Sometimes speculation about a coach-athlete relationship is
enough to unhinge a team. A few weeks before the end of the 2000
WNBA season, the Detroit Shock convened for a practice at its
training facility behind The Palace of Auburn Hills. The Shock
had just returned from a West Coast trip, and as the players
warmed up, casually stretching, dribbling and shooting free
throws, Nancy Lieberman, a Hall of Famer then in her third season
as the Shock's general manager and coach, strode into the gym. "I
want everyone in the locker room right now!" she shouted. One
Detroit player says she'll never forget the look on Lieberman's
face. "She was teary, but she seemed angry," the player recalls.
"She looked like a madwoman."
The players waited anxiously in the locker room for nearly 10
minutes before Lieberman joined them. She sat in front of a
locker, crossed her legs and spoke in a measured tone. "I know
that [some] of you have gone to management and said that Anna and
I are having a sexual relationship," several players quote
Lieberman as having said. Team members couldn't help but glance
toward point guard Anna DeForge, a 25-year-old WNBA rookie. "Anna
just put her head down," one Detroit veteran says. "After a
while, she started crying."
Questions about Lieberman's relationship with DeForge had been
percolating among teammates for months as the Shock slogged
through a dismal season. Now even those who had ignored the talk
had to confront the issue. "If you had a problem with my personal
life, you should have come to me, and I would have told you about
it," said Lieberman, who during the meeting reminded players that
she was married. After a failed attempt to find out which players
had complained to senior management, Lieberman, who was in charge
of the Shock's personnel decisions, said, "I will be here longer
than any of you. Half of you won't be here next year, so you
better start playing ball."
Though Detroit president Tom Wilson says Lieberman told him she
was not having a relationship with DeForge when he confronted her
shortly before the locker room meeting in August--and though both
she and DeForge reiterated that denial to SI--more than a half
dozen WNBA sources say they felt the team had to question whether
the coach and player were crossing the line. Players say
Lieberman, 43, and DeForge spent hour after hour together on the
road. One witnessed them exchanging hotel room keys, while
another spotted Lieberman's car outside DeForge's apartment late
one night, incidents DeForge says never happened. "In Sacramento
we went out by the [hotel] pool for a workout, and Nancy and Anna
were there, swimming and lying by the pool," says former Detroit
player Joy Holmes-Harris. "Everyone was, like, 'Come on, give it
a rest.'"
Lieberman calls the notion that she and DeForge were involved
romantically "absolutely false" and says such talk was born of
players' petty jealousies and internal team politics. "Sometimes
players have a hard time separating playing time from
accountability," she says. "If you look at the players who said
those things, you'll see that most of them are no longer with the
franchise because they didn't produce for other reasons. Coaches
and players can be close friends. Pat Riley and Magic Johnson had
a great friendship. Shaq and Phil Jackson have a great
friendship. Anna is a wonderful person, and I hope I am friends
with her until the day I die. [But] I would never jeopardize my
profession or my character to be with one of my players."
Lieberman and DeForge confirmed that they shared Lieberman's
Troy, Mich., residence for 3 1/2 weeks after the 2000 season
ended. The reason, both said, was so they could work out together
and prepare for an upcoming basketball camp.
In Detroit, players say they were vexed by DeForge's rapid ascent
to the Shock's starting lineup.Unable to hook on to a WNBA team
after the ABL, in which she'd played for one season, folded in
1998, DeForge had been out of basketball for a year when she ran
into Lieberman, who was in Lincoln, Neb., to broadcast a February
2000 Kansas-Nebraska college game for ESPN. Three months later
Lieberman invited DeForge to the Shock's preseason tryout camp,
where she alone among more than 100 hopefuls earned an invitation
to training camp. Midway through the season, with the Shock
plagued by injuries, Lieberman moved DeForge into the starting
point guard spot. At the time, DeForge was averaging 3.0 points
and 0.7 assists; she hadn't gotten off the bench in five of the
Shock's 16 games.
"How does someone go from the 11th person on the team to a
starter?" asks one Detroit veteran. "[DeForge] would have to call
other people [for help] when teams pressed her because she
couldn't get the ball upcourt." Other players wondered whether
the Shock's top draft choice, point guard Tamicha Jackson, was
being left on the injured reserve list so that Lieberman could
protect DeForge's starting spot. DeForge started 10 games,
averaging 6.7 points and 3.0 assists. Says Lieberman, "No one
worked harder than Anna. If my star players and my high draft
picks had worked that hard, we would have contended for the
Eastern Conference title."
Finally, two players voiced concerns to Wilson, who says he asked
Lieberman twice about the accusations, and twice she denied them.
"It's very rare for a player to go to the team president, unless
it is pretty serious in the minds of many of them," Wilson says.
"You were getting pretty close to a mutinous state."
The flash point was the meeting in the Shock locker room. When it
concluded, DeForge was still crying. After Lieberman left the
locker room, two veterans walked over and gave DeForge hugs,
attempting to console her. One of them explained to her why her
teammates were upset. "I said to Anna, 'You know the accusation
is out there, but you are almost as at fault as [Lieberman] is,'"
says one player. "'In this type of environment, your teammates
matter more than your relationship with the coach.' I was trying
to tell her to back off a little bit."
Lieberman's promise that she would outlast every player on the
Shock went unfulfilled. On Aug. 28, 2000, shortly after Detroit
concluded a 14-18 season, Wilson told Lieberman she would not be
offered a new contract.
Both Lieberman and DeForge are out of the WNBA. On March 15,
Lieberman filed for divorce from her husband of 13 years, Tim
Cline, in Collin County, Texas. According to court documents, she
and Cline had "ceased living together as husband and wife."
Lieberman works as a commentator for ESPN and lives in Dallas,
where in July she, with DeForge by her side, conducted a
basketball camp for girls. Asked about documents indicating she
and DeForge shared a residence in Dallas, Lieberman said, "I was
always there for players," and that she often welcomed players
into her home. "My home address," says DeForge, "is in Lincoln,
Nebraska."
A year after their tumultuous season, Shock players look back at
how quickly the team unraveled. "Once the rumor started, it
spread like wildfire," says Holmes-Harris. "Players were upset
and frustrated and thinking a lot about it. They saw Nancy and
Anna together, and they got fed up.... The team fell apart."
