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 If
you think the top scorer in Princeton women’s
basketball history -- and the second-leading scoring
in all of Princeton basketball history -- would go on
to become an integral part of a WNBA team, you’d be
right. If you think she continues to chuck jump shots from
all over the court with the same relentless fervor that she
did at Princeton, you’d be mistaken.
Predictably, Sandi Bittler ’90 has parlayed her
successful Princeton basketball career into a successful
Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) career.
However, as the Vice President for Business Operations for
the Portland Fire, she hardly touches the court these
days.
“At this point, I don’t even touch a basketball
anymore,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t do
anything that reminds me that I used to play.”
Many of the fans and basketball historians familiar with
Princeton basketball don’t need to be reminded of
Bittler, because her accomplishments are still fresh in
their memories. As a Tiger, she racked up 1,683 career
points and was a two-time All-Ivy selection. 12 years after
her graduation, Bittler still holds League marks for
three-pointers in a game (10) and season (51). In addition,
she graduated from Princeton as the NCAA’s leader in
three-point field goals made per game, and still ranks in
the top ten in that category and career three-point
percentage. More importantly, Bittler took a team that had
one winning season in the previous eight years to a
four-year record of 63-40, including a 20-win season and two
second-place finishes in the Ivy League. She was also a
two-time Academic All-American (1989 and 1990).
As a testament to her greatness on and off the floor,
Princeton Athletic News named her the “Player of the
Century” for women’s basketball.
Her journey to Princeton started in Mercer, Pa., a small
town 60 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pa. As a child, Bittler
played pick-up basketball games with her two brothers and
other boys in the neighborhood. On the city courts, Bittler
fashioned what became known around the Princeton campus as a
curious mix between a set shot and a jump shot. Although not
quite a fundamentally sound technique, Bittler made it work
to her advantage. Was the catalyst for her shooting success
repetition or a passion for glory? Bittler claims it was a
bit of both.
“I loved to have the ball in my hands…which means
I was a ball hog,” she says with tongue firmly planted
in cheek. “But that’s where all the glory
was.”
Coming out of high school, Bittler had aspirations of
attending a big-time women’s basketball program. She
sent letters to powerhouses Connecticut and Virginia, but
they weren’t interested in this short girl from rural
Pennsylvania. She ended up choosing Princeton over several
other Ivy League schools.
“I actually chose Princeton because -- and this is how
cocky I was -- their point guard had graduated the year
before I got there,” she remembers. “So, in my
mind, it would be an easy transition for me to get the
starting point guard position there.”
Although Bittler shrugs her teenage cockiness off with a
laugh and a little self-deprecating humor, she was right in
her assumption. Bittler did go on to start all four
years. Her biggest regret, however, is that she never helped
the Tigers win an Ivy championship.
“I just felt like we were good enough to have done
that,” she says. “I would have like do have done
that for Princeton, you know, just as a kind of thank you
for everything they gave us.”
Bittler graduated with a degree in Biology and went overseas
to play professional basketball. However, with graduate
school on the horizon, she came back to take a year off
before going to medical school. She decided to send a blind
resume to the NBA.
“Basically, I told them, ‘I played basketball and
if there was a women’s league, that’s where
I’d be going,’” she says. “But since
there wasn’t a women’s league at the time, I at
least wanted to work in the professional league.”
Bittler’s resume must have caught someone’s eye in
the NBA, because she was offered an entry-level position as
a fan services assistant. She recently joked that, while
answering much of the NBA’s fan mail, she became pen
pals with prisoners all over the country.
She moved from a fan services assistant to a public
relations assistant to a high-ranking marketing position.
While with the marketing team, she served as the chief
on-site contact and event manager for the 52-game
pre-Olympics schedule of the 1996 women’s basketball
team (who would eventually win the Olympic Gold later that
year). She also researched and developed a preliminary
business plan for the WNBA,
a project that would help her years later.
That “one-year-off plan” with the NBA lasted seven
years.
“Grad school went out the window,” she says.
“(The NBA office) was the perfect place for me because
I gained experience in so many different departments and I
was just moving from department to department, and really
getting a broad overview of all the different areas of
marketing and promotions, advertising, and
operations.”
Armed with the knowledge gained from the NBA, she took a
position with Nike, where she headed their women’s
sports marketing department.
“It was one of those type of things where I hadn’t
scripted out what would happen, but it just seemed to make
sense,” she says. “I liked working with sports,
and I had the opportunity to do it from the women’s
side.”
Bittler’s star shined brightly with Nike. She
negotiated apparel contracts with more than 100 women’s
collegiate programs, developed a local program known as
“Three for All,” a basketball skills competition
created exclusively for girls and the first of its kind. She
also marketed the 1998 U.S. women’s Olympic ice hockey
team and the 1999 U.S. women’s soccer World Cup
team.
As a woman, a former athlete, and a supporter of
women’s athletics, Bittler was at the forefront of the
women’s athletics movement in the mid- to
late-90’s...much of it fueled by Nike. During this time
period, a women’s professional basketball league was
launched, a women’s professional soccer league was
launched (following the widely successful 1999 year for the
U.S. women’s World Cup team), a women’s
professional softball league was launched, and women’s
collegiate basketball and soccer saw unparalleled
growth.
“I liked that position because I always appreciated the
opportunities that I’ve had as a woman in sports,”
says Bittler about her career with Nike. “But that
opportunity (at Nike) allowed me to create additional
opportunities for young girls in sports.”
In 1999, after three years with Nike, she accepted her
current position with the Portland
Fire. For Bittler, it was
the logical next step to her career in sports.
“It just seemed to complete my circle,” she says.
“For somebody who loves basketball to be able to run a
team and show the world that women really could play
basketball on an extremely high level.”
Bittler oversees the entire Portland Fire franchise, mainly
focusing on selling tickets (the Fire average 8,600 fans per
home game), sponsorships, driving revenue, and making all
the business decisions. Bittler was there from the
beginning, giving up her Nike job when the Portland Fire was
only a vision, and a hopeful WNBA franchise. One of
Bittler’s first assignments was to acquire 5,500 season
ticket holders in time for the league’s mandated Oct.
15th deadline. That was just to be one of the four cities
selected for the WNBA’s 1999 expansion plans.
So far, so good. Bittler helped secure the necessary ticket
sales in her first few months on the job. Now, three years
into the Fire’s five-year plan, Bittler has shifted her
focus with the franchise.
“This challenge was really to come in and get it
started, and to do something that I could build from the
ground up,” she says. “Now my focus is just on
improving. Because I think every year we get better at what
we do, and we put a better product on the floor.”
Now that things are progressing smoothly with her career and
the Portland Fire, Bittler has time to sit back and reflect
on all the great things sports has done for her life. She
has a long and rich history with athletics, and is
appreciative of what sports has given back to her.
“All the things you get from athletics extend beyond
the basketball court. You get things that you need in
day-to-day life,” she says. “You learn how to work
with people. You learn how to share and to distribute, to
not be selfish and to choose more for the team instead of
the individual. It sounds cliché, but obviously what
you can take back from sports can help you for the rest of
your life.”
--by Nathan Fry
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