I think for many women who are divorced or widowed and have money, people think, "Oh, they can sit back and pop bonbons." When there are women like myself who want to do something with their money we get criticized; people wonder what we’re trying to prove.

Fortunately, some opportunities have come along, like buying a stake in Washington Sports Entertainment last May, which has given me the Women’s National Basketball Association team, the Mystics. I’m a managing partner. I have been able to break into a white boy’s network that is the most closed thing out there in the sports industry. You know, they are having a ball, and I wanted to be out there with them.

A lot of people said, "You don’t need to be doing this." I said the men do it; why can’t I be doing it? And if you are tough, they call you a bitch. But there’s a way of working that out. I work the men. And I’m not called that word, at least not to my face.

Were you always a basketball fan?

I never miss a game. I’ve always been a basketball fan, plus I was a University of Illinois cheerleader. There are a lot of owners who don’t even show up at their own games. When I became an owner, the Mystics’ attendance had dropped by an average of about 2,000 fans per game from the previous year. The best-known player, seven-time all-star Chamique Holdsclaw, had been traded to Los Angeles, and they’d had a five-game losing streak, which we broke. If I do miss a game, because of commitments with my own children, I’m on the phone with them.

I’m going to tell you something about these women. All the women in the WNBA are extraordinary human beings. They play the purest form of the game. They are honest, they care about one another. Their average yearly pay is about $37,000. They go to Europe to play in the off-season because they can get $40,000 a month and do endorsements there.

You go into an NBA locker room or a hockey locker room and it looks like you’ve stepped into a palatial penthouse. You know what we have? There are rats in the dressing room. Seriously. And a small metal tub for a whirlpool. This is on my hit list for this year.

And, as it happens, your ex-husband owns the Charlotte Sting WNBA team, and your team beat his last season in all four games they played.

It’s fun! We have a good team. I don’t want to poison our luck, however.