May 3, 2001

By Renee Carlson
Fort Collins Coloradoan

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - The good friends and former CSU stars are in WNBA camp together with the New York Liberty. Hammon is beginning her third season with the Liberty, while Cronin is an invited free agent rookie. The camp began this week with 21 players on the roster, 11 will make the final cut for the Liberty, which opens its season May 31 at Miami.

"To get into their training camp is a big deal," said Dave King, president of Triple Crown Sports, the local sports firm which represents Hammon and Cronin.

Cronin got a phone call Wednesday afternoon saying Liberty general manager Carol Blazejowski wanted her to report Thursday morning for camp. Cronin signed a one-year contract - for the league rookie minimum of $28,000 - which will go into effect if she makes the final roster. Hammon signed a contract extension Tuesday for nearly $40,000.

The teammates, who during their careers from 1995-1999 put CSU women's basketball on the national map, spent the past year living just a few minutes down the road from each other. Cronin was an assistant coach at Seton Hall (a job from which she has since resigned) while Hammon conducted clinics, spoke to groups and shot WNBA and Liberty commercials.

They have been training together and played numerous pickup games during the offseason. In fact, it was those pickup games - some of which were played in front of and with Blazejowski in her regular Sunday night outings - that got Cronin noticed.

"The Liberty had a lot of chances to watch her play, so they filed with the league to get her in camp," said Kelly Packard, the players' agent/representative. "Katie got to play in front of the people making decisions, a lot just because she was in that area."

Packard said Portland, Los Angeles and Utah also had high interest in Cronin.

This is the first time Cronin, a 6-foot small forward, has been invited to a WNBA training camp, although she has gone to pre-draft camps. Packard said people around the league have told her they like Cronin's ability to score offensively from anywhere on the court, and have seen improvements in her defensive foot speed over the past year.

Hammon, a 5-6 guard, is known for her scoring. She averaged 11.0 points a game, 1.8 assists and 2.0 rebounds while starting 16 of 32 games last year. In her two seasons with New York, the Liberty has twice advanced to the WNBA Finals.

"I really feel Becky has a very good chance to be a 10-12 year player in this league," King said. "She's on their season-ticket forms, their promotional material. She's been incorporated into their publicity campaign in a big way.

"She can deliver on the court, she's a fan favorite and now a league favorite."

Hammon's No. 25 is one of five replica jerseys the Liberty sells. Not bad for a player who wasn't drafted coming out of college. Neither was Cronin, who King says is in the same spot Hammon was in two years ago.

"Katie's got a ticket in the door," King said. "Katie is like Becky, if you can get her in the door, it's hard to send her home. They're gamers."