by Lisa Leslie
That game is probably best remembered for the altercation that took place between me and Tina Thompson. That is right. I got into it with my former USC teammate. DeLisha Milton and I had come up with our “salute,” which we used to encourage each other and to celebrate. DeLisha had three nicknames. She was called Sunshine for her happy personality and D-Nasty for the aggressive way that she played the game, and sometimes she was just D. Before some games, D would get on the court and be so hyper and so anxious to play that she would be way too aggressive. Keep in mind, DeLisha had an eighty-four-inch wingspan. That is seven feet from fingertip to fingertip. Her arms were so long that there were times when she could not control them. That would get D really frustrated, and then, if a ref called a foul that she did not like, she overreacted. She was not satisfied with her lack of discipline or self-control and wanted to get away from that “D-Nasty” image.
Our salute was supposed to help her get through those stressful moments. If she was fussing with an official, I would yell, “Hey,” and I would shape my hands in the form of a cup. That was to let her know, “Jesus has got you. You are right here in his hands. Relax.” Sometimes that was the only way to calm her down. If I yelled, “D, don’t fuss at the referee,” it might look like I was scolding her, and that was definitely not my intention.
One night during the season, I was watching The Maury Povich Show on television, and this man sang a song called “A Soldier for Jesus.” DeLisha and I are very spiritual people. We would hold Bible study meetings with the Sparks’ team chaplain. I later said, “D, why don’t we use a salute as our sign, like we are soldiers for Jesus?” She liked the idea and thought it would help, so from that point on, whenever we stepped on the court to start a game, D and I would slap hands and then salute each other. When we played, we would cheer for and encourage each other. If D made a good play at the other end of the court, we would make eye contact and salute. Those were happy times. The salute had special meaning for us, and we had a special bond.
The salute was our thing throughout the season. Sparks’ fans caught on and started to do it, too. If anyone asked us about it, we used it as an opportunity to spread the good word. People knew. Our team started to pray before games, and we would huddle and pray after games. We saw it as a spiritual movement that would bring us closer to God and closer together as a team.
DeLisha and I never, ever saluted in another player’s face or used it in a derogatory way. There was nothing negative about it. When a time-out was called, we might salute and give each other high fives and a hug and then walk to the bench. It was that type of connection, total positive reinforcement for us, and sometimes, when things were going bad, I would salute D and say, “C’mon, you gotta be strong. Get with it.”
From the very start of the WNBA, the Sparks and the Comets developed a strong rivalry. When we met in those 1999 conference finals, Houston was the back-to-back league champion defending its crown, and we were the first-time team in the playoffs, trying to gain some respectability. The Sparks and the Comets always played hard against each other, but we never exchanged foul words. We just played ball. We respected each other.
The Sparks had come a long way, and going into Game Three of the Western Conference finals, we were just one win away from eliminating the Comets and earning our first berth in the WNBA finals. The two teams played it close in that critical third game, but Houston eventually took control and pulled away. It was obvious in the closing minutes that the Comets were going to beat us. That was when Tina struck a raw nerve with me. She started talking trash and shouting profane things.
Now, Tina and I are two people who do not really curse much. Even when we hung out, we would say, “Let’s try not to curse.” I am proud of the fact that I do not swear a lot. She is, too, or at least she was. So, it was totally disrespectful for Tina to start cursing near the end of that game. I kept thinking, What? That’s not even you, Tina. What are you talking about? What are you doing?
She was disrespecting our team, and then she started saluting and telling us to “go home.” That threw me over the edge! It was one thing for her to talk trash, but when she started saluting and cursing, that was too much. The salute was something so positive for us as Christians. For her to twist its message really sent me into a rage. I snapped.
Losing control like that is the worst feeling for me. It is a misrepresentation of who I am. It is very embarrassing, and it is not the message that I want to send to anybody, but that was what happened in the final minutes of game #3. I was running down court, and Tina was facing me as she backpedaled on defense. I kept telling myself, It’s okay, Lisa. Just stay calm! Tina kept talking, though, and looking at me. She was taunting me! She had made it personal, and that pushed me past my limit. The fact that we had been teammates in college made it worse than if it had been some woman that I had no history with. Tina’s taunting hit home, and it hit me really hard.
I knew that by the time that I reached Tina, I was going to hit her. I had to hit her. In a split second, I thrust my arms out to shove her. My hands went all the way to her throat. I made contact, but then I quickly stepped back. The only thing that saved her was the fact that I knew Tina and I had a love for her. That was why I decided, at the last second, not to sock her. I just shoved Tina really hard. When I looked at my friend, I could not hit her the way that I really wanted to. I knew it was not right. But I was so angry and frustrated that then I started cursing. I felt like Tina had turned on me.
Looking back, I guess that was Tina’s way of celebrating and feeling liberated. Her team had dodged a bullet. After losing that first game to us in Los Angeles, the Comets came back to win the next two games on their home floor, to earn another trip back to the WNBA finals. That was a great accomplishment under pressure. I can understand that now. I understand the emotion of it, but not the personal level to which Tina took it. We both got ejected from the game. My season was over, but Tina and Houston went on to beat New York in the finals, to win their third consecutive WNBA championship. I love playing with Tina, she still has a special place in my heart, and to this day I would still pick her to be on my team.
At the end of the 1999 season, the Sparks’ revolving coaching door twirled again. Orlando Woolridge got into a contract squabble with Johnny Buss and got fired, so Michael Cooper was promoted to head coach. The L.A. Sparks had been in existence for only three seasons, and already we were on our fourth head coach.
I was actually happy that Coach Cooper got the job, even though we did not hit it off well the first time we met. When I was attending USC, I worked as a counselor at Coop’s summer camp in Pasadena, and he was a real jerk to me. The man called me out in front of all the kids and was very mean to me. Coop challenged me to a dunk contest, and I did dunk, but the man was so difficult. I thought he should have been nicer. Michael Cooper loved kids, but he was really tough on his camp counselors. At that time, I did not like him, but once Coop became an assistant coach with the Sparks, I learned to appreciate and respect him. The man never really talked much as an assistant coach, though, so I wondered if he was going to be able to handle the Sparks’ head coaching job for the upcoming 2000 season.
That was the year that the WNBA increased to sixteen teams by awarding expansion franchises to the Indiana Fever, the Seattle Storm, the Miami Sol, and the Portland Fire. For some of us, it was going to be a very busy summer, because the WNBA season was scheduled to end in late August, and the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, were scheduled to begin mid-September.
The Sparks lost point guard Gordana Grubin to Indiana in the expansion draft, but we gained a point guard when my former USC teammate Nicky McCrimmon was taken with a fourth-round pick. Michael Cooper was under the microscope because he had never been a head coach before getting the Sparks’ job. He had worked briefly as an assistant coach under Magic Johnson and then for two years under Lakers head coach Del Harris, but Coop was best known as a defensive specialist and top-notch three-point shooter on the Lakers’ �
��Showtime” championship teams of the 1980s. He is still the only Lakers player to ever win the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, so as you might expect, Mr. Cooper emphasized defense from the first day of training camp. He also made it quite clear that we were all there to win the WNBA championship. Anything less was unacceptable.
I met with Coach Cooper to find out exactly what he expected from me and what he wanted me to improve on. Coop was really good at helping me to understand the game. I loved to learn, so we had a good rapport. The man owned five NBA championship rings from his days with the Lakers. Why would I not listen to him?
Coach Cooper gave me the nickname Smooth because he thought my game was smooth, like that of his former Lakers’ teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That was high praise when you consider that Kareem is one of the best basketball players of all time. To be compared to Kareem, in any way, was a tremendous compliment, and Smooth sounded kind of special.
In Coop’s first season as head coach, the Sparks worked more on defense than in any year in our history, and it paid off. We held our opponents to sixty-eight points per game, four points less than our defensive average in the Sparks’ first three seasons. We were getting better, and part of the reason was that Coach Cooper let everyone on our squad know exactly what her role was. He would stand in front of the entire team and tell each player why she was there, what her responsibilities were, and what he expected. Everybody knew her job and what everybody else’s role was, too. That really helped our team. Coop would say, “The ball goes through Smooth,” so I knew that 50 percent of the time I was going to touch the ball on offense, and the play was going to go through me. I knew that I was expected to score when possible, but I also had to be a good passer and find my teammates when I was double-or triple-teamed. Coach Cooper was straightforward with all of us, but he would pick his spots, too. Sometimes, he would be bold and get in our faces as a team, and other times he would handle matters privately. I totally respected that.
Coach Woolridge used to curse me out in front of the squad when he was upset with me, or he would say, “The superstar needs to step up.” But Coop would say, “Smooth! Come outside so we can talk.” When we got outside, he might say, “I don’t ever want to see you do that again,” or he would tell me, “You need to get yourself together.”
I liked that Coach Cooper was usually calm and handled things in a professional manner. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not need someone cursing me out to get me motivated. All a coach has to do is tell me that I am not working hard enough, or that I am not doing something right. I may not always like what the coach has to say, but I will try to fix things and make them better. Coop understood that. He also knew how to push my buttons to get the most out of me. A lot of times, Coach Cooper would use reverse psychology on me. He might say, “That’s okay, Smooth. You probably couldn’t have accomplished that, anyway.” Or he would try to make me think that another player was better than me. “Did you see how she did that?” Coop would ask me. “That is what you need to do. She is really good, isn’t she?” He was constantly trying to make me better. He knew that I would strive to get his praise without ever asking him for it.
At first, I did not know if I could trust Coach Cooper, but through his words and his actions, I found that I could. I would write down my goals, such as winning the WNBA championship and earning the league’s most valuable player awards, and I would let Coop look at them. It was strange because, initially, I did not feel as though he believed that I could attain my goals. At the same time, I was hesitant to believe him when he said that I could achieve them. It was confusing until I realized that Coop and I were on the very same page.
The Sparks began that 2000 season with four straight wins, followed by two losses. Then we won twenty-four of our next twenty-five games. Coach Cooper’s defensive schemes really worked for us, and that year the Sparks were the only WNBA team to hold its opponents under 40 percent in field goal shooting. In our first season under Coop, we finished with the best record in the L.A. Sparks’ history and the best record in the WNBA. We went 28–4 but got bounced from the conference finals by our annual nemesis, Houston. The Comets ousted us and then did the same thing to New York in the WNBA finals. Van Chancellor’s team maintained its stranglehold on the league championship. Their victory over the Liberty gave the Comets four titles in the league’s first four seasons.
I did not win the Most Valuable Player award that season, but I was named to the All-WNBA First Team. It hurt to get eliminated again, but I felt good about the Sparks’ direction. For the first time in franchise history, we seemed to be on the right track. When Michael Cooper took over as head coach, the L.A. Sparks finally had the leader who could bring out the best in each player and put the players together as a team. Coop gave us that swagger, attitude, and confidence that we had been missing. We were a team in every sense of the word, and it was time for us to start playing like champions.
Chapter 11
Bridging Adversity with Maturity
When the Sparks’ season ended in mid-August, I joined the U.S. national team that was preparing for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. The opening ceremony in Sydney, Australia, was less than one month away, so we had a lot of work to do, but this was not our first time together as a team. Our Team USA squad went 38–2 on a tour that started in September of 1999 and finished in late March of 2000. Then it was time to close up shop for a while on the U.S. team and get down to the business of the WNBA season. As the summer rolled on and our respective teams got eliminated from the league’s championship race, the U.S. national team slowly began to regroup and get ready for the Olympics. We got in some workouts and then went 8–0 on a mini-tour that took us to Canada, Hawaii, and Australia. We capped it off by beating the Australian national team in Melbourne just six nights before the opening of the Olympics.
Nell Fortner was Team USA’s head coach. She had enjoyed great success with the Purdue Boilermakers and had put off starting her new job as head coach of the Indiana Fever so that she could guide the U.S. women’s team through the 2000 Olympics. Geno Auriemma and Peggie Gillom were Nell’s assistants. We had six players back from the squad that won the gold medal in the 1996 Olympics, including Dawn, Ruthie, Sheryl, Teresa, Nikki, and me, but there were several newcomers as well. Katie Smith, DeLisha Milton, Yolanda Griffith, Natalie Williams, Kara Wolters, and Chamique Holdsclaw had all earned spots on our Olympic roster.
Sydney, Australia, was super safety conscious for the 2000 Summer Games. The bombing at the Atlanta Olympics was fresh in everyone’s mind, so security was tight and highly visible. Fortunately, there were no explosions or tragedies at the Australian Olympics, but the games were not without incident. We had demonstrators outside of our Team USA hotel in Melbourne. There had been large, and sometimes violent, protests in Melbourne against the World Economic Forum (WEF) that had been held in the city in the days leading up to the Olympics. The WEF was comprised of many of the world’s business and government leaders whose focus was corporate globalization. The organization counted Exxon, Ford, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Nike among its numerous members. I endorse Nike and was told that the company had sent staff members and athletes to Australia ahead of time to make sure that the situation in Melbourne was safe. Nike was being accused of alleged unfair labor practices, so the company’s representatives had given us a lot of information on Nike and how its products were produced. We had even gone on a tour in China to visit the so-called “sweatshops” to reassure us that the workers were being well provided for. Quite frankly, the whole protest thing was a little scary, but I did not have time to deal with anything but basketball. I was trying to get acclimated and ready for our first game, against South Korea.
The demonstrators did not make that easy for us. Our Monday morning practice had to be canceled when we were left waiting in the hotel casino while our bus tried unsuccessfully to get to us through a mass of demonstrators. The activists were everywhere, and they were chanting and shouting. Securit
y put up a fence around the hotel, but after what happened in Atlanta in 1996, there were still plenty of reasons for concern. The situation was so bad that the U.S. men’s basketball team canceled its practice, but eventually, Nell Fortner’s attitude was, “We are the USA. It is a peaceful demonstration. We are just going to go to practice. I don’t care if we have to take a boat.”
It might have looked like a peaceful protest, but those people were very passionate about their cause. Who knew what they might be thinking? It seemed very dangerous, but Nell still sent us out of the hotel to walk through the demonstrators. They were chanting, “No Nike! No Nike!” and some of us, like me, were wearing Nike gear. Why would we walk into a situation like that? It was an incident waiting to happen. We were told, “Put your heads down and walk. Do not look at anybody. Do not say anything.” To me, that was just too much. Nell was adamant, though, so we cut through the demonstrators and eventually made it to the bus. The demonstrators were peaceful, considering that we walked right through their protest. But it was still quite an ordeal, and as Allen Iverson might say, “We were talking about practice!”