by Lisa Leslie
On the one hand, I thought, Cheryl Miller is a legend. This woman played, and she was great. I had never seen Cheryl play in person, but I knew that she could play ball. And it was kind of exciting. On the other hand, I thought, This woman has never been a coach before. She probably doesn’t know anything about coaching. It is one thing to be a player, and it is a whole different thing to be a coach.
My teammates had similar concerns, and we dealt with it as a team. We knew that nobody was going to come to USC and be better than Coach Stanley. Not Cheryl Miller. Not anybody. We would have resented whoever tried to step into Coach Stanley’s shoes. Cheryl just happened to be the one. Our team decided right then that we were not going to like Cheryl and we were not going to talk to her. We really thought that shutting out the new coach would bring us closer together as a team. In all honesty, we did not know what to do. Our team was just confused and grasping for straws.
I will give her this: Cheryl came in completely confident, and she exhibited her strong motivational speaking skills right from the get-go. She said to us, “I know it is going to take time for you guys to get to know me. I am not here trying to replace Coach Stanley. I am just trying to help. This is our university. We can win!” In retrospect, I can see why she thought this approach would work with us. But emotions were running high, and I just could not let go of my allegiance to Coach Stanley. (Incidentally, it is moments like this that taught me what professionalism is.)
After that speech, we had even more mixed emotions to deal with. Some of the things that Cheryl said to us sounded pretty good, but we did not want to betray Coach Stanley. It was like your father divorcing your mother and then finding a new girlfriend. The girlfriend might be nice, but if you like her, are you betraying your own mother? If you fight against the girlfriend, doesn’t that hurt your dad? The child cannot win in that situation, and that is how our team felt when Cheryl Miller arrived.
I was the team captain, and I was going into my senior year. What was I supposed to do? Did I want to stay and play for a new coach, or did I want to transfer and sit out a year before I could play again? Could we all transfer as a group or decide as a team that we would not play for the new coach? Would we be turning our backs on Coach Stanley if we supported Cheryl and bought into her system?
We had a lot of questions and very few answers. I was the leader of a team in disarray. Some players were practicing, and some were not. I was one of five seniors on the squad. We had quality veterans in place and some excellent young players joining the team. We had potential, but we had no direction. Coach Stanley was out as head coach, but she gave us a lot of positive encouragement and tried to make things easier for everyone on the team by telling us, “Don’t leave USC. Stay there and finish your college career. You guys are going to win it.”
I do not know if Coach Stanley really had her heart in what she said, but in some strange way, she had given us her blessing to move ahead. I felt as though we might as well play, even though it seemed as if we did not exist at the university. We kept getting slapped in the face by disappointing realities.
When Mike Garrett finally came to talk to our team, our program was in turmoil and filled with uncertainty. He could not have been more blunt or heartless when he addressed the team and basically told us that if we did not want to play at USC, we should leave. He also said that the university and the women’s basketball program were going to go on with or without us. If we wanted to play, we could stay. If not, we should let him know.
We were in tears. Garrett’s words sounded like threats to us. We felt as if our own university was abandoning us. New players did not know what to think. Things were such a mess.
I was never sorry that I chose to attend USC and to this day, I feel a connection with the university. But my experience in my senior year prepared me for the harsh realities of the real world.
Chapter 6
Women of Troy
USC put pictures of Cheryl Miller and me on the 1993–94 women’s basketball poster. I was not thrilled with the idea. Our team was not happy to have a new coach, but we decided that we would play and work hard for Cheryl. There were times in practice when Cheryl would explain a drill or a strategy to us, and we would all just look at each other, thinking, That is nowhere close to how Coach Stanley would have explained it.
It was inevitable that we would make comparisons, but like it or not, we had to deal with our situation. I tried to keep an open mind about it, and that was not easy, but Cheryl was the coach and I was the player, so it really did not matter how I felt about her. My job was to play the game. I never let Cheryl know that I did not like the fact that she was my coach, though she probably sensed it. I just moved on and played the game. That made some of my teammates mad. They even called Coach Stanley and told her, “Lisa likes Cheryl. She’s acting like everything is okay and nothing happened.”
I had to tell them, “It is not that I like or dislike Cheryl. It is just that I believe that we have to move forward. We have to move on. Let’s go. We have got to win. Cheryl is on the bench, but she is just one aspect of the game.” I wanted my teammates to know that I was not digging Cheryl any more than anybody else was, but we still needed to respect the game plan and try to make it work for us.
As the captain, I told them, “We are the ones playing. We are in control of our own destiny. I know that we all love Coach Stanley and we all miss her, but she wants what is best for us, and right now what is best for us is to win the national championship. When we accomplish that goal, it will show everybody just how strong Coach Stanley’s program at USC really was.”
Despite having a new coach and tense circumstances, our team eventually started to act like a team again. Not one player transferred out. We went through our conditioning workouts on the track, and things went pretty well. When we got to the weight room, players were getting after it. They were not cheating anymore.
In practice, Cheryl would explain how she wanted us to get over a pick, how to get through a cross pick, or how to play against a certain type of man-to-man defense. Oftentimes, when workouts were over, the core of the team would stay after practice. We would shoot around until the coaches left the gym, and then the other seniors and I would show the new players how to get on the midline, how to be on “help side” defense, how to rotate, and how to “help the helper” when contesting shots. Sooner or later, every player on the team became a part of those extra sessions, and our efforts started to pay off.
I think defense is the most important facet of basketball, but Cheryl’s defense was completely different than anything we had learned before. We had been playing under one system for three years, and it had worked. It was the same system that USA Basketball used. But Cheryl had her own ideas and her own way of saying and doing things, and it was all foreign to us.
I must give her credit, though. As a player, she was one of the greats because of her solid work ethic. Cheryl simply outworked her opponents, and she coached with that same intensity. We could see and feel her passion for the game, but there were often times when we did not understand her terminology. With our team, if we did not understand you, we could not be on the same page with you. And if we were not on the same page with our coach, USC basketball had little chance for success.
We definitely had talent. Tina Thompson turned out to be really good. She was the reigning California AAA Player of the Year, and the freshman stepped right in to start for us at forward. That meant that she and I had to work together and have a total connection on the court. I would tell her, “Tina, if you get back first on defense, be sure to take my man. I will take yours.” It was just basic basketball, but they were critical connections that Coach Stanley would have broken down for every player on our team. With her, we all used the same terminology. We would write it on the blackboard and jot it down in our notebooks. Sometimes, Coach Stanley would quiz us on the information. She showed us the basics, and every one of us had to know them.
Tina and I got to be very clos
e. We had both attended Morningside High, and now we were playing together at USC. She always wanted to learn, so Tina would pick my brain for everything that I knew. A lot of times when Cheryl would teach us something, Tina would stand by me. For instance, our coach would say, “You can go over the top of the pick or underneath.” I would tell Tina that she had to understand her opponent in order to make that decision. Coach Stanley always taught us to make that determination based on how well the opposing guard could shoot, pass, or penetrate. If she was a shooter, we would go over the top of the pick in order to stay in the player’s face.
Cheryl admits now that when she started her coaching career at USC, there was a lot that she did not know. At that time, I felt I had very good knowledge of the game, and believe me, I did feel a responsibility to make our team a winner that would claim the national championship. I worked a lot with Tina and Karleen after practices. Karleen became my very best friend. Still is. She was also a single mom, and right away, I took a liking to her young daughters, Ayesha and Keisha. I think it was Karleen’s work ethic and perseverance through adversity that impressed me most. Before she went to Contra Costa Community College, Karleen had been working at Burger King while her daughters slept on blankets in the back room. She had been through a lot, and she was still standing. Being a mom is a full-time job by itself, and Karleen was handling all of those parenting responsibilities at the same time that she was a full-time student-athlete at USC.
Karleen was an excellent shooter with three-point range, but she had a habit of taking a lot of her shots from inside the arc. I kept telling her, “Kar, you have to back up. I need you to get farther away from me so we have more space to work with. Throw me the ball, and then move. I promise I will throw it back to you, and you are gonna get an open jump shot.”
We worked endlessly on defense after regular practices, too, first just the seniors, then eventually the whole team. Karleen told me, “I cannot believe that I have played the game this long, and I never heard of the midline or the help side. I have just been out there getting by on my athleticism.” Every day after practice, we would work on something different. Karleen had amazing talent, but she will tell you to this day that she hated not getting to work with Coach Stanley. She knows she would have been so much better. Karleen Thompson is currently the head coach and general manager of the WNBA’s Houston Comets.
Before the coaches could legally work with the squad, my teammates and I played some pickup games in the gym. In one game freshman guard Erica Jackson was doing a lot of faking and dribbling between her legs, but she was not having any luck getting the ball up court against Nicky McCrimmon. I told her several times to take the ball straight down the middle and get it into the frontcourt as quickly as possible. Erica would tell me, “Okay,” but then she would continue to dribble between her legs and take forever to get us into our offense. Tina was saying, “Oh my god! When is she going to get across midcourt?”
When Erica finally found her way past the center stripe, I popped out to get a pass from her, but she did not throw the basketball. I went back inside, popped out again, and yelled, “Erica! Throw the ball!”
Erica had been a star in high school the year before, but in her first days at the collegiate level, the newcomer had a bit more than she could handle. She was frustrated, flustered, and more than a little embarrassed. Erica got angry and threw the ball at me. I caught it, whipped the ball right back at her, and yelled, “What is your problem?” Before I knew it, we were in each other’s face. I grabbed her by the hair, and started pulling. I was so wrong, but I wanted to drag this girl over to the brick wall and smash her head. She had a bad attitude, and I was about to jack her up. I snapped. My teammates were yelling, “Lisa! No! No! Let her go!”
I finally let Erica loose and stormed out of the gym. I was so upset with myself. I had reacted without thinking again. I had exploded with instant anger. Cheryl found out about the incident, and when I calmed down, I went to her office. She closed the door, and I just knew she was going to give me a lecture. Instead, the coach gave me high fives. “That’s what I’m talking about,” Cheryl told me. “You don’t let nobody disrespect you! You stand up for what you believe.” She was praising me, but I told her that I was not proud of what had happened, and I wanted to apologize to Erica and the team. After all, I was the team captain, and I was supposed to set the example. Cheryl called Erica in, and we apologized to each other. I found out later, though, that when Cheryl talked privately with Erica, she told her the same thing. The word in the locker room was that Erica was given the same speech the coach had given me. What the…?
I immediately wondered what Coach Stanley would have done in this situation. I know she would have been very disappointed in me. She probably would have had me apologize to everybody and then made me run, and run some more. Coach Stanley would have known that would be serious punishment for me. She might have removed me as team captain, and I would not have blamed her. What I did to Erica was totally unacceptable. I was disturbed by my own behavior, but I was more concerned about the effect it might have on our team and our camaraderie.
Our basketball team turned out to be very resilient. We won the first six games of my senior season at USC, and we lost only one time in our first eighteen games. Karleen had clearly shown that she was our top guard. She earned the starting role, but as the season progressed, Cheryl moved Tracy Atwater, a senior, into the starting lineup.
Wait a minute. Shouldn’t a coach start the most talented players on her team? Shouldn’t she put the players on the floor that will give her squad the best chance to win? What was going on? The team never understood the logic behind her decision.
No matter what Cheryl’s reason was for making the change, it would have been more palatable to the players if she had told them that she was making the change for the good of the team or because she wanted more firepower off the bench.
The way Cheryl did it, our team wound up with one senior happy about starting, one new player unhappy about not starting, and two USC players upset with each other because of ridiculous team politics. Cheryl said so many different things to so many players that her credibility really came into question. She was always trying to make every player happy. If the coach is not strong, consistent, and in control, the team will eventually fall apart. I realize that Cheryl was probably doing what she thought was best to keep the team going strong. She knew that our squad had been through a lot with Coach Stanley’s departure, and she did her best to create a friendship with all of us. I must admit that there were times when I shared laughs with Cheryl and wished that we had met under different circumstances, but without my favorite coach at the helm, I just could not let her in. It was an awkward relationship at best.
I was the California player who for years had been compared to Cheryl Miller. Now I was playing for her at USC, where she had earned her legendary status. Cheryl was the coach, but she had to share the spotlight with me and constantly answer media questions about her star player. Maybe I was a threat. I cannot be sure. All I know is that the relationship was not that strong. Cheryl would put her arm around me and smile when the cameras were on, but I was not sure if it was sincere because we were both equally as open with each other as we were closed.
I was just thinking Cheryl being my coach after Coach Stanley was bad timing. In a lot of ways, I could relate to her as a player more than as a coach. One incident was a practice that I remember. We were working on zone defenses in practice. Tina, Nicky, Karleen, and I were moving the ball around and scoring easily against the zone. One of our walk-on players was part of the defense, and Cheryl yelled out to her, “Give me that jersey!” Our coach took the girl’s shirt, pulled it on, and stepped in to play the middle of the zone.
I asked Cheryl, “Are you just demonstrating, or are you playing?”
“No, I’m playing,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure. I’m playing. Let’s go!”
In al
l my years of playing basketball, I had never seen a head coach actually play in a scrimmage. It was one of those things that was so weird, it was funny. Cheryl had forced her way into the action, so there was no way that we were going to take it easy on her. We figured she could hold her own. In fact, some of us looked forward to mixing it up with the new coach. Cheryl was only thirty years old, and she was a solid six foot three. Everybody knew what a great player she had been during the 1980s. I had no idea how good she still might be, but I did not want to take my chances and get beat by her. I knew she would have some game left and might try to muscle me and block my shot, so I was going to play hard, just as I would in any practice.
But Cheryl’s competitive instincts took over. Our coach was trying to make a statement, so she dug in defensively, stole the ball, drove to the other basket, and scored. In that instant, I thought, I wish she was my teammate! Cheryl was feeling pretty good about herself, too, and then we switched, and her team went on offense. Cheryl was showing the reserves how to attack the zone. I was in the middle defensively, with Tina and Jualeah Woods on the wings. Nicky and Karleen were at the top of the zone for us, and as only Karleen can do, she started to challenge Cheryl verbally in a lighthearted way. “Come on. Bring it in here, Coach. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Cheryl took the challenge. She drove hard, squeezed past our guards, came right at me, put up a finger roll, and scored. The coach was pumped, and started joking and talking trash. Our starting five was beginning to feel tested. That was when things began to get more physical on the court.
The next time Cheryl dribbled through the top of our zone, Karleen bumped her a bit with an elbow and put our coach on a direct path to me in the middle. I went up in the air, with the intent of blocking her shot, and I did get a piece of the ball, but on my way down, my elbow accidentally caught a piece of Cheryl’s face. I busted her lip, and she was pissed. My teammates looked at Cheryl, and then they looked at me. All I could say to them was, “Hey. When she put on the jersey, Cheryl stopped being the coach and became one of us. That play was just good, hard basketball.” Everybody laughed, even Cheryl. I think we truly gained respect for each other’s competitiveness that day.