The Fire Have Rekindled a Long-Lost WNBA History in Portland
The city’s original WNBA franchise disbanded back in 2002. But with the league in a new era, Portland is the first expansion team that gets to revisit the past.
Emma Baccellieri|
Sylvia Crawley loves a scrapbook. This is how she has preserved her basketball career, pasting in all the photographs, tucking old tickets in the pages. And for decades, her scrapbooks were all that she had to show for her time with the Portland Fire.
Crawley was on the WNBA team’s inaugural roster when it debuted as an expansion franchise. She was the first player to touch the ball as an official member of the Fire—she went out for their first jump ball, in their debut game against the Houston Comets on May 31, 2000, and she won. Crawley started almost every game that season for the Fire, and the next season, and the season after, too. And that was it. The franchise disbanded when the WNBA changed its team ownership structure in 2002. Crawley and her teammates were scattered in a dispersal draft. The 6'5" center was left with only the photographs.
