McWilliams-Franklin's husband inspired by her long career

Taj McWilliams-Franklin's husband Reggie is amazed by his wife. At 40, she is still playing in the WNBA and starting for the Lynx, the team with the best record in the league.

"I get a lot of motivation just being married to her," Reggie Franklin said. "It's incredible. I watch a lot of sports, basketball and football mostly. And a lot of the commentators say that as soon as a guy is over 30, it is automatically downhill."

Not for his wife, obviously.

"She has been real consistent," Reggie Franklin said. "She evaluates herself year to year. She takes care of herself. Maybe she has another couple of years.

"She told another a reporter a couple of years ago she sees herself a bit like a superhero. She will go wherever her services are needed. Where she is appreciated and needed to come in."

Reggie Franklin stayed with his wife in the Twin Cities for about two months this summer as did their daughter, Maia, 8. He said Taj is really enjoying playing for the Lynx and has a good relationship with coach Cheryl Reeve.

"I'll leave it up to her, but I don't see why she would leave," he said.

Reggie Franklin said he met his wife through basketball. He was a serviceman stationed in Italy. She was playing on an overseas team there and knew some guys on his military base.

She came to watch them play and he was playing for his unit's team. They met after that game and then saw each other a few times around the base. She'd go there, he said, because it had a store with American products.

LYNX VS. SAN ANTONIO

If the WNBA season ended today, the Lynx would play fourth-place San Antonio in the Western Conference standings.

The Lynx will have a say if the Silver Stars stay in fourth, the final playoff spot. They play San Antonio in the next two games, Friday at Target Center and Sunday in Texas.

"It would be great for her to play at home," Reggie Franklin said, "a lot of our neighbors like to watch her." He said if the Lynx reach the WNBA finals, he would travel wherever they play to support his wife.

BY TAJ McWILLIAMS-FRANKLIN

McWilliams-Franklin likes to write, read and sew. Here is a short, amusing essay she wrote about an experience she had en route to Lynx training camp in May.

on a sw flight to the nether regions of Minnesota with a man in too tight and too small running shorts who every 15 to 30 seconds must readjust himself so us paying customers will not be exposed to more of him than we want.

his skin is stuck solidly against the awkward brown post leather airplane seats that contain stains only Jesus himself knows who left. It is chilly at 18,000 feet (yet steadily climbing) and I think of the childhood teasing, "you got the cooties."

its a hard world we grow up in and as we climb higher I again glance sideways at the left handed, running shorts wearing, cooties having, package fixing, grey haired man in seat 11d looking for his lost youth on a sw airlines flight to denver.

Comment: Thanks Taj for the writing sample. The story makes me wonder who this man is -- so I can be sure to avoid him.

I asked her for a story related to her sport. But McWilliams-Franklin said, "I don't write about basketball."