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Wednesday, January 24, 2001
Snow gets mixed reaction to second dunk
Associated Press
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee's Michelle Snow felt a little
differently after her second dunk.
This time, her excitement was mixed with disappointment that
some of the observers didn't like it.
"It really hurt a lot because I would never do anything to slap
anyone in the face," Snow said Wednesday.
Snow's dunk Tuesday night in Nashville capped the third-ranked
Lady Vols' 70-64 win over No. 16 Vanderbilt. Her first dunk was
Nov. 25 against Illinois in the Maui Invitational.
Snow, a 6-foot-5 center, is only the third woman to dunk in a
game after Georgeann Wells of West Virginia in 1984 and Charlotte
Smith of North Carolina in 1994.
After a timeout, Snow took a long pass from Kara Lawson from the
opposite baseline, dribbled down the lane uncontested and slammed
it with two hands with 7.3 seconds remaining. She hung on the rim
and drew a technical foul.
Some fans jeered and called the play "classless" as the Lady
Vols walked off the court. But Snow said some Vanderbilt fans
congratulated her.
"Some people took it the wrong way. I had a lot of people who
really picked my spirits up because they said, 'It doesn't matter
what jersey you had on. You did something I may never get to see
again in my lifetime,' " she said. "That was the point of doing
it. It had nothing to do with insulting another team."
The reaction became even more personal when Snow talked to her
best friend -- Vanderbilt center Chantelle Anderson -- about it.
Last season, Snow promised Anderson she wouldn't dunk on her.
"This year I told her, 'The bet's off. It's fair game,' " Snow
said. "The one thing she said was, 'Just don't dunk on me.' "
Anderson fouled out with 7:42 left, so she watched the dunk from
the bench.
"She did take it kind of hard. She was like, 'That's my team,
that's our homecourt,' " Snow said. "She gave me a different
viewpoint."
Snow wasn't thinking about how the Vanderbilt players would feel
about the dunk when she did it.
"I was thinking, let's have fun and finish the game out," she
said. "Hopefully they will understand it and they'll see. That's
part of when something new happens in the women's game, you get to
see all the different viewpoints."
After the game, Vanderbilt coach Jim Foster refused to comment
on the dunk.
"A lot of people might think it's not real ladylike, but I'm
not going to apologize for that," said Tennessee coach Pat Summitt
said.
After Snow's first dunk, Summitt said she believed the dunk
wouldn't take away from the women's game. She still feels that way.
"Some people apparently aren't comfortable with the dunk and
not sure they want to see it in the women's game because our game
has been recognized as a fundamental game," she said. "I think it
can continue to be a great game even with an occasional dunk."
Snow would become the first women to ever dunk three times the
next time.
Maybe then it will be the hometown fans' chance to see history.
"Definitely," Snow said. "That's a dream, right there."
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