By: Editor Connie Brady
August 23, 1999, 10:08 p.m.
Lively memorial a fitting tribute
By MICKEY HERSKOWITZ
Copyright 1999 Houston ChronicleNO one cried.
Oh, a few puddled up. I saw a younger woman, a blonde, and an older, silver-haired one, a few rows apart, dab at their eyes with a hankie. But four days after her death, there were not many tears left to be shed for Kim Perrot, the cuddly little Comets guard who captured a city's heart.
It's hard to cry when the house is jumping. This house happened to be the palatial Second Baptist Church, with its stained glass dome and an auditorium large enough for a basketball game. The music from the choir and two soloists almost blew off the roof, and what they staged Monday was more than what had been advertised, much more than a celebration of life. This was a concert.
At times, the guests were on their feet, standing and clapping, and from different points in the room the word "right!" would pop up like bubbles, in response to a nicely turned phrase.
Outside, the sky was growly, with dark clouds that threatened rain but never delivered. So the day was drier than you had imagined, as Kim's family, friends, fans and teammates gathered to comfort one another.
They were not in a mournful mood. There was no casket, no burial, just candid shots on the video screen and loving words from half a dozen speakers, including Les Alexander, the owner of the Comets; Van Chancellor, their coach; and Cynthia Cooper, the team's star and Kim's best friend.
Poetry in motion
Cooper read a passage from a poem that Perrot had included in a letter written in her final days. The poem was titled Me, and included this haunting and perfectly aimed thought:
"I look in the mirror and don't know what I see,
"I look again and see that it is me.
"On my head there is no hair,
"And an upside-down horseshoe that causes people to stare."
The scar was the visible reminder of the surgery that removed a brain tumor the size of a golf ball but could not save her life. She did not wear a wig, and only on occasion donned a cap or a hat. There was nothing self-conscious about Kim, before or after her illness. This was her look, her essence, herself. She had that gift of making you feel you knew her, even if you had never gotten closer than 20 rows from the floor.
In a sense, we did get to know her in the not-quite-three years that she helped represent women's basketball in Houston. She didn't have a lengthy career, nor life, but she never wasted a minute of either. She was not a legend, or a superstar, or a national name or face. She was uniquely Houston's own, out of neighboring Louisiana, Our Girl.
She had pride and energy and wit and the kind of courage that inspires those who have it to get close to the flame because the light is better.
She wore No. 10 on her jersey, and she was one, a perfect 10, certainly in heart and soul. You think of her with her curly hair cropped short and blond, taking the ball to the hole after a steal, pointing both index fingers at the crowd behind the basket in a two-gun salute. And flashing a smile that said, simply, "Can you believe it? I get paid to do this."
She dealt so openly with her battle against cancer that she drew most of the sports community, and many outside it, into her story. They embraced her with hoops of steel.
The crowd on the first workday of the week was around 3,000, and as you studied them filing out of the church, a non-scientific poll suggested these results: Half were men and half were women, half were young and half were old, half were black and half were white.
The will to succeed
Carroll Dawson, a former coach and now an executive with both the Rockets and the Comets, may have given us the best of all character insights. "She reminded me of Calvin Murphy," he said. "Calvin woke up every morning feeling that he had something to prove. Kim was exactly the same. She never stopped competing."
She was 5-5 and feisty, flush with confidence, a role model for any girl, or boy, who wants to dream. She beat the odds to become a star in college at Southwestern Louisiana, broke records, played on USA championship teams, and went to Europe for modest money. In the late 1980s, women's basketball didn't really exist in America. It was like being an astronaut, spending your life in training, and being told there was no moon.
Kim Perrot was 32, with potential and plans, when her time ran out. She didn't smoke or drink or do drugs; there was no self-destructive behavior that can be blamed for what happened to her. It just happened. After the services, the guests mingled in the parking lot, reluctant to leave. You only hope that she really knew how deeply she touched this city, and these fans, because the outpouring for Kim went well beyond the usual grief for an athlete dying young.
By W.H. STICKNEY JR.
Copyright 1999 Houston ChronicleMonday was a "Celebration of Life" for Kim Perrot, the diminutive Houston Comets point guard with a warrior's spirit who last week died of lung cancer.
For the approximately 3,000 people who attended a memorial service at Second Baptist Church in West Houston, it was a celebration that featured equal parts smiles and tears.
Ed Young, pastor of Second Baptist, described it as graduation day, "and we think she graduated top of the class, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude."
"That's the kind of gal she was," Young said.
Perrot, 32, who died Thursday at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, will be buried today in her hometown of Lafayette, La., in private services to be attended by family, friends, her Comets teammates and coaches.
Her fans and local dignitaries, including Mayor Lee Brown, gathered Monday for a memorial service that celebrated Perrot's spirit and accomplishments and "couldn't have been any more perfect," said her coach, Van Chancellor.
A succession of Perrot's friends and loved ones made their way up the stairs to the pulpit to offer remembrances of the player with the warm smile and courageous heart.
"The Comet fans who have joined our team in celebrating back-to-back world championships are now celebrating the life of one of Houston's brightest stars, and a big, big reason for the success of the WNBA," said Comets and Rockets owner Leslie Alexander. "Kim was special. To live her life with all her heart and to succeed when the odds were against her, Kim used her gifts to the fullest.
"Surely, Kim would be on any all-heart basketball team. She never gave up on her dreams or the people in her life."
Perrot's face and the words "Celebrating the Life" were pictured on the sanctuary's giant video screens as family members, teammates and coaches filed into the church to the strains of the hymn, Jesus, I'll Never Forget What You've Done for Me.
To the right of the base of the pulpit stood a floral spray of white carnations with a huge red "10," Perrot's jersey number, in the middle.
Music was provided by the St. Agnes Baptist Church choir, Grammy Award-winning gospel singer Yolanda Adams, and tenor Hanq Neal of Windsor Village United Methodist Church.
Speakers included the Rev. D.Z. Cofield, pastor of Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church; Lee DeMontrond, a Comets corporate sponsor through the DeMontrond family-owned auto dealerships; and Omni McCluney, a Comets ball girl since the team's inception in 1997.
McCluney referred to Perrot as "a person who changes your life, who takes the time to listen to your dreams and goals."
"Some people may call this person a mentor. But I call this person a big sister and true friend," McCluney said.
When it was Chancellor's turn to speak, he fought back tears, then moved listeners to laughter and tears of their own with his memories of a player who became a friend.
Chancellor said he initially thought of Perrot as a ballplayer who was "too wild, too small and too everything," and it wasn't until he got a letter from two disgruntled Comets fans that he decided that Perrot would be his point guard.
" `Point guards like her (Perrot) are hard to find, and we are writing Les Alexander to say coaches like you are a dime a dozen,' " Chancellor said, remembering the words of the letter. "I called Perrot in, said, `Kimbo, sit down. Read this. You're our point guard, you've got the job, you're going to play, I don't care what you do.
"She said, `Coach, what I do is not my problem. My problem is what Cynthia (Cooper), Sheryl (Swoopes) and Tina (Thompson) do. Every time they do something wrong, you blame me.'
"We began to develop a relationship."
The morning's most touching moment came when Cooper took over from Chancellor.
She talked of how Perrot had changed and enriched her life, making her a more complete person, and of how Perrot was "someone special to me."
"No one will ever understand what she actually gave me," Cooper said.
Then, she read a poem titled He Only Takes the Best:
"God saw she was getting tired, and a cure was not to be," Cooper read. "So he put his arms around her, and whispered, `Come with me.'
"With tear-filled eyes, we watched her suffer and fade away; although we loved her deeply, we could not make her stay. A golden heart stopped beating, hard-working hands put to rest. God broke our hearts to prove to us he only takes the best."
Perrot was the heart of the Comets' championship teams in the first two seasons of the Women's National Basketball Association. She was diagnosed in January as suffering from lung cancer that had spread to her brain.
The Comets, who will wear white bands on their uniforms in Perrot's honor, return to the court later this week in search of a third WNBA championship. They will play either Los Angeles or Sacramento in the Western Conference finals beginning Thursday.
