As I began preparations for the Dallas Wings 2024 season, I noticed that our single Wings preseason home game, May 3, was going to be against the Indiana Fever, which held the first overall pick in the April 15 WNBA Draft. The presumptive pick would be Iowa’s Caitlin Clark who was being hailed as the best collegiate player since Connecticut’s Diana Taurasi in 2004. Taurasi is the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer and recognized as the best player in league history.
Now, we’ve never televised a preseason game, in fact, we had already announced our regular season television schedule, but I touched base with Amber Cox, Wings COO, and suggested that we do so. It would be a fantastic opportunity to promote our ticket sales (though our season tickets were already sold out for the first time), show off our team/personalities and market “our” product while we had national eyeballs wanting to see Caitlin’s first professional game. How would she do against the best players in the world? What would she look like in an Indiana Fever uniform? The game, originally, scheduled for 11:30am, was then moved to primetime, 7pm and wall-ah!, our game was added to the schedule. Now, all we needed was for the Fever to select Clark and that she would play in the game. I have to hand it to our president and CEO Greg Bibb for having the foresight to schedule the game with Indiana way in advance in case Clark decided to forego her final season of eligibility at Iowa – which of course she did to live her dream to play in the WNBA.
Well, the game was picked up by WNBA League Pass and Bally Sports SW extra regionally, but when the NBA Dallas Mavericks and NHL Dallas Stars playoffs extended and suddenly were scheduled that same evening – along with the Texas Rangers, Bally Sports SW had to move our game to BallySports.com and its app. Still, WNBA League Pass gave the game national distribution.
I spent many weeks prepping for that historic telecast – Caitlin’s first-ever professional game, but since we were a Wings telecast, we would focus most storylines on our team. I arrived at College Park Center at 9:30am to attend the Wings shootaround at 10:00am followed by Indiana’s at 11:00am. Most of our announcers (talent) were there too. Those shootarounds are a great way to see how teams have scouted their opponents and how they would execute their gameplans. You also can speak to players afterwards.
When it was time for Indiana, there were at least 25 camera crews on the side of the court for the first 15 minutes until Indiana Director of Media Relations Ryan Stevens asked everyone to leave so the team could practice privately for 45 minutes when they would reopen for coach and then player interviews. It was the most reporters and cameras I’ve ever seen at a WNBA shootaround in Arlington. When Caitlin Clark took to the microphone, reporters asked questions for about 15 minutes which is pretty long for a shootaround. It showed the enormous impact the rookie was already having on the league. I was standing immediately to Clark’s right. When the opportunity allowed, I said, “Caitlin, you are very proud of your passing ability and how much you were looking forward to serving it up to the “bigs” like Aliyah Boston. How’s that been in practice this week?”
She smiled, then spoke about how great it’s been and how she’s looking forward to it in tonight’s game.
After the interview, I went to the production truck which was parked in the loading dock and met with our crew to get the truck loaded up with elements for the show – including highlights, graphics, music and animations.
The day was going well. I then held our production meeting at 4:00pm with legendary announcers Ron Thulin, Sheryl Swoopes and reporter ShaVonne Herndon plus our director Scott Dailey, AP John Jagou, Stage Manager Knisha Godfrey (a TCU Lady Horned Frog basketball player) and intern Aaliyah Moore (a Texas Lady Longhorn basketball player) who would be shadowing Herndon that evening.
The meeting was going well, I was reviewing our production schedule, storylines and goals for the evening when at 4:20pm, I received a text from my daughter, Elaine, that my mother-in-law, Lola Esquenazi, who was in hospice care had just passed away. I had visited her at the hospice in North Dallas before heading to the shootarounds that morning. I knew the situation was grave when I left to head to Arlington, so I had a plan B standing by in case I could not produce the game – Jagou would step up.
In this case, the game was only 2 ½ hours away. The show was pretty ready to go. We had a set plan. Everyone knew the schedule and what to do. Even my Run of Show was specific, so I felt I needed to be with Sarah and family. I worked so hard over the last few weeks to get that historic show ready, but G-d had a different plan. When leaving the building, I reached my wife by phone. She said I should stay to produce the game, but my heart was saying to be with her. On top of that, it was our 43rd Anniversary. When I arrived at the hospice and saw my family and Sarah’s brothers, I knew I made the right decision.
As far as the game, Caitlin Clark scored 21 points and looked great, but Arike Ogunbowale hit a game-winning 3pter with a few seconds left to win it. Clark took a desperation 3 as time expired, but the ball hit the side of the backboard. Wings won 79-76 in front of a sold out preseason game crowd.
In life there’s happiness and sadness, there’s good times and bad times and times to reflect. So, for me many emotions in that one day. In the end, family counts the most. It was nice the Wings family, the league and our production crew and announcers understood that and it was certainly appreciated.