Miami Rain set for run in playoffs
Posted July 23, 2011
BY FABIAN LYON
FLYON@MIAMIHERALD.COM
A nomadic basketball career has led Jamie Skinner and Charmaine Clark to the Miami Rain (8-1), an emerging semi-professional team that enters the Women’s Blue Chip Basketball League Suncoast Division Regional Tournament as the No. 1 seed Saturday.
Perhaps nothing Skinner and Clark will experience in what they hope will be a 3-0 run at Florida Memorial University and subsequent bid to the National Tournament in Atlanta can rival the colorful stories Skinner has related playing in Rwanda and Clark in Iceland.
Skinner, a former NAIA All-American at Langston University in Oklahoma, said she and other foreign-born players have enjoyed a rock star-like following as members of the Rwanda Women National team.
From being hounded for autographs to locals adopting her with a name change, Skinner said the atmosphere during the last three years has been festive.
“You feel like a superstar over there,’‘ Skinner said. “You feel like Lebron and Michael Jordan. I was shocked when they told me my name is Leticia Amahoro over there. Amahoro means peace. That was crazy. I had to get used to it.”
The Lester Patterson-coached Rain and its explosive attack, led by six players averaging in double figures – Skinner (10 ppg), Alysha Harvin (15.2 ppg), Lashonda Gaines (12.9 ppg), Clark (10.5 ppg), Kiesha Alexander (10.8 ppg) and Melissa Dalembert (10.2 ppg) along with one of the league’s top reserves – Christina Rozier (8 ppg), face the Palm Beach Storm at 7 p.m.
Like Skinner, Clark, a native of Hinesville, Georgia who starred at the University of Miami, has had her own eye-opening experiences overseas.
Besides the language barrier and physical play in the Iceland league, Clark said a 43-point performance was made all the more memorable by two opposing fans dressed as medieval knights heckling her from the audience.
“I just laughed at them,” said Clark. “It was all in fun. I really enjoyed the culture.”