie, "Love and Basketball."

Paid a six-figure salary in Japan, with a contract that included a clause that she could be physically punished, Donovan nursed teammates through bloody noses and bruised arms inflicted by their coach for errors in practice.

In Italy, Donovan fumbled with the language but said she had her best time in 1989.

"We were awful," Donovan said. "If you wanted to take a longer siesta, you could. The coach sometimes didn't show up, and I think we lost every game. But I had so much fun. I love Italy."

Grab, who said her younger sister is her best female friend, said Donovan finally learned how to relax in Italy. But just as things were going well professionally, Donovan learned through a routine doctor's visit that she had a health problem that would keep her from playing again.

It took six months for Donovan to tell her sister that she couldn't play anymore.

"I didn't go out gracefully," Donovan said of the time period. "I enjoyed playing professionally and wasn't ready to give it up."

Next level

Donovan cruises to the Storm training facility in her white Cadillac Escalade — a necessity when you're 6-8. Her office looks onto the Storm court.

She's there tirelessly working on strategies with her staff even when the team is given a day off.

Donovan stepped into the coaching position after Lin Dunn resigned in September. And Donovan has blended into the city like the Columbia Tower in the downtown skyline or Mount Rainier on the southern horizon.

She's the organization's third big acquisition in as many years. The two others, of course, were No. 1 draft picks turned All-Stars: guard Sue Bird (2002) and forward Lauren Jackson (2001).

Many believe the trio is good enough to take the team to the playoffs again this summer. But it's going to be a struggle.

In its fourth season, the Storm is as new as it was in 2000.

And Donovan is starting over for the third time in four years. She coached the Indiana Fever in 2000 (taking over on an interim basis for Nell Fortner, the U.S. Olympics coach). She took the Charlotte Sting to the Eastern Conference finals in 2001. With the Sting being owned by the league the past two seasons and not knowing what the new ownership was going to be like, Donovan was ready to move after last season.

The Sting players were all Donovan could think about when deciding whether she should leave.

"To me it was a no-brainer," Grab said. "Seattle was the better job, so I said take it. But Andy is so loyal and really cared about the players and her staff and being away from our family because most of us live on the East Coast.

"When I talk to her now, she's so happy. She feels things are really starting to fall into place."

The Storm players constantly talk about how Donovan helps them play with confidence. The Sting players say the same and point to their 1-10 start and 17-4 finish in 2001 to clinch the Eastern Conference title.

"She held everyone together and had them believing in themselves and what we were doing," said new Sting coach Trudi Lacey, who was an assistant to Donovan.

Donovan said she hopes she's not faced with the same predicament with the Storm, which finished 17-15 last season. Yet, the young team has similar characteristics to the Sting that could carry it through a rough patch.

"If they listen to her, they'll go to the next level," Edwards said of the Storm players. "A lot of these young women think they're women, but they're not there yet. Anne Donovan, the player she was and the person she is, will get them there."

Jayda Evans: 206-464-2067 or jevans@seattletimes.com