From ESPN:
MIDWEST CITY, Okla. — There are moments, stunning indelible moments, that transcend sport, crumble barriers and create icons.
There’s Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome in 1973. Brandi Chastain clinching the Women’s World Cup in 1999. Annika Sorenstam teeing off at the Colonial last May.
On Monday night, in a cozy high school gymnasium southeast of Oklahoma City, a 17-year-old high school senior named Candace Parker turned in the latest moment. Parker beat out five male competitors to win the Slam Dunk contest of the McDonald’s High School All-American Game.
She won with aplomb, too, darting down the left side of the lane, covering her eyes with her left arm and flushing home a right-handed dunk. At 9:06 p.m. CT, Parker sparked a raucous ovation, chest bumps from her teammates and officially launched herself as the female answer to LeBron James.LeBron won this same dunk contest last year, lest anyone think this was some kind of setup…
Did you even see the dunk contest? I didn’t when it was aired. I have been reading all of the posts about how ‘wonderful’ a thing Candace has done. I live in Tenn. and am an avid UT VOLS fan, so was intrigued by the posts (since she is going to be one of our own Lady Vols next season). I wanted to see this girl whip the boys…so I started searching the Internet for footage. Finally I found it and was SO DISAPPOINTED! This contest was given to her. I am a 6′ tall former JUNIOR college bench player and could dunk THAT well in school. We had members on our team (remember, I was a pine-rider) that could dunk much better and they were only good enough to start on a JuCo squad. She was given 10’s for the fact that she was a girl that got the ball (barely) over the rim in a downward motion. I thought that I must surely have not seen the right footage…but have discovered that, yes, that’s all there was…I felt cheated.
-gene-