Sequoia Holmes reprises her role as WNBA Ace in the hole

By
Las Vegas Review-Journal

In the days of the classic TV westerns, an actor named Richard Boone portrayed a memorable character named Paladin — a gentlemanly gunslinger who traveled the Old West as a mercenary and solved temporary problems with his six-shooter.

“Have Gun — Will Travel.”

Metaphorically speaking, that was Sequoia Holmes’ calling card after she was summoned to fill in a gap for the Aces’ during a recent four-game trip.

The former Mojave High and UNLV star saw action in the first three games. She played 20 minutes, made a couple of baskets, pulled down a couple of rebounds, handed out a couple of assists, blocked a couple of shots.

When Nia Coffey was activated after recovering from an ankle injury, Holmes was released.

She also was among the last Aces discarded in training camp.

Holmes has had similar stints with the WNBA’s Houston Comets, Phoenix Mercury and San Antonio Stars, which is what the Aces were called before they relocated from Texas. She has appeared in 62 WNBA games, starting six.

She has been the last cut so many times that she must feel like setting Rod Stewart straight: It’s not the first cut that’s the deepest, not when you’ve put so much effort into making and sticking with a WNBA team as an undrafted free agent.

“I’m just trying to help out wherever I can,” said Holmes, who turned 32 on June 13.

It would be great if she got another chance to help out the Aces, she said.

When the team moved to her hometown, she thought it might be the ideal situation, the perfect way to supplement an income derived from hooping it up in Spain, Germany, Israel, Slovakia, Finland, Angola and other stickers on her suitcase.

But if not with the Aces, then perhaps with another WNBA squad.

“I kind of feel like I belong in the league,” said Holmes, adding that while the money is better on the other side of the pond, the best female players in the world are those on this side. “Hopefully another team will call me, and I’ll be ready.”

She has started playing rec league basketball against men to keep her game in shape for the next time somebody calls about solving a temporary problem. One of her male teammates is Wink Adams, whose star-studded career at UNLV ran concurrently with her own.

She said sometimes Wink even passes her the ball.

Too much NASCAR

With the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority having written a check for $2.5 million to help bring a second NASCAR Cup Series race to town starting in September, it seemed only a matter of time until Champion’s Week at season’s end was sent behind the wall, to use a stock car racing term.

The awards show will return this year but without the $400,000 sponsorship from Las Vegas Events, fueling speculation that NASCAR might be shopping for a new Champion’s Week venue.

“When you look at the number versus what we spend on a lot of other events that bring a lot more visitors, there just wasn’t the funding available,” Las Vegas Events president Pat Christenson said.

0:03

— The city of Philadelphia, which always seems to be upset about something, is really hacked off that Philadelphia 76ers sideline reporter and Green Valley High graduate Molly Sullivan has been fired by NBC Sports Philadelphia after six years. The 38-year-old said in a Twitter post that her employer was “moving in a new direction,” and the reaction on social media was more swift and fierce than had the Phillies traded Mike Schmidt to the Mets straight up for Dave Kingman back in the day.

— Registration is underway for the Simon Keith Foundation Golf Tournament and Dinner at Revere Country Club on Oct. 5, which helps the former UNLV soccer star raise a ton of cash for youngsters needing organ transplants. To register, go to thesimonkeithfoundation.com or call 702-249-4914. And, yes, Simon says there will be llamas on the tee boxes again.

— Las Vegans Miki Sudo and Rich LeFevre again will be giving their large intestines a workout at the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Championship on New York’s Coney Island. Sudo, who once wolfed down 71 Twinkies in six minutes during a competition in Tunica, Mississippi, only to settle for third place, will be seeking her fifth consecutive Nathan’s crown and an antacid sponsorship.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.

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