by Lisa Leslie
Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You
LISA LESLIE
with Larry Burnett
Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You
KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Dedicated to my mother, Christine Leslie-Espinoza
Table of Contents
Foreword by Earvin “Magic” Johnson
Prologue
Chapter 1 Mothertrucker!
Chapter 2 How’s the Weather Up There?
Chapter 3 Making a Name for Myself
Chapter 4 Decisions, Decisions
Chapter 5 Trojan Wars
Chapter 6 Women of Troy
Chapter 7 Grande Liza!
Chapter 8 Bombs Bursting in Air
Chapter 9 Model Citizen
Chapter 10 We Got Next!
Chapter 11 Bridging Adversity with Maturity
Chapter 12 To the Victor Go the Spoils
Chapter 13 Third Time’s a Charm
Chapter 14 Michael, Maui, and Marriage
Chapter 15 Retirement or Russia?
Chapter 16 Special Delivery
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Earvin “Magic” Johnson
Lisa Leslie has had a tremendous impact on the L.A. Sparks, women’s basketball, and the city of Los Angeles. She has always been the best player, but that has never stopped her from continuing to learn or trying to improve. Lisa cares about the history of the game, and she always asks me what made our Lakers teams so good and what she needs to change in her game to get even better.
When she and my former teammate Michael Cooper teamed up with the Sparks, Lisa became the most dominating player in women’s basketball. She was able to take the WNBA to a whole new level because once people saw what she could do, they could not help but appreciate her talents, her work ethic, and her charisma. Little girls started wearing her #9 jersey and wanted to be like Lisa Leslie, and they could not pick a better role model on or off the court. She is a very intelligent woman who has taken care of her money and her image. Lisa was able to pave the way for women in basketball and in sports, but that never affected her willingness to go back into her community, speak at schools, and do whatever she could to help.
I know what it is like to grow up being the tallest in the class and not having clothes that fit right, let alone designer clothes. Lisa knows it, but through her sports and her spirituality, she was able to overcome the many adversities that she faced along the way. Because she was so great at basketball, it allowed her not only to take care of herself, but also her mother, who served double duty as Lisa’s mom and her dad. Hats off to Lisa for keeping it all together and leading a successful life—even when her environment might have dictated otherwise.
I remember watching Lisa’s stellar career at USC, and I will never forget when she joined my workout sessions with some of my NBA friends and some top-notch college players. It was all men, but Lisa impressed me when she said, “I want to play with you guys, and I don’t want anybody to take it easy on me.”
This woman would go out there and play. I would always try to team her with me so that I could make the passes and she could make the shots. It was amazing because Lisa would play so hard against those guys, and in turn, they paid her a lot of respect by playing hard against her. They had to because these guys knew if they let up even a bit, she would embarrass them. She never backed down. That was my first chance to see her measure up against men and to see her competitive nature come out.
Lisa took a lot of pride in making herself into a great basketball player, but she was always able to maintain her femininity at the same time. That always came across in the way that she spoke, the way she played on the court, and the way that she dressed off the court. She was a fashion diva, and she still is. Lisa has done many fashion shows for the Magic Johnson Foundation, and she is unbelievable as a model. This woman could have been a runway model full time and could have made a lot of money doing it. I think she shows women, both in sports and out of sports, that you can be a tremendous athlete and still remain a feminine woman. Now Lisa is taking it to another level in her roles as a wife and a mother.
To sum it all up, Lisa Leslie is the best at everything, and I applaud her for always striving for that. I always try to be the best in anything that I do, and Lisa is the same way…times one hundred! She is the best player in the game today, but she is also the best person, woman, daughter, model, and teammate.
Lisa is at the pinnacle of her sport, but her work on the basketball court is not done yet. Now she wants to make the best comeback, and she has set a goal to win one more Olympic gold medal for her country.
I love Lisa because she always represented herself and her mom with the highest level of class and dignity. She constantly has a smile on her face and is always there to support others. Lisa Leslie has reached a rare level of excellence, yet she remains a humble lady who, through all of her achievements, honors, and accolades, has been able to live in the glare of the spotlight without ever once forgetting where she came from.
Prologue
“The United States of America!” blared over the public address system, and the eighty-three thousand fans packed in Centennial Olympic Stadium went wild. They were all there to see the opening ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, and since we were in Atlanta, most of the crowd was from the United States.
The fans got to their feet and applauded, cheered, whistled, and chanted, “USA! USA!” as our team marched into the stadium. I will never forget this day: July 19. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I had worked so many years to get to this point, and now I was representing my country as a member of the U.S. women’s basketball team. I could not stop smiling.
The sights and sounds in Centennial Olympic Stadium were incredible. There were so many people, so many lights and colors. I had never seen that many American flags, and it took my breath away. Our U.S. contingent was just a fraction of the more than ten thousand athletes who were there to participate in the opening ceremony and compete on the world’s greatest stage. I was living a dream, and walking into the arena gave me goose bumps. The men’s and women’s basketball teams walked in together, and beside me were NBA superstars Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, David Robinson, and Karl Malone. But many other athletes I admired were in my line of sight, too: American track stars Carl Lewis, Gail Devers, and Michael Johnson; tennis greats Andre Agassi and Lindsay Davenport; and famed boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Everywhere I turned, there was another familiar face. Clearly, I was in elite company in an incredibly unique atmosphere, and I was soaking it all in. A lot of the athletes were snapping pictures or shooting video to capture the very special moments. I did not have a camera, but I was so busy taking in the sights that I am not sure I would have remembered to take a picture, anyway.
All the U.S. women athletes wore white silk tops, red blazers, and long, blue, poodle-style skirts. We topped it off with red, white, and blue scarves; white hats, which we wore tipped to the side; and these horrible blue shoes with little heels. We looked like we had stepped straight out of the 1940s, but for this occasion, it worked. I waved to the crowd enthusiastically, laughing with my new friends and enjoying my first Olympic experience. Then my right shoe fell off.
I had to grab onto Karl Malone to keep from falling down. I stretched my leg back and managed to find the shoe and get my toes in it, but everyone around me was still moving, and I had to drag my shoe behind me. As I tried to keep pace and avoid getting trampled in the massive traffic jam of people, I could see the headline already: U.S. OLYMPIAN INJURED IN OPENING CEREMONY STAMPEDE.
But finally, I was able to squeeze my foot into the w
ayward shoe and continue my stroll around the stadium with the other athletes. I felt awkward and goofy, but relieved and slightly exhilarated. Only I could lose my shoe on live television, with the whole world watching. I laughed out loud at myself for the slipup but also at the irony. My image as a graceful athlete seemed to be still intact. But I was quickly reminded of the less-than-graceful uphill climb that led me to this moment. This made me smile even wider.
Chapter 1
Mothertrucker!
“You were born to play basketball.”
People tell me that all the time, but I can tell you for a fact that Lisa Deshaun Leslie was not born with a basketball in her hands or with any desire to play the game. In fact, my road to roundball was more of an obstacle course than an expressway. Whatever basketball genes I did get probably came from my father. I am told that he was a good athlete who played in local leagues in Southern California and some semiprofessional basketball in Alaska. I am told that my legs are built like his, knock-kneed and bowlegged. I am six foot five. They tell me he was six foot four. I do not know. I never knew him.
I do know that my father was always a man on the go. “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” should have been his theme song, especially the part that goes, “Wherever he laid his hat was his home.” His legal name was Walter Lee Leslie, and he was married and had four kids before he moved from Maryland to California. That was when he took an alias, met my mom, and started a whole new family. Mom had no clue. He married her using the name Bernard Leslie and left her when she was four months pregnant with me.
Did he leave because of me? I am not sure, and I did not want Mom to think I was unhappy, so I never asked. We rarely talked about my dad, though I did meet him briefly once, when I was twelve years old. Other than that visit, the man was like a ghost to me. When he died in 1984 of cancer, I cannot say that I felt much of a loss. It is true what people say: you can never miss what you never had.
So there was no dad there to greet me when I was born on July 7, 1972, at Gardena Memorial Hospital. Technically, I was born in Gardena, but that is not where I am from. I am also not from Hawthorne or Inglewood or most of the other places you might have heard about. My hometown is Compton, California. In the beginning, it was just my mom, Christine, and my sister Dionne. I was very close to my mom from day one. Dionne was five years older than me. People referred to her as the “dark one” because of her flawless chocolate skin. They described me as “the one with the pretty eyes.” Even though Mom tried not to pick favorites, I sometimes heard her tell my aunts, “You know Lisa. She is my shadow, my little helper.” I longed to please her.
When I was six years old, we lived in a three-bedroom house on North Castlegate Street, off of Atlantic and Rosecrans boulevards. Mom, Dionne, and I each had our own rooms. Mom’s bedroom had a fireplace, which she liked to use on rainy days. Her room also had a sliding back door, which led to a large patio and a decent-sized backyard. Mom had poured cement and put up a tetherball pole out back because she knew that I loved to play.
There was a large tree in our front yard. I do not know what type of tree it was, but it was constantly shedding leaves, and it had a really large root that stuck up out of the ground. Mom and I would always trim that tree or mow the lawn. I remember thinking that those were the types of things a dad would do. Mom always told me that it did not matter if we had a man around or not. We could do anything we wanted. And if we did not know how, we could learn.
The earliest job I remember Mom having was at the post office. She drove a mail truck and did a lot of walking in her job delivering mail in the Wilshire-Beverly Hills district of Los Angeles. Every morning I would hear her get up at 5:00 AM. When I heard her moving about, I would get out of bed to make sure her shoes were by her door so that she would not have to search for them. Her work clothes were neatly ironed and ready to wear. Depending on the California weather, Mom would wear pants or shorts to work. She would get dressed and put on her socks and shoes, and then I would walk her to the door. Every morning I would watch her leave for work, and every morning, when she had gone, I would sit at the door and cry. Dionne would say, “You’re just crazy! Something is wrong with you. Crying every day, every time Mom leaves.”
Once Mom was out of sight, I would get our family photo album and take it into her room. I’d lie on her bed and look at the pictures until I fell asleep. Dionne would get up and get dressed. Then she would wake me up around seven-thirty and tell me that she was leaving for school. Once my sister was gone, I would turn on the television and let it blare in the background while I got dressed. The Hogan’s Heroes theme song was my cue to check the back door, lock the sliding door in Mom’s room, make sure all the lights were off, close the back door in the kitchen, lock the gate, and, like all the other latchkey kids in the neighborhood, make sure I put my key down my shirt. I was six years old and in kindergarten.
After locking up, I would cross the street, ring the doorbell at Miss Pearl’s house (God rest her soul), and tell her I was walking to school, which was just a few blocks down from her house. She would come outside and watch me to make sure I made it safely down the street. I would go to school from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Dionne got out of school around the same time as me, and we would walk home together. We did that every day for a year. That was our routine.
I looked up to Dionne. She was my big sister, and I wanted her to like me. But Dionne was almost a teenager and did not want her overly sensitive kid sister following her around, asking her questions, or cramping her style. The thing was, it was so important to me to win Dionne’s approval, and in trying to impress her or seem cool and fun, I usually just copied whatever she was doing. This only annoyed her more.
In general, if I did anything to irritate Dionne, there was a physical price to pay. She would punch me, kick me, slap me, push me down, and yell at me. This was not playful wrestling. This felt like some sort of combat, and Dionne could be as secretive and creative about it as any CIA operative. But I was never afraid of my sister. I was just confused.
There was the time she reached into the cupboard, with her back to me, and said, “Here! You want some?” then turned to blow salt in my eyes. Another time she smashed a jelly sandwich right in my face.
Dionne could be so mean, and yet I still loved and idolized her. I used to love it when she would put my hair in two pretty French braids, with a part down the middle. Dionne was an excellent braider, and the style looked cute on me. Sometimes the hairstyle would turn out great, and I would be really thankful to her. Then, other times, she would purposely part my hair crooked or way off center so that the hairstyle looked crazy.
When she would rough me up, I would run and hide in the bathroom. She would chase me and then use a butter knife to try to unlock the door. When that did not work, she would go outside, peek in the bathroom window, and scream, “I SEE YOU IN THERE!” She loved to scare me to death.
I would stay locked in the bathroom until Mom came home around five o’clock. When I would hear her car pull up, I would open the bathroom door and see Dionne standing there. But she no longer seemed threatening. Now she was pleading and negotiating with me. “Okay, Lisa! If you don’t tell Mom, I’ll give you some candy.” Like a sucker, I would keep quiet, get the candy, and relive the whole ordeal the next day. Mom never had a clue.
The thing is, I was such a timid child. Very timid. I was afraid of lots of things, but by the time I was eight, Dionne’s act had gotten old. I was tired of her beating up on me, so one day, when she had pushed me too far, I reached back and socked her in the stomach as hard as I could. She made a “wuh whew” sound and bent over to catch her breath. I ran off to my usual hiding place, locked the door behind me, and tried to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest. I was so scared, but I was so happy, too. I had hit Dionne! I had hurt her. That was the last day that I remember running away from my big sister or getting abused by her. I had finally fought back. I thought our troubles would be over, our battles ended, but that turned
out to be the furthest thing from the truth.
Dionne and I were so different. I was very, very neat. She was very messy. I would fold my clothes, organize my socks, sweep my wooden floors, and mop them, too. I was like a soldier’s daughter. I would move my bed, rearrange my room, and clean out my closet. Then I would call, “Mom, come and look at my room!” As far back as I can remember, I always wanted things to be clean and organized. I loved having my own room, and I was thrilled that Mom had painted it my favorite color, yellow, to match my curtains and my canopy bed. When the sun would shine in, my room would turn bright, and that would make me happy. It was my private, special place.
When Mom would come to check out my room, Dionne would stand across the hall, with her hands on her hips. She would roll her eyes to show her annoyance. I never realized she worried that Mom would want to inspect her room next. I just wanted to show off my clean room to my mother and have her appreciate the work I had done. But in the process, it was very obvious that little sister was really getting on big sister’s nerves.
It went both ways, though. Dionne had a big problem telling the truth, and if she got in trouble, she pulled me down with her. If Dionne got into Mom’s make-up and Mom found out, we would eventually hear, “Lisa! Dionne! Come in here! Who’s been in my make-up?”
I had not played a lick of basketball yet, but I already knew how to put up a good defense when I was in a jam. I would begin to protest immediately. “Make-up? I don’t even wear make-up. I’m not even old enough to wear make-up.”
Dionne would pipe in, lying through her teeth. “Make-up? No, Mom. I have not been in your make-up.”
Mom would give us that look that only mothers can give. “There are only three of us in this house. I know I didn’t do it. Now, who was in my make-up?”