"When beggars die there are no comets seen..."

That from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. If true, it's a bad time to be a panhandler in our nation's fourth largest city.

So, after 12 seasons and four straight WNBA titles, the Houston Comets are no more. I am neither surprised nor heartbroken (though I really hate to see any such venture fail as it usually involves people incurring some degree of financial ruin and a lot of lost jobs). I was present, in a professional capacity, at The Summit (later known as Compaq Center and ultimately home to Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church) on August 30, 1997 when the Comets defeated the New York Liberty 65-51 to claim the WNBA's inaugural championship (as mentioned earlier, they would go on to also win the next three). At that event, I experienced my career's single-most unpleasant encounter with an athlete in an attempted exchange with Sheryl Swoopes (apparently, she was pissed because she didn't play after having come back from missing the entire season due to her pregnancy). Head coach Van Chancellor (member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, by the way) had agreed to be a live guest, in-studio, for the debut of our half hour sports show, Extra Points (still on the air, every Saturday evening, all these years later... hey, we outlived the Comets!). Amongst my assigned duties that day was making sure the coach got to the car the station had hired (hey, we know how to treat our guests!) in time to make it over to the studio for the show. This was an experience made interesting by not only the challenge of pulling the coach away from celebrating his freshly-minted title, but also by the fact that about 23 members of his considerably corpulent family were apparently "coming with". I submit that one cannot have truly lived until they have witnessed a stretch limo become something akin to a clown car. Upon our arrival at the station, an obese army of the sons and daughters of the Mississippi soil emerged, one-by-one, from the now low-riding limo, like so many 25 cent gumballs from the vending machine at the mall. It was a sight to see!

Ah, memories... Rest in peace, sweet Comets.