Storm News and Notes

Val Whiting, a former WNBA player and standout at Stanford, writes a monthly column in the Delaware News Journal on the female athlete. This month, her topic was how playing sports prepares women for the business world, and she chose a familiar subject - Storm co-owner Lisa Brummel, who is the senior vice president for human resources at Microsoft.

"The single biggest asset I have is not my education, not my experience, but my athletic background," Brummel said in a phone interview.

"If you look, you will find people doing well in business and who were also athletes. You need stamina and pacing in corporate America, having the stamina to be able to perform."

Beyond the athletic background of members of Force 10 Hoops L.L.C. (in addition to Brummel, an Ivy League Hall of Famer who played both basketball and softball at Yale, Ginny Gilder won a silver medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games as a rower [EDIT: I also completely blanked that Chairperson Anne Levinson played field hockey at the University of Kansas]), there's plenty of evidence of the value of sports experience here at the Storm. Our CEO Karen Bryant played basketball at UW, and I was counting this last week - around a third of our staff played some sport in college.

Needless to say, I am the odd man out in that regard. Those who can't ... blog.

- The Storm will be participating in next Tuesday's Salvation Army Celebrity Bell Ringing Day, to be held in front of the Downtown Nordstrom (500 Pine St.) from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sheryl Swoopes and the WNBA's best mascot, Doppler, will join other local celebrities (including Blake Lewis, Warren Moon and Lorenzo Romar, amongst many others) ringing bells and collecting for the Salvation Army's holiday drive.

- The WNBA announced today that the 2009 WNBA Draft Lottery will be held next Tuesday, the day after the Houston Comets Dispersal Draft. With the Comets ceasing operations, five teams are participating - Atlanta, Washington, Chicago, Minnesota and Phoenix.

The Storm will now pick 12th in the first round and also holds the 38th pick in the third round, having dealt its second-round pick to the Dream for Camille Little.

WNBA.com also has an interesting Dispersal Draft preview from Adam Hirshfield.