They’re getting the band back together.
Cynthia Cooper did not get closure when the Houston Comets folded.
One minute, she was a star player on Houston’s four-time championship-winning WNBA team. The next minute, her phone was blowing up with texts and the dynasty was dead. And unlike some of her Comets teammates, Cooper didn’t go on to play for other teams in the league.
So that’s why Cooper said she is “thrilled” that Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta is submitting a bid for a WNBA expansion franchise — and including the Comets in his plan.
At a Rockets home game in late December, Fertitta met with Cooper, Comets coach Van Chancellor and Comets star Tina Thompson in his suite at Toyota Center. He wanted to gauge their interest in his expansion proposal. They responded with unbridled enthusiasm.
“And trust me, to get us all together, I think, demonstrated to him how supportive we would be and how thrilled we are,” Cooper said.
Cooper said the WNBA’s return would fill the “void” the Comets left in the Houston sports landscape.
“I don’t think you can talk about having a W franchise in Houston and not marry it with the legacy that the Comets left,” Cooper said. “It would be a very emotional thing to have the W back, an opportunity to pay tribute to friends like Tina Thompson and Sheryl Swoopes and get the public back rallied around the W as well as, more specifically, a Houston franchise.”
Chancellor coached the Comets for the first 10 of their 12 seasons. He, too, is advocating for the WNBA’s return to Houston, whether the new team is called the Comets or not. But if he has any say, it would be.
“Ever since I moved back here from LSU, all I’ve heard is, ‘Do you think we’re gonna get a team? ’ and, ‘Why don’t we get a team? ’ And I would love to see a team come back here,” Chancellor said. “I think we’re still in the hearts and minds of a lot of fans here in town.”
In a statement provided to the Chronicle this week, Fertitta said, “The Houston Comets helped put the WNBA on the map and the City of Houston deserves the chance to once again show how great of a place it is for women’s basketball. We still proudly display the Comets championship banners and retired jerseys at Toyota Center. It’s been far too long; it’s time to bring the WNBA back to Houston.”
See here for the most recent update. They need to get Sheryl Swoopes on board to really complete the team, assuming they can get her to knock it off with Caitlin Clark already. Be that as it may, as an oldtime Comets fan, this warms my heart.
It’s a long story, so go read the rest. Remember that one of our competitors for a WNBA team is Austin, and they seem to have their act together as well. You can learn more about that on this recent episode of CityCast Austin, featuring an interview with Fran Harris about her efforts.
While I’d rather end all taxpayer funded sports, so long as the taxpayers are paying more than $150m per year to fund professional sports, there should be some representation for underrepresented groups. This will help address some of the disparity in funding.
Currently Houston taxpayer funded sports (by selected minority group):
Male: $663million (Does not include NIL – but that will favor males as well – possibly by a similarly inequitable ratio)
Female: less than $5million
Presumed Straight male $663 million
Openly Gay male: $0 (HCHSA and NRG Park or their beneficiaries have never funded any major sporting event with an openly Gay male athlete). There has never been an openly Gay male athlete participating in any NRG, LSSE, or HCHSA major sporting event in the history of either organization. It appears to be deliberate.