Michelle Agins, at right.The simple way to tell the story is to say that Michelle Agins of The New York Times has been shooting the Women’s National Basketball Association since its creation in 1997. Accurate enough, but the story goes deeper. You could trace it to the fact that Ms. Agins herself played hoops as a girl growing up in Chicago. It began in earnest when she started covering the women’s basketball team of the University of Connecticut, at Storrs. “I was watching them, year after year, growing into great players who had no place to go after college other than Europe,” Ms. Agins recalled. That was one reason she so enthustiastically welcomed the W.N.B.A. She cares deeply about her subjects, as she’s made plain in her coverage of the Neediest Cases Fund (“In Dark Corners, Hope,” Nov. 6, 2009.) Ms. Agins took the photographs for the book “Rookie: Tamika Whitmore’s First Year in the W.N.B.A.,” by Joan Anderson (Dutton Juvenile, 2000). She’s been gratified by the growth of interest in the women’s league. On Thursday night, she said, there were so many photographers covering the game that they were literally underfoot. Today, Ms. Agins said, she takes it as a compliment when someone calls out, “You shoot like a girl!”
The audio slide show was produced by Niko Koppel, Josh Haner and James Estrin.
