On the Rebound : After Going for Wrong Gold, Williams Again Rules Court

SAN JOSE — But for a wrong turn taken on her road to dreamland, she, too, would have been an Atlanta Dreamer, celebrating at that gold-medal party the U.S. women’s basketball team threw for itself last summer.

She knows that now, and the smile Natalie Williams wears when talking about her muffed chance is a rueful one.

In 1994, at UCLA, Williams was wrapping up one of the great individual women’s basketball careers in NCAA history. Then she made a decision that seemed peculiar at the time . . . and worse now.

A two-sport All-American, Williams announced that she would try out for the Olympic volleyball team.

“I advised her not to do that, to go with basketball,” said her UCLA basketball coach, Kathy Olivier. “I tried to tell her she was playing the best basketball of her life, and that her main asset, her strength, would help her more in international women’s basketball than it would in volleyball.”

Among the many others baffled was Tara VanDerveer of Stanford, who would coach the Olympic basketball team to a 60-0 record and the Olympic championship.

“I never understood her decision, either,” she said. “Yes, she would have made the Olympic basketball team.”

Then, three days after saying that, VanDerveer backed off a bit:

“She would have been in that elite group of big players, in very good position to make the team.”

Williams is one of America’s best female athletes. She has proved that with her play in the new American Basketball League.

Williams, 26, was a Utah state high school long jump champion, was second in the shotput and also ran a leg on a 400-meter relay team.

She was asked to play softball at UCLA, but after making All-American in basketball and volleyball, she declined.

In 1996, she was named Pacific 10 Conference female athlete of the decade, 1987-96.

Her UCLA lifetime scoring average was 20.4 points a game. And her 12.8 rebounds per game are, by a wide margin, the best in the conference and sixth in NCAA history.

She’s big, fast, strong . . . and still wants to try:

--Golf: “Everyone in my family but me plays. I just haven’t had time. One of my uncles was a Utah state amateur champion. I broke 100 the first time I ever played. When I can’t jump anymore, I’ll get serious about golf.”

--Tennis: “I’ve tried it, but I’m not very good. I love to watch it though.”

--Skiing. “People don’t believe me, but I’m from Utah and skied once, when I was 8. I think I’d be good at it, but the season is during basketball. It’s the sport I’m most anxious to try.”

--Track and field: “It’s been a long time since I competed, but I think I’d be much improved now. I long-jumped 18-3 in high school, and I’m much stronger and faster now. I’d probably be pretty good in the shot too.”

But back to 1995.

Against almost everyone’s advice, off to volleyball she went, despite rumors that women’s pro basketball was just over the horizon and she knew she was arguably the best rebounder in the women’s game.

“It was a mistake, obviously, in terms of my hopes of competing in the Olympics,” she said. “But I really did enjoy my time with the volleyball federation. I made lifelong friends, saw a lot of the world. I just don’t think I got a fair chance to show what I could do. Terry Liskevych [the U.S. women’s volleyball coach] never really gave me a chance to play.”

She was one of the last two cuts for the Olympic volleyball team--Stanford’s Kristin Folkl was the other--and then it was back to basketball for Williams.

And make no mistake . . . she is back.

She plays for the ABL’s worst team, the Portland Power, but is a force in the first-year league.

Williams, 6 feet 1 and 200 pounds, is not only leading the ABL in rebounding, she’s leading by a margin of more than five per game. Four times, she has had more than 20 in a game.

Despite having sat out eight games because of a knee injury in November, she leads the league in rebounding, comfortably, with an average of 13 a game. And her 16-point scoring average ranks eighth.

“She’s the best rebounder in the world,” her coach, Lin Dunn said.

Well, let Dennis Rodman be the judge of that.

He is a guy Williams wants to meet.

“I’d really like to sit down with him sometime and pick his brain,” she said. “I feel like I’m a much smarter player than I was at UCLA, but I also feel I could be a lot better. I’ve gotten to the point where most of the time I can tell if a shot is going in or out, and sometimes I know in which direction the rebound is going to go.

“That’s the stuff I’d like to talk to him about, technique stuff. He’s 6-8, small for a rebounder in the NBA, and so am I.

“I’d like to hear him talk about how he positions himself, in all kinds of situations.”

Williams may be an ABL short-termer.

The NBA’s women’s league, the WNBA, begins play in June in eight cities including Williams’ home town. She’s on a one-year ABL contract, making $85,000. Indications are that the WNBA, with personal-services contracts, will pay its premier players more than the ABL.

“I’m from Salt Lake [a suburb, Taylorsville, actually], and I have family there. I’d love to play pro ball there,” she said.

If she does, it would mean missing yet another year of basketball. ABL contracts are for 12 months, and the first 28-game WNBA season lies within the ABL’s first year. She would have to sit out the first WNBA season, or play a European season.

Williams established herself quickly in the pro basketball market, once she shook off her Olympic blues.

She tried out for the U.S. Jones Cup team, considered second in importance in international women’s basketball only to the Olympic team. She made it.

Playing on a team that included Portland teammate Michelle Marciniak and USC’s Tina Thompson, Williams averaged seven rebounds in 15 minutes a game to lead the U.S. team in its nine games in the Taiwan tournament last August.

That made her marketable, late in the ABL’s player selection process.

She missed the ABL’s Atlanta tryout camp last March, thanks to a foul-up by her agent, now her former agent. The ABL asked her to sign a two-year deal, but she declined, and after signing for one, was assigned to Portland.

Her team, despite the league’s worst record, is second in home attendance.

“We’re a happening in Portland,” she said. “The people have been great. The noise, the fan support is incredible. We get everything from excited senior citizens to young people with painted faces.”

And probably their favorite is Williams.

When she sat out those eight games because of her knee injury, her team went 0-8.

She had a Superwoman game the night she tore a knee ligament, in Atlanta. She left the game, taped on some ice, then returned, finishing with 15 points and 20 rebounds in 35 minutes.