Rhythm Find Their Groove
It's playing to small audiences, but Nashville's semi-pro round ball team is winning
by Josh Tinley
Nashville professional sports fans are having a rough season. The Titans, who had become a perennial playoff team, didn't come close to making the playoffs this year. The Predators, an otherwise promising young team, may or may not ever play again, thanks to the NHL lockout. But before the area's pro sports faithful resign themselves to awaiting the return of the Kats, they might take a look at Nashville's 10-3 pro basketball team.
The American Basketball Association's (ABA) Nashville Rhythm are the city's youngest professional (at least, semiprofessional) sports franchise. Aside from the name, the multicolored ball and the Kentucky Colonels, the ABA's current incarnation (established in 1999) has no official ties to the storied league of the 1960s and '70s that produced Dr. J, the Indiana Pacers and the three-point shot. Today's ABA faces the challenge of playing itself out of obscurity. The league and its 35 teams hope to lure fans with low ticket prices, local talent and a few unique rules. (Perhaps the most interesting is the 3-D rule: if a team steals the ball from its opponent in the back court, an additional point is awarded for any field goal made on that possession, allowing for the occasional four-point basket.)
The Rhythm are a minor league team in a sport with several minor leagues that generally pay players less than they would make abroad. Unlike the Sounds (the farm team of the lackluster Milwaukee Brewers), the Rhythm don't have a relationship with a major league franchise. But lack of prestige doesn't mean lack of interesting plot lines. Best known is the story of coach Ashley McElhiney. Earlier this year, Rhythm owner Sally Anthony made McElhiney the first woman head coach of a men's professional sports team.
Anthony, an independent singer-songwriter and founder of Pearl Girl Entertainment (a company promoting women in the arts), bought into the franchise knowing that she would hire a female coach. She hired one with no head coaching experience who would be younger than most of her players. Nashvillians know McElhiney from her days as Vanderbilt's point guard, when she helped keep the Lady Commodores among the nation's elite. But before taking the Rhythm job, she had never held a job on a college or professional coaching staff. (She had accepted a position at Ohio State with her former Vanderbilt coach Jim Foster but took the job in Nashville before officially starting at OSU.)
Last spring, McElhiney's hiring became a target for the national sports media. Anthony says that some reporters were sexist, asking if she and McElhiney planned to pose in Playboy together. "One of them said something about Ashley and I in a sexual way," Anthony recalls, "so I said, 'Well, you know we're dating. We're in bed together right now.' " (Anthony and McElhiney's humor is also on display in the urinal commercial that occasionally runs on cable.)
Others have called the hiring a publicity stunt, and many sports pundits have raised obvious questions about McElhiney's age and inexperience. "Being bold doesn't mean you have to be stupid," Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said of Anthony's decision shortly after the hiring. "There are hundreds of capable women basketball coaches. Anthony could have done a lot better than the inexperienced McElhiney.... McElhiney has no chance."
So far, McElhiney and the Rhythm have answered critics, winning three-fourths of their games and sitting one game out of first place in the ABA's Blue (East) Division. Two of their three losses came at the hands of the division-leading Mississippi Stingers. More importantly, McElhiney has her players' confidence. "She played at a very high level at a great program at Vandy, so game recognizes game," says guard Terrance Vanlier.
"When I first heard we would be playing for a female coach, I was a little shaky," recalls three-point specialist and Sparta native Kyle Gribble. "But if you really want to play basketball, you'll play for any coach." He adds, "She'll push you. I think [McElhiney's hiring] was a good move."
Dontae Jones, 29, the Rhythm's best player and ABA leading scorer (at 31.3 points per game), also has great respect for his coach. "As far as Ashley's situation," he says, "we couldn't ask for anything better right now." Jones, who's considered to be one of the best players to come out of Nashville, starred at Stratford before dropping out. He earned a GED and attended junior college before transferring to Mississippi State. He led the Bulldogs to the Final Four during his junior season before deciding to forgo his senior year and signing on with the New York Knicks in the first round of the NBA draft. After a couple of seasons in the NBA, the Boston Celtics waived him. "I went into a state of isolation," Jones recalls. "Just two years removed from being drafted, and you're right back where you started."
He returned to basketball and was the 2000 Continental Basketball Association (CBA) All Star Game MVP. But his hopes of getting back to the NBA were dashed by a 1999 incident at a Nashville nightclub; Jones was charged for threatening a woman and firing a gun into the crowd gathered outside the club. He was later cleared of all charges.
Now pushing 30, Jones has returned to Nashville to start over once again. He's both optimistic and realistic about his future. "If I want to get back into the NBA, I have to be the best player in the world outside the NBA." But even if he never makes it back, "If I can make a difference in the Nashville sports scene, I think I'm doing my job," he says.
Despite playing to so-so crowds and having higher aspirations, Jones, like many of his teammates, is proud to be playing for the Rhythm. Some teammates—all of whom have played high school or college ball here—passed on more lucrative opportunities abroad to play in their hometown. Vanlier, point guard Desmond Cambridge, and recent signing Odell Bradley were teammates at White's Creek. Forward-center Adam Sonn played at Donelson Christian Academy and was the Atlantic Sun Conference player of the year at Belmont. (ABA Commissioner Joe Newman asks each team to sign at least six players with local ties in hopes of boosting ticket sales.) While their abundance of local talent hasn't helped the Rhythm pack the seats of Lipscomb's Allen Arena, the players' common bond has strengthened team chemistry.
The Rhythm will play each of their 10 remaining home games at Lipscomb, though they will be without starter Adam Sonn, who has a broken foot, until mid-February.
In the meantime, don't hold your breath about McElhiney being in Playboy. It's a long shot.
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