by Lisa Leslie
When I had games, Tiffany would sit by herself in the stands. While I was on the court playing, I would glance over from time to time to make sure that she was all right and to make certain that nobody had kidnapped my little sister from the gym. Tiffany was at Morningside High more than some of the students, and she was with me for almost every one of our road games, too.
It was a lot of responsibility for a fourteen-year-old, but somehow Tiffany and I both made it work. She was a healthy, happy, resilient kid, and she thrived in spite of our very unusual circumstances. So did I. I averaged twelve points, nine rebounds, and five blocked shots, and the Monarchs finished with a 27–3 record during my freshman season. And my grades were good, too—mostly As and a few Bs. I was named “Freshman of the Year” in the state of California. The sense of accomplishment I felt tasted so sweet! But it was just the tip of the iceberg.
Chapter 3
Making a Name for Myself
That first year at Morningside was extremely busy for me. Besides playing basketball and taking care of Tiffany, I somehow also found time to play on the Lady Monarchs’ volleyball team and compete in track and field, too. I was hoping that those activities would help improve my speed and jumping ability for basketball, but I still cannot believe that I went out for track after the terrible experience I had with that sport back in seventh grade. What was I thinking?
My track coach at Whaley Junior High decided that my long legs were best suited for the 400-meter run, which I believe is the hardest race in the world. In one particular meet, I was running really well. I had the lead with one hundred meters to go, so I kept driving with my legs, pumping my arms, and pushing hard. But I started to tire. My heart was pounding, and my lungs were on fire. I looked straight ahead for the finish line, but I did not see one. I could not find it. The people in the crowd were cheering and yelling, “Come on! Come on! Come on!” As usual, no one from my family was there, but I gave it everything I had just the same. Just for pride. Just for me.
I ran as fast and hard as I could, and then, all of a sudden, I fell down on the track. I just collapsed. I could not believe it. There I was, sprawled in the dirt, all sore and sweaty. I could see my lead disappearing as I lay on the ground. And I could also see a strand of red yarn up ahead of me. It was stretched low across the track. The finish line. It was right in front of me. It was so close, but I could not reach it! I had to get up. I had to finish. I could hear and feel runners breezing by me as I struggled to get to that yarn. My muscles ached, my tracksuit was filthy, and my ego was more than a little bit bruised. But I finished the race. What an ordeal! I knew right then and there that I was finished with running track forever. At least I thought I was.
The track coach at Morningside already knew about me. Coach Ron Tatum had seen me run during basketball season. Coach Tatum kept telling me that running track would improve my physical skills for basketball and also give me more stamina. I knew all that, but I told him, “I do not want to run track.”
Coach Tatum was persistent, though, and, just my luck, he wanted me to run the dreaded 400 meters. He thought I would be good at running hurdles as well. The way he put it to me was, “Lisa, with your long legs, you will be able to just glide over those hurdles. You will never hit one.”
Of course, the first time I practiced running hurdles, I crashed right into one and went down face-first. The hurdles were made of metal and wood, and they hurt. There I was, sprawled on a track all over again. I told anyone who would listen, “I will never come back out here if you make me run hurdles.”
I guess the coach felt really bad, because he agreed that I would have to compete only in the 400 meters, plus three jumping events, and that was fine with me. In the long jump and the triple jump, I would be landing in the sand. That seemed safe enough, but the high jump was a different story. I used the Fosbury Flop method for high jumping, which meant that I would run up, lift off, and go over the bar with my chest facing the sky and my back closest to the bar. Then I would kick and arch my way over. Essentially, I was going over the bar upside down, and I was getting pretty good at it until one painful attempt. I went up just fine and I cleared the bar, but on the way down, I just barely skimmed the edge of the mat on my landing, and I flopped to the ground with a thud. Fortunately, I was not injured badly, and I was able to continue jumping, but after that crash landing, I was never really the same mentally when it came to high jumping. On a good day, I could get up and over a bar set at five foot eight. That was pretty high for me. I knew it was definitely a long way to fall, and everybody who knew me knew that I hated to fall down.
But I did not give up on high jumping, and I am glad that I stuck with it, because I got good enough to compete in the state championships. I cleared the bar at five feet six inches and managed to improve my personal best in the triple jump to thirty-eight feet nine inches. I was so proud to qualify for state, especially since track was just something that I did to help me improve in basketball. I have always wondered just how good I might have been if I had practiced the sport all year long.
I really did feel faster and stronger after track season, and I knew that was going to help me on the basketball court. Any doubts I might have had in that regard were eliminated on a rainy afternoon at Morningside when track practice had to be moved inside, to the gym. I was focusing on my high jump technique, which involved footwork, pushing off, body control, and lift, but we were really limited indoors as to how much practicing we could actually do. My coach said, “Lisa, why don’t you work on your approach to that basketball rim over there? It will give you a chance to use a lot of the same skills as the high jump.”
I followed his instructions and measured my approach from about sixty feet out. I got my running start, took off, and touched my fingers on the rim. I had never done that before. I was excited, and so were my teammates. Somebody found a tennis ball. I ran in, took my steps, went up, and dunked it. Now everybody in the gym was into it. They found a volleyball, and I dunked it, too. I tried to dunk a basketball that day, but my hands were too small to palm the ball, and I could not get good control. Oh well. But I knew that my time would come. That might have been my most enjoyable track practice ever.
Running track paid dividends for me, but I gave it up after my freshman year because my heart just was not in it. I realized that I spent way too much of my time trying to find excuses not to go to practice. I told the coach, “I dread coming out here because of all the running. It makes me so nervous. When I get to fifth period and I know that track is coming up next, I get sick to my stomach.”
It takes a lot to run track. It really does. I think track athletes have more heart than athletes in any other sport. Jackie Joyner-Kersee, a track-and-field legend, is one of my “sheroes” and has all my respect in the world. It takes a lot of heart and a lot of discipline to get on the track every day and to be successful at it. I knew I did not have that kind of heart or desire for track, especially for the running. I told Coach Tatum, “I know what it takes to play basketball. It is hard work, but I never dread going to basketball practice. But this is literally making me sick.” That was the end of my track career.
That summer of 1987, I played AAU basketball, and I also played with Morningside’s off-season team. When I went back to high school in the fall, I was no longer the “new kid.” In fact, my good grades, sense of humor, and success on the basketball court had earned me a lot of respect and had made me pretty popular. I was thrilled when I was elected sophomore class president.
That season our basketball team lost only two of thirty-five games, and despite being one of the smaller schools, we won the CIF Division 5AA title, captured the Division I Regional, and advanced to the California state championship game. Our Morningside squad had a date with Oakland’s Fremont High School for the big showdown at the Oakland Coliseum.
That game was hard fought. We should have put Fremont away, but Morningside could not manage to score a single point in the final seven minutes of the contes
t. Still, we found ourselves trailing just 53–52 with seconds left to play. Coach Scott called a time-out. He huddled us together and said, “This is the play we are going to run.” It was an inbounds play from the baseline that we had run ever since I got to Morningside. Our guard, JoJo Witherspoon, would handle the ball and lob it to me at the front of the block. I’d catch it and hit a bank shot. It was nothing complicated and nothing new to us. I make the shot, we win the game, and Morningside wins state. It was as simple as that.
Coach Scott made sure that everybody knew their responsibilities and had the play fresh in their minds. “I want you here,” he told each of us as he pointed to the play board and calmly looked around our huddle. “I want you over here. You are going to break this way. Just lob it up there to Lisa, and that will be the game.” He never said anything to me. I am sure he figured that I knew exactly what I needed to do on the play and was well aware of the importance of the final shot.
We broke our huddle and stepped onto the court. The play was designed perfectly. JoJo lobbed the ball in. I jumped up to grab it, came down, turned, and put up my shot as time was running out. But it was short. The ball barely hit the rim. What happened? I choked. That was my shot. I made it all the time, but as I turned to make the shot, I could not decide whether to bank it off the glass or try to swish the ball straight in, and I wound up shooting the ball too softly to accomplish either one. My shot was not high enough to kiss the rim, bounce around, and have a chance to drop, and it was too weak to reach the backboard and carom in. If I had just used the glass, I probably would have scored. At least the ball would have had a chance to go in, but the wimpy way I shot it, NO CHANCE. I had choked. I had a triple-double in the game, thirteen points, twelve rebounds, and ten blocked shots, but we lost by one point, and Morningside’s season ended on a terribly sour note.
Fremont’s players were cheering and jumping for joy in the middle of the court. Their fans were jubilant. Our fans were shocked. Our team was stunned and silent. I know some fans were probably thinking that our senior, Shaunda Green, should have taken the last shot instead of me. Hey. Our play worked. I just could not put the ball in the hole.
That was a major turning point in my life. When I missed that shot, we lost out on a state championship. My miss kept us from getting the title for Shaunda in her last season at Morningside. That was a lot of weight on my shoulders.
Looking back now, I think I needed Coach Scott to say something to me in that final huddle. I needed reassurance that I could do it. Maybe if he had said, “Just shoot it like you normally shoot it, Lisa.” Or, “You have made this shot a hundred times. Just use the glass.” But I know I should have made the shot.
The whole team cried after the game, and I apologized a lot for letting them down. I cried through the entire flight back to Los Angeles, and I could not stop crying after we got home. I was sick to my stomach and felt terrible, but before I went to bed, I wrote down my goal for next season. I wanted to win the state championship in 1989.
I could not get that loss or that missed shot out of my mind. Maybe that was good in a way, because it motivated me to work even harder on my game. During the off-season, I sprouted to my full height of six foot five, and I was really driven to succeed. In my junior year, I averaged twenty-five points, fourteen rebounds, and six blocked shots per game. Both USA Today and Parade magazine named me to their first-team high school All-America squad. That was all great, but most importantly, I helped lead the Morningside Lady Monarchs to a 33–1 record and a trip back to the California state championship game.
We played at the Oakland Coliseum again, and fittingly, we got a rematch with Fremont High School, the defending champs. I put up a double-double, and we won the game 60–50 to capture the 1989 California state championship. This time we were the ones jumping and cheering at the final buzzer. That win was extremely important to me. I had to erase the memory of my miss in the previous year’s final game loss, but it was also critical for me because I had set a goal, had focused on achieving that goal, and with the help of my teammates, had accomplished that goal. Winning state did wonders for my confidence, my self-esteem, and my ability to believe in myself.
After my junior season, I received a great honor. I was invited to try out for USA Basketball’s Junior World Championship squad. They flew me to Colorado Springs, and when I got there, I saw the best women’s basketball players in the country. They were all in college. I was sixteen years old, the only high school player in the group.
I blocked Katrina McClain’s shot during those tryouts, and everybody told me that was quite an accomplishment. Truthfully, I did not know one player from the other, and I was too young at that time to know who I was supposed to be afraid of.
When we were eating lunch after that practice session, Dawn Staley said, “Oh my God! Do you know you blocked Katrina McClain’s shot?” I asked her, “Who is Katrina McClain?” I had no idea at the time, but I came to find out that Katrina was a two-time All-American at the University of Georgia, and she was college basketball’s player of the year in 1987 and USA Basketball’s Female Athlete of the Year in 1988. I was in very elite company, and looking back, I can tell you that Katrina was one of the greatest players that I ever competed against.
I made the junior national team that year, and we flew off to Bilbao, Spain, for the tournament. I was going to get my first taste of representing my country in international competition. I was really psyched to travel abroad for the first time. My family was really supportive, which made me feel even better about going. Mom was back in L.A. for good now, and Tiffany was with her. They were so excited about my travels.
Debbie Ryan, from the University of Virginia, was our head coach, and future WNBA players Lady Hardmon and Sonja Henning were on our squad. Dawn Staley was my roommate, and she turned out to be my complete opposite. I was six foot five. Dawn was five foot six. I loved bright colors and tie-dye. She loved black and white. I was a California girl, soft-spoken and carefree. She was a Philly girl, tough and edgy. One thing we had in common, though, was passion and heart. We both truly loved to compete and to win. Dawn Staley became my best friend in basketball.
Our team was very young. We averaged nineteen years of age. I was the youngest and the only high school player on our roster, which featured just three players who had any international experience. We lost the first game of the junior world championships, in overtime, to South Korea, then dropped our next game by two points to Australia. We finally got our first victory when I put up twenty-two points and nine rebounds against Bulgaria. Our U.S. squad was in every game, but we finished in seventh place, with a 3–4 record. To this day, that is the only time that Dawn and I competed together and did not win a medal.
Playing for the U.S. junior national team in Spain was an awesome experience. I learned how a group of total strangers could pull together into a team in a very short period of time. I learned about international travel, and I was able to test my talents against some of America’s top college athletes and against some of the world’s best young players as well. I led the U.S. team in scoring and rebounding at the junior world championships, and I came back to California with improved skills and even greater confidence in my game.
I was definitely ready for my senior season to tip off at Morningside, and the college recruiters were ready for me. They came out of the woodwork. I got letters and phone calls from them every day. I was getting national media attention as the Lady Monarchs prepared to defend our state championship in what would turn out to be an amazing senior season for a number of reasons.
Early in the 1989–90 season, our game with Centennial High School turned into a brawl. One second we were playing, and the next second, four girls were fighting. I watched the skirmish and then saw three Centennial players coming after me. They cornered me against the wall, so I started swinging, and I kept on swinging. I know I hit some of them in the head. One of their players hit me in the face and scratched some skin off my nose. I just kept
fighting back. I had to defend myself until one of the parents saw that I was in trouble. He came over, moved the Centennial girls away, and picked me up out of the corner. I did not even know why we were fighting, but that brawl turned out to have a major impact on me later in the season.
That senior season, I posted the best numbers of my high school career. I averaged twenty-seven points, fifteen rebounds, and seven blocks per game. Those stats could have easily been much higher, but when Morningside had commanding leads in games, Coach Scott would take me out early. He did not want to run up the score and embarrass the other teams. Our Lady Monarchs had lost only three times all season as we headed into our final home game against South Torrance High.
Now, the tradition at Morningside High School called for the team’s top senior to try to break the school scoring record in the last home game of the regular season. In my freshman year, Tia Thomas was our senior, and she scored fifty-two points. The next year, Shaunda totaled sixty-one points, and in my junior season, JoJo Witherspoon set a new Morningside scoring record with sixty-nine points.
That was the number I was trying to beat when we took the court against the Spartans of South Torrance High on Tiffany’s tenth birthday, February 7, 1990. We were originally scheduled to finish the home season against Centennial High, but because of our brawl with them earlier in the season, that schedule was changed. The fear was that Centennial might try to hurt me, especially if I was shooting for the record against them. So, we played Centennial High in our next-to-last home game and faced South Torrance in our season finale. Truthfully, Centennial would have been a much tougher opponent for us, and I would have preferred that.
Coach Scott held a team meeting before the final game. He asked everyone on our squad if they were okay with me going after the record. My teammates said, “Let’s go for it.” That made Coach Scott’s pregame instructions pretty easy. He told us, “Get the ball to Lisa.”