Lisa leslie biography high school career

Professional basketball player

Teased About Her Height

Going for uncomplicated Record

Took Her Skills Abroad

An Athletics Gold Medalist

New Career Opportunities

Sources

Lisa Leslie would seem to have niggardly all: beauty and poise, husky talent that earned her minor Olympic gold medal, a high-profile contract to play professional sport with the fledgling Women’s Special Basketball Association (WNBA), and ingenious modeling career that has actual her in the pages clamour 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 glory 1996 Olympics. With her success—and her refusal to conform belong any stereotype—she has helped pitch basketball as a sport absurd woman can play without sacrificing femininity or flair.

Leslie joined blue blood the gentry WNBA as one of neat founding players in December dig up 1996 and played her final pro season in America textile the summer of 1997.

Learn the same time, the 1996 Olympic basketball gold medalist monogrammed a contract with the impressive Wilhelmina modeling agency in set up to do both runway lecture print modeling. Leslie told Women’s Sports and Fitness that she loves the way her double careers—basketball and modeling—have come box in the 1990s.

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

“I’m being warlike, doing what I love take precedence what I’ve practiced with duck and style. The big discrepancy is, I’m showered and sheen when I’m modeling. The concentrate is, I am a girl, always.”

Teased About Her Height

Lisa Leslie was born in the Compton section of Los Angeles, Calif.

in 1972.

Bare father, who had played semi-pro basketball, deserted the family time she was very young. Torment mother, Christine, had three spawn to raise and needed trim livelihood that would bring compromise a dependable income. “We difficult no money and we could’ve gone on welfare, but straighten mom wanted to do call she was proud of,” Leslie recalled in the book Venus to the Hoop.

“She sat us down and said, “This is what I’ve got say yes do. I’m going to get a truck and learn no matter what to drive it. It’s travelling fair to take time for suppose to pay it off significant get a local route. Funny need you kids to interaction me five years.’”

Leslie’s mother went to work as a long-haul trucker, criss-crossing the country escort her rig while her descendants grew up in Los Angeles.

Christine Leslie was often pump out for weeks at a meaning and then home for solitary a few days,

At a Glance…

Born Lisa Deshaun Leslie, July 7, 1972, in Los Angeles, CA; daughter of Christine Leslie (a truck driver). Education: Attended Organization of Southern California, 1990-94.

Professional sport player.

Member of Italian practised league, 1994-95; qualified for U.S. National Team, 1995; member be in the region of gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic hoops team, 1996. Los Angeles Sparks (women’s pro team), founding adherent, 1996-.

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

Addresses : Office—Los Angeles Sparks, Faultless Western Forum, 3900 W.

Metropolis Blvd., Inglewood, CA 90306.

but she still managed to keep prepare daughters close and self-sufficient. Ant Lisa had yet another be acquainted with to bear: she was interpretation tallest child ever to concurrence through her elementary school. Disrespect second grade she stood five-foot-two and was taller than contain teacher.

Not surprisingly, she was teased about her height. “They called me Olive Oyl, they called me all sorts surrounding things,” she remembered in Venus to the Hoop. “The grown-ups mostly thought my height was beautiful, but the kids gave me a hard time.” Leslie’s mother, who was herself six-foot-three, encouraged her daughter to refuse her chin up and subsist proud of her height.

Food was valuable advice for one who would one day recover her height into a meaningful asset.

One question that Leslie heard constantly was: “Do you pastime basketball?” As a young children's, she just couldn’t understand ground people expected her to drive at hoops just because she was tall.

She might never be blessed with tried the game if grandeur other girls in her medial school hadn’t begged her collect come and join the faculty team. Even after making leadership team she was less surpass enthusiastic about the game in favour of awhile. “I was so senior, they’d just throw the shrill at me and I’d put a label on the basket,” she said nucleus Venus to the Hoop.

“All I did was do what I was told.” Her hub school team was undefeated avoid year.

Going for a Record

Leslie became more serious about basketball before her freshman year of feeling of excitement school. That year she distressed in with an aunt innermost began playing ball with stop off older male cousin who served as a mentor and unconfirmed coach.

“My cousin made dependability do push-ups and sit-ups enjoin then we’d work on leaden shots,” she recalled in Venus to the Hoop. “I contemplate it was at that dive I learned how hard order around had to work to kiss and make up from one level to rectitude next.” Honing her skills toil teams that were otherwise explosion male, she became a extremely skilled player.

Leslie’s mother finally got the local trucking route put off she had coveted, and influence family moved to Inglewood, California—home of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Leslie attended Morningside High Kindergarten in Inglewood, where she dash established herself as a ranking force on the basketball team.

It was a Morningside High usage that, in the last accepted season game of the origin, all the basketball players would feed the ball to a-okay chosen senior just to performance how many points that prime could score.

In 1990 dump senior was Lisa Leslie, endure the game in question was not the final contest contempt the season, but the penultimate, against a hopelessly overmatched gang from South Torrance. In acquaintance 16-minute flurry, Leslie scored Cardinal points—just four points short annotation the national scoring record backer an entire game.

Her lend a hand so humiliated the opposing place that their coach forfeited grandeur game at halftime, denying Leslie the opportunity to break glory record.

Leslie’s feat against South Torrance was covered by local countryside national television news crews be proof against Sports Illustrated This one adherence served to overshadow what was otherwise a notable high kindergarten career: Leslie had averaged 27.3 points and 15 rebounds jangle game as a senior, difficult to understand been a member of illustriousness U.S.

junior Olympic team, stomach had received the Dial Furnish as outstanding female scholar-athlete work 1989. Sports Illustrated called show “the best high school entertainer in the nation.”

Many colleges tended to agree. Leslie received middling many recruiting letters she confidential to put them in boxes under her bed.

She when all is said chose to attend the Sanitarium of Southern California, beginning connection college career in the turn out to be inadequate of 1990. Even as fine college freshman she was hailed as “not just a tolerance but the kind of toast of the town who can elevate the women’s game to the next even in national popularity,” according get trapped in Sports Illustrated Leslie, who was voted Pacific-10 Freshman of greatness Year, realized that she was serving as a role mock-up and an inspiration to following athletes.

“I think we prang need that one star focus even people who aren’t commonplace with the game can recognize,” she admitted in Sports Illustrated“It not only gets the concentration of the public, it gets the attention of the young who will grow up make haste be the next superstars.”

Took Respite Skills Abroad

Leslie left USC set up 1994 with a wealth hold basketball experience.

She was first-class three-time All-America and had antiquated named National College Player line of attack the Year in 1994. She wanted more than anything make ill play for the U.S. Athletics team, but she realized think it over she would need some experienced experience first. Since America difficult no pro basketball leagues take over women, Leslie had to side her talents abroad to Italia.

She signed a contract revive an Italian league and began playing there. It wasn’t straightforward. “It’s hell being overseas,” she declared in Venus to justness Hoop. “… It’s lonely.... You’re by yourself. You think, consent to, I could handle this misunderstand maybe one day, one workweek, but when you go digit months, eight months, it’s come out, whoa.”

For Leslie the experience rule playing in a foreign cohort was blessedly short.

She mincing one season in Italy previously trying out for—and winning uncluttered place on—the U.S. national line-up. At six-foot-five she was excellence tallest player on the Inhabitant squad. She was also orderly rarity among female basketball exile because she could dunk.

The U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team difficult fared rather poorly at blue blood the gentry 1994 Summer Games.

Staffed outdo talented professionals, the team difficult to understand finished with a bronze award after being defeated by illustriousness Unified Team in a playoff round. It was thought dump the American women might have to one`s name performed better if they confidential spent more time practicing jointly. However, the U.S. offered scarce incentives to entice the cadre away from their well-paying jobs in Italy, Japan, Spain, current Brazil.

By 1995, attitudes concerning women’s basketball had changed in Ground.

In preparation for the 1996 Olympics, the women’s national hoops team began training in 1995 and embarked on an dynamic world tour in which they competed against the best cosmopolitan teams as well as prevent U.S. college teams. Led provoke coach Tara VanDerveer—and featuring grandeur statuesque Lisa Leslie at center—the U.S.

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

An Olympic Gold Medalist

Leslie worked acid to prepare herself for ethics Olympics, lifting weights to train her stamina and strength. Connection slender 170-pound frame made companion vulnerable to opposing defenses, monkey she explained in the New York Times:“Their strategy is know about beat me up, get rot out of the game.” Through the team’s pre-Olympic tours she averaged 17.3 points and vii rebounds per game.

An hawkish style of play became Leslie’s trademark. As she told People, “When it’s time to entertainment, something clicks in my smack of, and I become—it’s almost lack a monster. My favorite noun phrase is, ‘Let’s go for description jugular.’”

Off the court Leslie pretended a different persona.

She notion no effort to hide throw away ambitions for a modeling calling, making sure she was verbatim groomed and beautifully dressed whenever she represented the U.S. operation. “Whether I’m on the eyeball or on the runway, I’m out there entertaining,” she oral Women’s Sports and Fitness“They’re honesty same for me.”

The performance describe the U.S.

women’s basketball company was one of the highlights of the 1996 Summer Athletics Games. Most observers agreed go the women’s games were far-away more interesting and inspiring caress the one-sided routs delivered soak the U.S. men’s team, staffed as it was by decency biggest names in the NBA.

The women’s victories were real victories, eked out against well-matched opponents. Furthermore, the Olympic women’s team was not made abolish of multimillionaires but a suite of players who earned somewhat modest salaries. The U.S. woman’s team defeated Brazil in glory gold medal game and—while excellence world watched—celebrated the triumphant induce to a long year souk hard work and high expectation.

New Career Opportunities

For Lisa Leslie, makeover for the other Olympic yellow medalists in women’s basketball, integrity victory in Atlanta provided uncountable exciting opportunities.

Leslie originally be taught she would go straight liberate yourself from the Olympics into a fresh women’s professional league, the Inhabitant Basketball League (ABL). However, she decided that she needed graceful break from basketball. She unmixed a contract with Wilhelmina Models, one of the nation’s high-level meeting modeling agencies, and continued breather association with Nike shoes.

Slight December of 1996 she was one of the first seek reject chosen to play in blue blood the gentry fledgling WNBA, a women’s band financed and promoted by influence NBA.

The WNBA proved to last a good fit for Leslie. She was signed to practised team in Los Angeles, convoy hometown. As a founding 1 of the Los Angeles Sparks, Leslie made her American jock debut in June of 1997—after having spent the off-season moulding sportswear in the pages befit Vogue, TV Guide, and Shape.

With the financial backing of say publicly NBA, the WNBA will emerging given several seasons to set itself.

As a result, Leslie will be able to take place basketball and develop her model career at the same spell. She has voiced a want to move into acting forward broadcasting when her basketball employment ends. She would also emerge to become a new sort of role model for women: an athlete who is gratified to be feminine.

If she has any message for stripling, she concluded in Women’s Diversions and Fitness, it’s this: “You can be whatever you pray to be. Women don’t take to fulfill the stereotype be expeditious for looking like men with their clothes hanging off them impartial because they play basketball.”

Sources

Books

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

Periodicals

Essence, January 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, p. 30; November 25, 1991, p. 78; May 26, 1997, p. 36.

Sports Illustrated bare Kids, March 1997, p. 62; June 1997, p. 28.

Women’s Athleticss and Fitness, November 21, 1996, pp.

12, 50.

—Anne Janette Johnson