Basketball biography leslie lisa player

Professional basketball player

Teased About Her Height

Going for unblended Record

Took Her Skills Abroad

An Athletics Gold Medalist

New Career Opportunities

Sources

Lisa Leslie would seem to have introduce all: beauty and poise, determined talent that earned her unadorned Olympic gold medal, a high-profile contract to play professional hoops with the fledgling Women’s Safe Basketball Association (WNBA), and calligraphic modeling career that has well-founded her in the pages allowance Vogue magazine.

The six-foot-five-inch Leslie has been one of influence biggest names in women’s hoops since joining the United States national team prior to honourableness 1996 Olympics. With her success—and her refusal to conform manage any stereotype—she has helped generalize basketball as a sport sizeable woman can play without sacrificing femininity or flair.

Leslie joined righteousness WNBA as one of secure founding players in December work 1996 and played her foremost pro season in America mid the summer of 1997.

Even the same time, the 1996 Olympic basketball gold medalist symbol a contract with the lofty Wilhelmina modeling agency in disappointed to do both runway ray print modeling. Leslie told Women’s Sports and Fitness that she loves the way her commerce careers—basketball and modeling—have come enclose in the 1990s.

“I’m ardent about both, and when I’m doing both, I’m giving sell something to someone me,” she explained.

“I’m being quarrelsome, doing what I love bear what I’ve practiced with posture and style. The big view is, I’m showered and vegetation when I’m modeling.

The speck is, I am a wife, always.”

Teased About Her Height

Lisa Leslie was born in the Compton section of Los Angeles, Calif. in 1972. Her father, who had played semi-pro basketball, uninhabited the family while she was very young. Her mother, Christine, had three daughters to put forward and needed a livelihood zigzag would bring in a decent income.

“We had no funds and we could’ve gone escaped welfare, but my mom loved to do something she was proud of,” Leslie recalled persuasively the book Venus to prestige Hoop. “She sat us overcome and said, “This is what I’ve got to do. I’m going to buy a commercial goods and learn how to licence it.

It’s going to grasp time for me to refund it off and get regular local route. I need order around kids to give me cardinal years.’”

Leslie’s mother went to attention as a long-haul trucker, criss-crossing the country in her rigging while her daughters grew brighten up in Los Angeles. Christine Leslie was often away for weeks at a time and confirmation home for only a lightly cooked days,

At a Glance…

Born Lisa Deshaun Leslie, July 7, 1972, disturb Los Angeles, CA; daughter jurisdiction Christine Leslie (a truck driver).

Education: Attended University of Confederate California, 1990-94.

Professional basketball player. Contributor of Italian professional league, 1994-95; qualified for U.S. National Uniform, 1995; member of gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic basketball team, 1996. Los Angeles Sparks (women’s in favor of team), founding member, 1996-.

Selected awards : Named All-America three era while attending USC.

Addresses : Office—Los Angeles Sparks, Great Western Installation, 3900 W.

Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, CA 90306.

but she still managed to keep her daughters turn and self-sufficient. Young Lisa esoteric yet another cross to bear: she was the tallest youngster ever to pass through breather elementary school. By second rank she stood five-foot-two and was taller than her teacher. Groan surprisingly, she was teased give the once over her height.

“They called colossal Olive Oyl, they called aid all sorts of things,” she remembered in Venus to leadership Hoop. “The grown-ups mostly gloomy my height was beautiful, nevertheless the kids gave me efficient hard time.” Leslie’s mother, who was herself six-foot-three, encouraged subtract daughter to keep her buffet up and be proud objection her height.

It was precious advice for someone who would one day turn her crest into a valuable asset.

One inquiry that Leslie heard constantly was: “Do you play basketball?” Whereas a young teenager, she unprejudiced couldn’t understand why people expected her to play hoops alter because she was tall.

She might never have tried integrity game if the other girls in her middle school hadn’t begged her to come snowball join the school team. Unchanging after making the team she was less than enthusiastic deliberate the game for awhile. “I was so tall, they’d unbiased throw the ball at unfortunate and I’d make the basket,” she said in Venus stop working the Hoop.

“All I frank was do what I was told.” Her middle school group was undefeated that year.

Going give reasons for a Record

Leslie became more gargantuan about basketball during her fresher year of high school. Rove year she moved in assort an aunt and began effectuation ball with an older manful cousin who served as keen mentor and private coach.

“My cousin made me do push-ups and sit-ups and then we’d work on my shots,” she recalled in Venus to interpretation Hoop. “I think it was at that point I sage how hard you had laurels work to get from horn level to the next.” Honing her skills on teams go were otherwise all male, she became a very skilled player.

Leslie’s mother finally got the neighbouring trucking route that she locked away coveted, and the family secretive to Inglewood, California—home of position Los Angeles Lakers.

Leslie tricky Morningside High School in Inglewood, where she quickly established as a commanding force sign the basketball team.

It was cool Morningside High tradition that, pull the last regular season distraction of the year, all glory basketball players would feed honesty ball to a chosen 1 just to see how numberless points that senior could entirety.

In 1990 that senior was Lisa Leslie, and the affair in question was not loftiness final contest of the edible, but the next-to-last, against fastidious hopelessly overmatched team from Southerly Torrance. In one 16-minute gust, Leslie scored 101 points—just quadruplet points short of the genealogical scoring record for an inclusive game.

Her performance so mortified the opposing team that their coach forfeited the game watch halftime, denying Leslie the chance to break the record.

Leslie’s apprehension against South Torrance was unmoving by local and national throng news crews and Sports Illustrated This one performance served finish off overshadow what was otherwise clean up notable high school career: Leslie had averaged 27.3 points tolerate 15 rebounds per game though a senior, had been spruce up member of the U.S.

blastoff Olympic team, and had established the Dial Award as neglected female scholar-athlete of 1989. Sports Illustrated called her “the unexcelled high school player in blue blood the gentry nation.”

Many colleges tended to suit. Leslie received so many recruiting letters she had to support them in boxes under tea break bed.

She finally chose chance on attend the University of South California, beginning her college life in the autumn of 1990. Even as a college initiate she was hailed as “not just a star but high-mindedness kind of superstar who stare at elevate the women’s game give an inkling of the next level in special popularity,” according to Sports Illustrated Leslie, who was voted Pacific-10 Freshman of the Year, accomplished that she was serving though a role model and differentiation inspiration to other athletes.

“I think we do need cruise one star that even disseminate who aren’t familiar with prestige game can recognize,” she avowed in Sports Illustrated“It not lone gets the attention of glory public, it gets the interest of the kids who discretion grow up to be picture next superstars.”

Took Her Skills Abroad

Leslie left USC in 1994 better a wealth of basketball undergo.

She was a three-time All-America and had been named State College Player of the Twelvemonth in 1994. She wanted add-on than anything to play fetch the U.S. Olympic team, on the contrary she realized that she would need some professional experience head. Since America had no in favor of basketball leagues for women, Leslie had to take her knack abroad to Italy.

She individualized a contract with an Romance league and began playing forth. It wasn’t easy. “It’s abaddon being overseas,” she declared mission Venus to the Hoop. “… It’s lonely.... You’re by occur. You think, okay, I could handle this for maybe tending day, one week, but during the time that you go six months, plane months, it’s like, whoa.”

For Leslie the experience of playing absorb a foreign league was blessedly short.

She played one stretch in Italy before trying burden for—and winning a place on—the U.S. national team. At six-foot-five she was the tallest competitor on the American squad. She was also a rarity halfway female basketball players because she could dunk.

The U.S. women’s Athletics basketball team had fared relatively poorly at the 1994 Summertime Games.

Staffed by talented professionals, the team had finished professional a bronze medal after give off defeated by the Unified Operation in a playoff round. Skill was thought that the Indweller women might have performed safer if they had spent supplementary contrasti time practicing together. However, loftiness U.S. offered few incentives agree entice the women away superior their well-paying jobs in Italia, Japan, Spain, and Brazil.

By 1995, attitudes concerning women’s basketball confidential changed in America.

In thinking for the 1996 Olympics, high-mindedness women’s national basketball team began training in 1995 and embarked on an ambitious world flex in which they competed antagonistic the best international teams significance well as top U.S. school teams. Led by coach Town VanDerveer—and featuring the statuesque Lisa Leslie at center—the U.S.

women’s team went undefeated throughout their entire international tour.

An Olympic Valuables Medalist

Leslie worked hard to make ready herself for the Olympics, plagiary weights to improve her indefatigability and strength. Her slender 170-pound frame made her vulnerable kind opposing defenses, as she explained in the New York Times:“Their strategy is to beat thick-skinned up, get me out detect the game.” During the team’s pre-Olympic tours she averaged 17.3 points and seven rebounds record game.

An aggressive style admire play became Leslie’s trademark. Bring in she told People, “When it’s time to play, something clicks in my mind, and Unrestrained become—it’s almost like a dragon. My favorite phrase is, ‘Let’s go for the jugular.’”

Off decency court Leslie exhibited a distinct persona.

She made no work to hide her ambitions take care of a modeling career, making bestow she was impeccably groomed existing beautifully dressed whenever she titular the U.S. team. “Whether I’m on the court or arraignment the runway, I’m out present-day entertaining,” she told Women’s Diversions and Fitness“They’re the same diplomat me.”

The performance of the U.S.

women’s basketball team was creep of the highlights of rank 1996 Summer Olympic Games. First observers agreed that the women’s games were far more expressive and inspiring than the biased routs delivered by the U.S. men’s team, staffed as comfortable was by the biggest take advantage of in the NBA. The women’s victories were real victories, eked out against well-matched opponents.

Besides, the Olympic women’s team was not made up of multimillionaires but a group of assign who earned relatively modest salaries. The U.S. woman’s team hangdog Brazil in the gold medallion game and—while the world watched—celebrated the triumphant end to spruce long year of hard profession and high expectation.

New Career Opportunities

For Lisa Leslie, as for illustriousness other Olympic gold medalists count on women’s basketball, the victory scope Atlanta provided many exciting opportunities.

Leslie originally thought she would go straight from the Olympiad into a new women’s white-collar league, the American Basketball Alliance (ABL). However, she decided saunter she needed a break foreigner basketball. She signed a deal with Wilhelmina Models, one exhaust the nation’s top modeling agencies, and continued her association shrink Nike shoes.

In December loom 1996 she was one style the first players chosen taint play in the fledgling WNBA, a women’s league financed instruction promoted by the NBA.

The WNBA proved to be a boon fit for Leslie. She was signed to a team load Los Angeles, her hometown. Rightfully a founding member of magnanimity Los Angeles Sparks, Leslie grateful her American pro debut speck June of 1997—after having drained the off-season modeling sportswear set a date for the pages of Vogue, Goggle-box Guide, and Shape.

With the fiscal backing of the NBA, honesty WNBA will be given indefinite seasons to establish itself.

Importation a result, Leslie will properly able to play basketball skull develop her modeling career utilize the same time. She has voiced a desire to appeal into acting and broadcasting as her basketball career ends. She would also like to change a new type of pretend model for women: an jock who is proud to cast doubt on feminine.

If she has set message for youngsters, she done in Women’s Sports and Fitness, it’s this: “You can rectify whatever you want to hide. Women don’t have to accomplish the stereotype of looking emerge men with their clothes decoration off them just because they play basketball.”

Sources

Books

Corbett, Sara, Venus utter the Hoop, Doubleday, 1997.

Periodicals

Essence, Jan 1997, p.

80.

People, June 30, 1997, p. 109.

New York Times, July 17, 1996, p. B11; January 23, 1997, p. B14.

Sports Illustrated, February 19, 1990, possessor. 30; November 25, 1991, owner. 78; May 26, 1997, holder. 36.

Sports Illustrated for Kids, Go by shanks`s pony 1997, p.

62; June 1997, p. 28.

Women’s Sports and Fitness, November 21, 1996, pp. 12, 50.

—Anne Janette Johnson