The Seattle Reign was the first women's professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

franchise in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, USA. The Reign was a charter member of the American Basketball League (ABL). The team played from 1996 through 1998. The team's name was a reference to the city's reputation for rain and its location in King County, with an additional allusion to "The Reign Man"

Shawn Kemp Shawn may refer to: *Shawn (given name) *Shawn (surname) See also * Sean * Shaun Shaun is an anglicized spelling of the Irish name Seán. Alternative spellings include Shawn, Sean and Shawne. Notable persons with the given name include: Peop ...

, then the city's biggest basketball star. The Reign played most of its home games in the

Mercer Arena Mercer Arena (previously known as the Exposition Building, Civic Ice Arena and Seattle Center Arena) was a performing arts venue located at the corner of Mercer Street and Fourth Avenue North in Seattle, Washington. It was built in 1927 adjacent ...

, part of

Seattle Center Seattle Center is an arts, educational, tourism and entertainment center in Seattle, Washington, United States. Spanning an area of 74 acres (30 ha), it was originally built for the 1962 World's Fair. Its landmark feature is the tall Space Needl ...

, but occasionally the team played at the larger

KeyArena Climate Pledge Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located north of Downtown Seattle in the entertainment complex known as Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's Fair, for which it was ori ...

, home of the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

Seattle SuperSonics The Seattle SuperSonics (commonly known as the Seattle Sonics) were an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The SuperSonics competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Western Confe ...

. The Arena was an old-fashioned, intimate setting for a basketball game, but its seating capacity of about 5,000 limited the team's upside attendance potential. In the team's inaugural season, the Reign drafted 1996 Olympic team veteran

Venus Lacy Venus Lacy (some sources give her name as Venus Lacey, born February 9, 1967) is an American former star basketball player, at the high school, college, Olympic and professional levels. A wide-bodied, muscular center, at her best Lacy was an int ...

to play center, but Lacy was generally outshone by the team's other two "big women", Cindy Brown and

Tari Phillips Tari L. Phillips (born March 6, 1969) is an American professional women's basketball player. She currently plays with Acer ERG Priolo, an Italian A1 team based in Priolo Gargallo, Sicily. Her cousin Tayyiba Haneef-Park plays for USA Volleyball ...

. (This was the case even before February 4, 1997, when Lacy was lost for the season due to a severe car injury.) The starting point guard for most games was Christy Hedgpeth, and Kate Paye was the shooting guard. Another player of note was

Angela Aycock Angela Lynette Aycock (born February 28, 1973), later known as Sister Paula, is an American former professional basketball player. She played for two seasons in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) before retiring to a monastic life ...

. In the team's second season, with some fanfare, the team drafted

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

small forward

Kate Starbird Catherine Evelyn Starbird (born July 30, 1975) is an American computer scientist and former professional basketball player. Playing at the guard position, Starbird earned All-American honors as a high school athlete at Lakes High School in Lake ...

, who had been a local prep star at Tacoma's

Lakes High School Lakes High School is located in Lakewood, Washington. It serves students from 9th grade to 12th grade. It is one of the two major high schools in the Clover Park School District. Daffodil Festival Every year, Lakes participates in the Pierce ...

. An even bigger impact player proved to be the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...

Shalonda Enis Shalonda Enis (born December 3, 1974) is a former professional basketball player who played for the Washington Mystics and Charlotte Sting of the WNBA. Biography Enis started playing basketball at age 12 at her middle school in Celeste, Texas. ...

, who was named the ABL's Rookie of the Year for the 1997–98 season. From 1997 on, the ABL faced serious competition from the deeper-pocketed WNBA. Fifteen games into the Reign's third season, on December 22, 1998 the ABL suddenly reached a financial crisis and folded its operations. The Reign was in the midst of its only winning season, and had only weeks before scored their most memorable victory, a double-overtime win before an enthusiastic crowd of 7,400 at the KeyArena, over the

San Jose Lasers The San Jose Lasers were a women's professional basketball team in San Jose, California. It was a member of the American Basketball League. Their home games were primarily held at the San Jose State Event Center with an occasional game being p ...

, led by

Jennifer Azzi Jennifer Lynn Azzi (born August 31, 1968) is a former basketball coach, most recently the head coach of the women's team at the University of San Francisco. Azzi is also a former collegiate and professional basketball player, as well as an Olympic ...

.Seattle P-I, Nov 29, 1998: "Reign crowd exits happy: Team sets attendance records, beats Lasers at KeyArena"
/ref> Unlike most localities that had an ABL team, Seattle was quickly awarded a WNBA franchise two years later. The

Seattle Storm The Seattle Storm are an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The Storm competes in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The team was founded by Ginger Ackerl ...

debuted in 2000, and won the

WNBA Championship The WNBA Finals are the championship series of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the conclusion of the league's postseason each fall. The series was named the WNBA Championship until 2002. Starting 2016 Verizon is the officia ...

four years later in 2004 (they have since won three more WNBA titles).

Team Record

{, class="wikitable" , - ! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" , Season ! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" , W ! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" , L ! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" , Win % ! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" , Result , - , align=center , 1996–97 , , align=center , 17 , , align=center , 23 , , align=center , .425 , , align=center , 3rd Place, Western Conference , - , align=center , 1997–98 , , align=center , 15 , , align=center , 29 , , align=center , .340 , , align=center , 5th Place, Western Conference , - , align=center , 1998 , , align=center , 8 , , align=center , 7 , , align=center , .533 , , align=center , 3rd Place, Western Conference , - , align=center , All-time , , align=center , 40 , , align=center , 59 , ,

All-Star Players

Cindy Brown (All-ABL 2nd Team 1997)

(All-ABL 2nd Team 1998)

(ABL All-Star game MVP, 1997–1998)

League Honors

Rookie of the Year

(1998)

References

American Basketball League (1996–1998) teams Defunct basketball teams in the United States Basketball teams established in 1996 Basketball teams in Washington (state) Basketball teams disestablished in 1998 Basketball teams in Seattle