
Even though unwed motherhood is a hot-button issue right now, it’s rare to hear from women who know about the topic firsthand. But we’ll get that chance on Mother’s Day , when ABC presents “Mothers of Strength and Spirit,” the last program in the Passion to Play series of four shows devoted to female athletes. (The first two were broadcast in April; the third, “Women of Adventure,” airs May 7.
One of the highlights of “Mothers of Strength and Spirit” is an interview with Karleen Shields, which is excerpted here. At 26, Shields is a highly regarded guard on the University of Southern California’s women’s-basketball team, a full-time sociology major, and the mother of two daughters, Ayesha, 8, and Keisha, 7. She was heavily recruited as a high-school senior in Texas, but then, finding herself pregnant,…