A look back at Brittney Griner's dunking grace
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Brittney Griner, center right, and the Baylor University Bears dance on the court before tipoff in a 2012 game. Photo: Cooper Neill/Getty Images
Brittney Griner's release from a Russian prison has me thinking about the time I headed up to Waco nearly a decade ago, for one of her last college basketball games, and saw her in a moment of incandescent happiness.
The backstory: I was working on a memoir about dunking, cancer and the frontiers of human potential — and Griner, a Baylor undergraduate, was one of the great dunkers of all time.
By the numbers: She had already dunked 13 times in her college career, more than any other woman in the history of competitive basketball.
- And as a high school senior in Houston, she dunked 52 times in 32 games — including one with seven slams. Her go-to was a one-footed leap to a right-handed jam, but in practice she'd throw the ball off the glass to herself and throw it down, to the delight of her teammates.
My impression: Ever so slightly pigeon-toed and small-stepped, the way many athletes are, in warmups she had that athlete's way of efficiency masquerading as laziness; a kind of ease composed of no unnecessary motion. In her jump shots, she smoothly caught the ball, sprung up, released. That was it.
- Once the game tipped off, the student band shouted "Dunk it!" just about every time Griner touched the ball.
- Often triple-teamed by a storm of Longhorns from the University of Texas, their arms flapping like rain against a cross-country semi-truck, Griner would pass to an open teammate for an easy bucket, or spin smoothly away from the extra defenders and scoop the ball against the glass and into the hoop.
Between the lines: Behind the scenes, Griner's game — partly because of her dunking prowess — had been dissected in the cruel ways granted by internet anonymity.
- "This is someone's child," her head coach, Kim Mulkey, said in one press conference. "This is a human being. She didn't wake up and say, 'Make me look like this, make me six-foot-eight and have the ability to dunk.' This child is as precious as they come."
- Of note: When Griner came out as a gay a few weeks later, after her season ended, she said Mulkey had told her players not to be open about their sexuality because it might hurt recruiting and the program.
Baylor clinched the Big 12 title in that game. At the final buzzer, white, gold and green confetti blew everywhere.
- A huge, toothy, Julia Roberts smile spread across her face, Griner ran and dove across the paper-strewn gym floor, as if it were a backyard Slip 'N Slide. She lay still for a second and then, giddy, she made snow angels.
What I'm watching for: Another glimpse of that smile upon Griner's return to the court.