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Week 17: Hitting the Court with the L.A. Sparks

Farai Chideya and L.A. Sparks conditioning coach Bob Dominguez sprint down the hardwood.
Devin Robins, NPR
Farai Chideya and L.A. Sparks conditioning coach Bob Dominguez sprint down the hardwood.
Next comes the stretching, followed by more sprints.
Devin Robins, NPR /
Next comes the stretching, followed by more sprints.
Sparks assistant coach Margaret Moore does dribbling drills with Chideya and <em>News & Notes</em> executive producer Nicole Childers, left.
Devin Robins, NPR /
Sparks assistant coach Margaret Moore does dribbling drills with Chideya and News & Notes executive producer Nicole Childers, left.

There's nothing like standing out on the empty floor of a major sports arena knowing you have no clue what you're doing.

I was one of those kids who was humiliated on the basketball court. I had no idea how to play, but I was forced in gym class to compete with girls on the basketball team. Two decades later, I'm still just getting over it -- just in time to take to the hardwood with the L.A. Sparks WNBA team.

I warmed up with help from Bob Dominguez, the strength and conditioning coach for the Sparks, who made me sprint, stretch and sprint some more. It was a tough drill that got my heart racing.

Sparks assistant coach Margaret Moore worked through some dribbling drills with me and News & Notes executive producer Nicole Childers. Dribbling is to basketball what kicking is to soccer -- Moore taught me a controlled dribble and the speed dribble.

My head-to-head match with Lisa Willis, a rookie guard for the Sparks, proved I didn't have mad skills. But at the end of the shootout, everyone was a winner -- except my knees, which were killing me.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Farai Chideya
Farai Chideya is a multimedia journalist who has worked in print, television, online, and radio. Prior to joining NPR's News & Notes, Chideya hosted Your Call, a daily news and cultural call-in show on San Francisco's KALW 91.7 FM. Chideya has also been a correspondent for ABC News, anchored the prime time program Pure Oxygen on the Oxygen women's channel, and contributed commentaries to CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and BET. She got her start as a researcher and reporter at Newsweek magazine. In 1997 Newsweek named her to its "Century Club" of 100 people to watch.
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