Don't laugh. This, really is a good thing.

I've been around professional athletes off and on for most of my life. I've seen the lifestyle. At a very early age (I think it was age 6), I concluded that I never wanted to marry a professional athlete (no matter how dreamy Paul Coffey is!). But most people--heck, even most fans--have no idea what the life of a professional athlete is all about, much less knowing what life with them entails.

No, it's not all about the bling-bling, partying with superstars, living on vast estates and driving a different SUV every day. It's about dealing with women throwing themselves at these guys everywhere they go (I've seen so much of that and even as a six-year-old couldn't understand how a grown woman would so readily humiliate herself). And if your husband gets with the wrong bimbo (and, the groupies are mostly bimbos), you have to deal with the fallout (Kobe Bryant's wife is being scrutinized nearly as much as Kobe is).

During an NBA season (or NHL season, or NFL season, or MLB season...) your husband's life--actually the life of your entire household--revolves around the game. It centers on getting him ready for the game (and it is a day-long process), or getting him ready to go on the road.

Mostly, being a sports wife is about being alone. A lot. Unless you have children, then in that case you're a single parent throughout your husband's career. And when he gets traded...well there's options there. Pack up the house (mostly by yourself), pull the kids out of school and ship the whole lot off to a new town where you have to readjust and your kids have to readjust to a new town and new school. Or, if you don't want to uproot the kids in the middle of the school year, you live in City A, while your husband camps out in City B for the rest of the season.

So, basically, the life of the wife of a professional athlete is a lot of alone time punctuated with bursts of chaos getting the husband ready to play (or ready to travel). And, no, lots of money, lots of designer clothes, going to A-list parties (where you have to share your husband yet again), or lots of precious gems don't make up for missing your sweetie (and hoping he's not taking up with some Annie wherever he is).

While I've known a lot of pro athlete's wives who have been a little "whooooooooo", most of them were perfectly wonderful, bright, ambitious women. When I worked for a minor pro hockey team, I reached out to the wives/fiancees/girlfriends of some of the players (much to the chagrin of the coach/gm's assistant--and girlfriend--who seemed to want the players and their families to be dependent on her). And after dealing with the burden of supporting their husbands through career ups and downs, being uprooted once or twice a year and having to start over (and over and over) again, I sensed that they really appreciated the fact that I was interested in them and how they were adjusting to San Francisco (no easy task...especially if you're a francophone French-Canadian), instead of just talking to them to get access to their husbands.

So, I applaud these women for taking the initiative for assigning themselves their own identities (beyond "_______'s wife"). I applaud these women for educating themselves...not just academically, but also in terms of day-to-day life issues like personal finance and even having psychologists and marital therapists speak to the network.

As far as I'm concerned, "Behind the Bench" is the most positive thing--and about the only positive thing--about the NBA. I hope that the wives in the other major league sports build (or have built) a similar network (I know some NHL teams have a strong Wives association, but have never heard about a league-wide effort). And beyond that, I'd love to see the wives across all the major leagues (and minor leagues) network as well.