With everything happening in the WNBA nowadays, we almost forgot that one of its major-market teams is embroiled in a lawsuit – the details of which look like a classic script for an intriguing Black television drama.
Former Los Angeles Sparks general manager Penny Toler recently spoke to Forbes about her lawsuit against the team. She was released from the Sparks after an explosive Ramona Shelburne piece at ESPN detailing a profanity-laced tirade Toler dished out at Sparks players following Game 2 of last year’s semifinals with the Connecticut Sun.
It also made mention of a disagreement between coach Derek Fisher and Candace Parker on how to go forward with the Sparks’ strategy to avoid being swept by the Sun after being down 2-0. Los Angeles was eventually swept.
Toler’s suit alleged that her firing came because of raising concerns about a supposed affair between the team president (Christine Simmons) and Eric Holoman – a Sparks managing partner that she said made her job difficult.
Being a Black woman in this field, when they want to dismiss you, they pull the oldest card in this business.
–Penny Toler, former LA Sparks general manager (Forbes)
… and what they made me out to be was an angry Black woman who uses all these obscenities, but because I wouldn’t do what they wanted me to do, they tried to go for the jugular.
–Penny Toler, former LA Sparks general manager (Forbes)
Toler’s attorney also spoke to Forbes and hinted that the WNBA’s Black Lives Matter stance in juxtaposition to the situation made the league appear hypocritical.
The former Sparks general manager also contended that there was a double-standard for male employees and made mention of Los Angeles’ coach from 2015-18 (Brian Agler) but he was not mentioned by name in the initial lawsuit.
Toler contends that after Simmons left the Sparks to take a job at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, her connection to Holoman still made her job difficult. She also mentioned this connection prevented her from making a Candace Parker trade and that Agler also “made unwelcome sexual advances.”
New allegations made in the Forbes piece hint that Simmons did not provide the same 2016 championship rings to the front office as was done the players and that she had to go to Los Angeles’ ownership group for details such as practices at Staples Center.
