by Lisa Leslie
I cannot tell you what an awesome opportunity it was to be promoted and recognized as professional athletes. The WNBA was going to get exposure from its television deals with NBC, ESPN, and Lifetime. The league also had top-notch corporate sponsors, which were essential to it getting noticed and getting off to a solid start. Through their commercials, Nike allowed us to express ourselves as female basketball players, and they launched several signature women’s shoe lines as well. Sheryl’s Air Swoopes basketball shoe went on sale first. My shoe was called the L-9 to match the number on my jersey, and Dawn had her own shoe as well, the DS-5. With the exception of the Olympic years, women athletes had always struggled to get publicity and exposure, so it was important to the WNBA and all its players to have Nike and several other companies on board as corporate sponsors who were truly interested in marketing our sport.
The very first WNBA game was played on June 21, 1997. The Sparks hosted the Liberty in an L.A. vs. New York / East Coast vs. West Coast showdown at the Great Western Forum. Nobody knew for sure how it would go over, so we were happy to see the media come out in force to cover the historic event. The radio, television, and print reporters had access to all of the players prior to the game, and since our new league wanted as much publicity as possible, we tried to accommodate every media request, but it got pretty crazy. As game time got closer and closer, we were still taking pictures and doing interviews. The media kept swarming us. They asked me hundreds of questions about the Liberty. They wanted pictures of Rebecca and me face-to-face, almost nose to nose. The media wanted to create a rivalry out of our battle of the Olympic big girls. There were so many demands on our time, and so much to do, that when the madness finally subsided, it was time to play the game, and I was already worn-out.
More than fourteen thousand fans packed into the Forum for the opener. Tyra Banks, Arsenio Hall, Penny Marshall, and Magic Johnson were some of the stars who showed up for the event, and NBC was on hand to televise the WNBA’s first game to a national audience. I remember doing a “photo opportunity” ceremonial jump ball with New York’s Kym Hampton just before game time. League president Val Ackerman tossed the ball up between the two of us, and camera flashes went off all over the arena.
Penny Toler and Jamila Wideman were the Sparks’ starting guards for that first game. I was in the middle, with Tamecka Dixon and Daedra Charles at the forward positions. New York had Rebecca Lobo and Vickie “V.J.” Johnson at forward and Hampton at center, and the Liberty’s starting backcourt featured Teresa “T-Spoon” Weatherspoon and Sophia Witherspoon. Once we finally got around to the real opening tip-off, the Women’s National Basketball Association was officially under way. Fifty-nine seconds into the game, Penny put a move on Vickie Johnson, then pulled up and knocked down a jump shot from the right side. My teammate scored the very first basket in WNBA history.
The rest of the game did not go nearly that well. About ten minutes in, I tried to dunk. Actually, a better way to put it might be, an opportunity presented itself, and I thought about dunking. I can remember seeing the basket and thinking, Lisa, get up. Well, that was what my mind was saying, but my body was screaming, “No way!” I was psyched to dunk, but all that pregame media frenzy, adrenaline, and excitement had gotten to me. I had no legs. Nothing! I got up in the air, and I knew what I wanted to do, but I was totally exhausted. That orange-and oatmeal-colored basketball felt like mush, and I jammed it against the front of the rim. Okay, it barely hit the rim. It was just terrible! I could have broken my back. That was how bad it was!
I did manage to lead the Sparks with sixteen points and fourteen rebounds in that first game, but our team shot a horrible 31 percent from the field against New York, committed twenty-five turnovers, and made only one of eleven shots from outside the arc. Hampton and V.J. led the Liberty with thirteen points, and T-Spoon dished out ten assists as New York beat us in that historic opener 67–57.
The WNBA got off to a roaring start that weekend. Sixteen thousand fans showed up in Phoenix for the Mercury’s game with Charlotte, and close to twelve thousand were at Gund Arena for Cleveland’s game with the Comets. The ratings were pretty good, too.
Once the flash and excitement of the opener were out of the way, it was time to get down to the meat and potatoes of the regular season. The Sparks’ first head coach was Linda Sharp. During her twelve seasons at USC, she coached Cheryl Miller and Cynthia Cooper and won two national championships, but in the WNBA, Coach Sharp had a lot of us scratching our heads. She wanted us to use some basketball techniques and styles that did not coincide with things that I had learned from Coach Stanley at USC or from Tara VanDerveer with the U.S. national team. Those were two coaches that I really respected and admired, but Coach Sharp’s terminology was like nothing I had ever heard. She had us face-guarding the post with our backs to the ball on the block, and I had only played it facing the ball. It really threw me for a loop.
Haixia Zheng was on that first Sparks team. The four-time Olympian from China did not speak much English, but she kept saying, “No good! Coach no good!” Haixia did not even speak our language, but she knew that Coach Sharp was feeding us some questionable information.
Haixia and I were so different and yet so similar that it was amazing. Despite the language barrier, we were able to communicate. She was really fun. Unfortunately, Haixia was on the downside of her career. She was putting in an extra year or two just to get the experience of playing in the WNBA, playing in Los Angeles, and playing for the Sparks. She was not nearly at her best, but she was still a good shooter. Around the basket, she did not miss anything.
It was hard for Haixia because she had bad knees and was not accustomed to the quickness of the WNBA. They said the menisci in her knee were like chopped meat, and her legs were all knocked and turned. She limped and wore a knee brace, and most of the time, it was difficult just to watch her run. She worked out hard, though, and really tried, but she was in pain every day.
That made things tough for the Sparks. We did not know how to cover for Haixia’s shortcomings the way the Chinese did. It was frustrating for me because I would get down court and find that I had to defend two post players, hers and mine, while we waited for Haixia to get back in position. While I was guarding Haixia’s assignment, my player would score a basket. I would look to our bench and plead, “Please, get her out of here! I can’t guard two people at once.”
We definitely knew what Haixia could not do, but we made a big mistake in not cashing in on what she could do. There were so many other times when the Sparks just needed to get the ball to Haixia at the offensive end. The Chinese would run screens off of her. They would pop out, throw it to Haixia, and she was money. The Sparks were too busy dribbling between our legs to get the ball to our big threat in the paint, so Haixia would get frustrated. Her face would turn red, and she would say, “No good. This is not good.”
Haixia Zheng wanted to win, and with a six-foot-eight, 285-pound highly talented player on our team, there was no reason for us not to be more successful. We should have won, but we did not know how to use her. Haixia hit 62 percent of her shots! All we had to do was throw the ball up high to her, and we knew that she would score. It was that simple. She cried because she wanted to do better. Like me, she was very emotional that first year, and like me, Haixia knew that she was not playing anywhere close to her best basketball.
Oh, man. That first Sparks team had so many issues. We had a lot of individuals who had a lot of talent but no idea how to play team basketball. Coach Sharp did not coach us in an organized way, and she did not teach us the things we needed to come together as a unit. It was a miserable feeling to have strong players like Penny, Tamecka, Mwadi Mabika, Linda Burgess, and Heidi Buerge (my OGDL foe) on our squad and still be losing.
The most shocking disappointment that first season was Daedra Charles, the Wade Trophy winner from the University of Tennessee. She was six foot three, but Daedra gained a lot of weight after college, and she was huge when she came into
the Sparks’ first training camp. Daedra was an All-American power forward who was strong and had some really nice post moves. She should have really helped us, but after that inaugural game, Daedra Charles never started another game for the L.A. Sparks.
Talk about disappointment. The Sparks lost eight of our first thirteen games that season, and Johnny Buss promptly dropped Coach Sharp. She was fired and replaced, on an interim basis, by assistant coach Julie Rousseau, who just a few months before had been coaching at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles.
I stumbled out of the gate that first season, the same way that the Sparks did. I was supposed to be the team’s star player, but I really struggled. It literally took me most of the season to get in shape and to learn how to play with the WNBA basketball. The first balls were a mess. They were so slippery! I could not catch the ball. I could not focus on it or get accustomed to the fact that it was orange and sort of white. I started every game that season and averaged sixteen points and seven boards, but I shot only 43 percent from the field and under 60 percent from the free throw line. I was totally embarrassed.
Initially, the level of competition throughout the WNBA was mediocre, because so many of us came in unprepared. The better players were not ready to stand out right away, so most of us were pretty average that first year. The league was good, but nothing seemed really outstanding. Cynthia Cooper scored twenty-two points per game to snare the league’s first scoring championship. Ruthie Bolton was next at nineteen points per game, and then there was me and everybody else in the WNBA, all averaging fewer than sixteen points per game. I never averaged so few points in any league at any level. It was horrible, but I never stopped trying to win. I was too competitive for that, but the Sparks finished at 14–14 in the WNBA’s inaugural season, and we did not make the playoffs.
One of my biggest thrills of that start-up season was getting to play in the Great Western Forum. That was awesome! Every time I walked into that arena, I would see the purple and gold and all those Lakers NBA championship banners hanging from the rafters. I could almost feel the history. Just being on that court was an experience. I loved playing at the Forum. The seats were close to the court, so it was an intimate environment and just a great place to play. There are not too many better feelings in sports than the rush I got every time that I ran out of the tunnel and onto that Forum floor.
The WNBA averaged close to ten thousand fans per game in its first season, and the Sparks drew good numbers, too. Surprisingly, we were also very good draws on the road, and it did not take long to realize why: sports fans everywhere simply love to hate L.A., no matter the sport. I do not understand why. It must be genetic or ingrained in people. From the very first time that we stepped onto an opponent’s court in that very first season, their fans despised the Sparks. And they did not like me in particular. Why? I did not do anything to them. I thought it was funny. People brought signs to the games and loved to shout, “BEAT L.A.! BEAT L.A.!” They could not stand us, but they loved to see the Sparks come to their town, and they came out to watch us play. I guess that is flattery in a backhanded sort of way.
Houston had the best record in the league that first season, despite the fact that Sheryl Swoopes only played nine games after giving birth to her son, Jordan. The Comets went 18–10 during the season, then knocked off New York in the finals to win the first WNBA championship. Cynthia Cooper was the league’s first most valuable player, and Van Chancellor was the very first to win the WNBA’s Coach of the Year award.
Prior to the 1998 season, the league added expansion teams in Detroit and Washington, D.C., while the Sparks removed the “interim” tag from Julie Rousseau. She was going to be our head coach for season number two, and former NBA player Orlando Woolridge was picked to be her assistant. Julie had great intensity, but she was not experienced enough to coach at the WNBA level. I love Julie! She did her best, but she was in over her head. Honestly, she was just too nice. She wanted to please everybody, and that did not work. It was an unfortunate situation for her, and we began the season with a 2–7 record. I thought that once management realized that we were in trouble, they should have done whatever they had to do to get us straightened out. Make a change, pay the money, cut your losses, and get us the best coach available. Finally, when the team was 7–13, Julie was let go and replaced by Woolridge. We finished 5–5 under Orlando, but we missed the playoffs again.
That 1998–99 off-season turned out to be a very interesting one for me for several reasons. In October I dedicated the Lisa Leslie Sports Complex at Morningside High School. It was forty-two thousand square feet of court space, with twelve baskets. Nike was behind me all the way on the project. The company allowed me to give back to my high school, and that was a great feeling. We could not have achieved our goal without the help of Raye Pond, Nike’s representative for women’s professional basketball. Raye bent over backwards to provide whatever support Nike could give, and she is the person I thank most for making the Lisa Leslie Sports Complex a reality.
And then, in November, Mom detected a lump on her breast during a self-examination. She found it on Tom’s birthday and did not want to spoil his big day, so she kept the news to herself. The next morning, she phoned her doctor. She was very secretive when she made the call and spoke in hushed tones as she told the nurse about the lump. Mom knew that Tom was in the next room.
An ultrasound was performed, and two lumps were found. One of them burst before a biopsy could be performed, and thankfully, the second lump was benign, but it still had to be removed, and surgery worried Mom. When she returned home, she told Tom the good news about the benign tumor and the worrisome news about the invasive surgery. Tom was supportive and told her, “God did not finally give me the right woman just to take her away. You are going to be fine.”
Mom took our love and prayers into surgery with her, and everything went fine. Well, almost everything. While the doctor was sewing Mom up, he cut himself and bled into her incision. Do you know what a scare that would be today, not to mention the lawsuit! But at the time, all the nurses did was tell her that they wanted to do a blood test to make sure that everything was okay. Mom told us, “They wanted to charge me three hundred fifty dollars, plus tax, for the blood test. I told them no thank you.”
Needless to say, breast cancer awareness and prevention became a big concern of mine. Shortly after Mom’s ordeal, I was honored to become the spokesperson for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. As a spokesperson for breast cancer awareness, I wore the classic pink ribbons to spread the word, but I was not truly knowledgeable about the disease, so I got more educated about it. Mom and I shot a public service announcement that ran on television and on many jumbo screens at sporting events. It told women how to educate themselves, and it urged them to see past the myths that surround the disease. For example, breast cancer is not solely hereditary. Anyone with breasts—male or female—is susceptible to the disease. And early detection is key. It saved Mom’s life, so she encouraged women to administer self-examinations once a month, and she strongly recommended mammograms for women who were forty and over. I liked that my position as a spokesperson brought attention to an issue that touched my family directly. It was nice to do something really positive with my notoriety.
While I faced important issues at home, the off-season for the Sparks proved full of pivotal decisions. The league expanded to a dozen teams with the additions of the Minnesota Lynx and the Orlando Miracle. The Sparks had Orlando news, too: they hired Orlando Woolridge to be our head coach for the upcoming 1999 season and picked Michael Cooper, the former Laker, to be his assistant.
There were other changes, too. Haixia decided to stay in China, and after just one season with the Sparks, Pam McGee retired. The American Basketball League drew its last breath, and that meant that some high-quality talent, like Katie Smith, Shannon Johnson, Yolanda Griffith, and Natalie Williams, were going to be available in the WNBA draft. The Sparks cashed in and took DeLisha Milton wit
h the fourth pick and also grabbed Clarisse Machanguana, Ukari Figgs, La’Keshia Frett, and Gordana Grubin on draft day.
Despite all the new faces, our squad came together pretty quickly in 1999 for the WNBA’s third season. Everybody was contributing, and we felt good. By the time the very first All-Star Game rolled around, we were 10–5.
The stellar affair was held on July 14 at Madison Square Garden. It was East vs. West, and the game definitely brought out the stars. Julius “Dr. J” Erving was there, along with Tipper Gore, Liza Minnelli, Tom Brokaw, Tina Louise (Ginger from Gilligan’s Island), LL Cool J, Katie Couric, and Leon (the same Leon from my New York photo shoot).
Whitney Houston sang the national anthem, and then, just as we did in the WNBA’s inaugural game, Kym Hampton and I squared off for the opening jump ball. Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson, Michelle Timms, and Cynthia Cooper started with me on the West squad, while Kym was joined on the East team by Vickie Bullett and Chamique Holdsclaw at the forward spots and Teresa Weatherspoon and my old running buddy Nikki McCray in the backcourt.
New York always has great fans that enjoy quality basketball, and they were out in force at the Garden as our West squad jumped out to a big lead. We outscored the East 50–22 on points in the paint and won the game 79–61. I was awarded the most valuable player trophy based on my thirteen points and five rebounds. Playing on our Western Conference All-Star team felt a lot like playing on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team. I was comfortable with my teammates, and any one of us could have won the MVP award. I would be lying if I said I was not thrilled, though. It was awesome to win the inaugural WNBA All-Star Game, and it was a tremendous honor to take home the very first All-Star Game Most Valuable Player award.
After the game, I took a cross-country flight back home, and it was back to regular-season play. The Sparks won six of our next seven games after the break, and we led the WNBA in scoring. Offense was Coach Woolridge’s strength. During his thirteen-year NBA career, he had averaged better than twenty-two points per game and had shot 51 percent from the field. Defense, however, was not. He rarely emphasized it; therefore, the Sparks did not excel at it. Coach Woolridge also made some major lineup changes that bruised a couple of egos and left many of us confused. He benched Penny Toler, our starting point guard, in favor of a Grubin/Figgs combination, and Orlando sent Tamecka Dixon, the Sparks’ top shooting guard, to the bench as well. Those moves created conflict in our team. None of us knew the reasons behind the changes, and nobody thought it was important enough to explain them to us. Some players lost their respect for Coach Woolridge. Once that happens, respect is rarely recovered, but we persevered and finished the 1999 regular season with a 20–12 record, the most wins in franchise history. We made it to the Western Conference finals and split the first two games of that best-of-three series with the Comets. That set up the deciding third game on August 30 at the Summit in Houston.