Basketball Player Sues Over Flagrant Foul : Sports: Former Golden West College star says she is seeking $1 million because an opposing player shoved her into a wall and ended her athletic career.

HUNTINGTON BEACH — After two seasons at shooting guard for the Golden West Rustlers, the moment Erika Miller dreamed about had finally arrived. She and her teammates were on their way to the California Community College women’s basketball tournament in Ventura.

There, Miller hoped she would get a chance to showcase her talent for scouts from four-year colleges and universities who held out the prospect of an athletic scholarship.

But on Feb. 24, 1993, in a playoff game against Antelope Valley Community College just a week before the tournament, Miller saw her aspirations dashed. Literally.

As she went airborne to attempt a breakaway layup, an Antelope Valley player shoved her, slamming her into a wall under the basket. Miller was taken to a hospital with a dislocated left elbow, an injury that ended her career. The player, Niani Dunn, was ejected from the game for a flagrant foul.

Now Miller, a former all-star basketball player at Edison High School here, is taking legal action. She filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court last week seeking $1 million in damages from Dunn, Antelope Valley Community College and the college’s women’s basketball coach, Jackie Lott.

“I feel like part of my life has been taken away from me,” the 20-year-old Huntington Beach woman said Monday. “No money can make up for the pain I’ve gone through, but I kind of feel like I’ve lost my future.”

Local basketball coaches describe the action as unusual, saying they cannot remember any lawsuits involving on-court activities. But legal action, even criminal prosecution, for deliberate acts of violence in sports is not entirely unprecedented.

In 1988, Dino Ciccarelli of the Minnesota North Stars was sentenced to a day in jail for striking Luke Richardson of the Toronto Maple Leafs with his hockey stick on the head twice. A handful of other hockey players have also been charged over the last three decades after attacking competitors with their sticks.

In Miller’s case, school officials did not call the police, but then-Athletic Director Tom Hermstad fired off a letter to his counterpart at Antelope Valley to ask whether any action had been taken against Dunn and Lott.

After the foul was committed, Lott was not concerned that Miller was sprawled on the floor--in pain, Hermstad wrote. He said the opposing coach screamed at the referees, “ ‘How could you throw (Niani Dunn) out of the game? We are already down X amount of points. How do we get back in the game?’ ”

Tom Brandige, vice president of Antelope Valley Community College, declined on Monday to discuss the lawsuit or the contents of Hermstad’s letter. The school also did not reply to Hermstad’s correspondence because of the potential for litigation. Dunn and Lott could not be reached for comment.

“I hope this does not sound sexist, but if that was a men’s game, I expect that there would have been a brawl,” said Hermstad, who is now vice president of instruction at Golden West College. “(Dunn) made no attempt to play the ball. If there was ever a word for brutal, that foul typified it.”

Richard Stricklin, the Rustlers’ basketball coach, said the foul probably cost Golden West the state championship because the team lost Miller, a three-point specialist who was averaging 12.3 points a game.

“I would be concerned if something like that happened to my daughter,” Stricklin said. “I’ve seen people sue for situations that were a lot less violent.”

Miller’s attorney, Susan Cameron Kelley of Huntington Beach, said her client’s damage claim was routinely denied by the Antelope Valley School District last year. Kelley said she was almost certain that Miller would prevail in her lawsuit, noting that she had obtained a videotape showing the incident.

“That foul was battery,” Kelley asserted. “It’s not what people agree to do when they step on a basketball court.”

Miller, a devoted Magic Johnson and Lakers fan, said she is not trying to set a precedent by making money from a flagrant foul, but merely seeking some compensation for her injuries and ruined athletic career.

She recalled the cast she wore for seven weeks, her loss of earnings as a waitress and the extreme disappointment of never being able to step on a basketball court again because of continuing pain in her elbow.

“No amount of money could pay for what I’ve been through,” Miller said. “The bottom line is she was trying to hurt me, and that’s not in the game.”