Leaving a Legacy
By: Ryan Eletto
The end is near for the WNBA’s All-Time Greatest Player, Lisa Leslie, who is currently playing out the final chapter of a career filled with hundreds of pages of basketball memories. Success in the playoffs will give Lisa’s career a storybook ending.
Now on the brink of retirement in her final season, 12-year WNBA veteran Lisa Leslie has a decorated and distinguished basketball career on which to reflect. She won two WNBA championships (2001, 2002) – and was named Finals MVP both times – has been named the league’s Most Valuable Player three times (2001, 2004, 2006), was selected to the All-WNBA First Team eight times, and won two All-Star Game MVP awards. She’s also been named the Defensive Player of the Year twice (2004, 2008), holds the league record for the most Player of the Week honors (14), and is a four-time Olympic gold medalist (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008). Needless to say, Lisa will have plenty worth remembering after her basketball career is over.
Though two regular season games and playoffs of the 2009 season still remains, we asked Lisa to ponder her lasting legacy – one in which she says she envisioned herself going out on top, as the ultimate champion.
ACCEPTING THE CHALLENGE
As Lisa can attest, even the most gifted athletes encounter obstacles to greatness. Case in point is the right knee injury that Lisa suffered in the fifth game of the season against Phoenix on June 19. Since then, Lisa has been forced to watch from the sidelines as her team plummeted to a 4-9 record at the All-Star break. Though she was cleared to play by team doctors before the team’s Aug. 4 game against San Antonio, she’s still on the road to recovery and her dreams of winning a championship in her final season got sidetracked, at least temporarily.
“It’s been very challenging,” Lisa admitted. “I’ve stayed positive and thought, ‘At least I didn’t blow my knee out completely.’ It was really hard watching the Sparks struggle and wish I could get out there and help.”
KEEPING THE FAITH
Despite the Sparks’ sluggish start to the first half of the 2009 campaign, Lisa was confident that the Sparks would turn it around, citing a successful month of August where the team went 10-4. When asked how she wanted to cap-off her career at season’s end, she had no hesitation in her reply:
“By winning a third championship this year and having the most miraculous turnaround season ever,” she said. “The team can do it, I truly believe that.”
LEGACY IN JEOPARDY?
Regardless of whether or not the team achieves its lofty goals this season, Head Coach Michael Cooper believes Lisa’s legacy is safe.
“I think she’s done too much for this league, and she’s won championships, and that’s what it’s all about,” Cooper said. “I think the injury didn’t help and that hurts a little more in terms of her productivity, but it’s always been at a high level. I don’t think anything can tarnish her legacy at all.”
ROLE MODELisa
In response to the question of whether or not Lisa has become a role model for the younger players on the team in her final season, especially reigning MVP Candace Parker, Cooper said, “She’s been a role model for the whole league, not just Candace. The way she carries herself, the things she still commands her body to do on the court [are things] people can definitely admire her for.”
REVO-LISA-NARY
Being a role model is nothing new for Lisa, who has been changing the way women’s basketball has been played ever since her college days at USC.
“I think she revolutionized the center position in the college game,” assistant coach Marianne Stanley, who recruited and coached Lisa at USC from 1990-94, said. “Before Lisa, I don’t recall a center as mobile as she with her size and agility and moved as well as she did. If you talk to people who are 10-15 years younger than her, she is one of the people they have modeled their game after.”
THE WILL TO WIN
Though Lisa only became a vocal leader later in her career according to Stanley, she has always led by example through her willingness to learn, her work ethic, and her passion for the game.
“I think one of the things about her that’s so special is that she has never stopped being a student of the game, never stopped working hard to improve and to achieve goals,” Stanley said. “She’s someone who sets a high standard and then goes about the business every day of meeting it.”
HANGING UP THE HIGH-TOPS
Lisa has dabbled in acting, modeling, and broadcasting in the past, and has excelled at all three. According to her coaches, those aren’t the only things Lisa would excel at if she chose to stay close to the sport after retirement.
“I never really thought of Lisa as a coach prior to this year, but I think she would make a very good coach if that’s something she wanted to pursue because she understand the game so well, knows how to communicate with people, she knows how to help them not just show up but to be out there and succeed and excel and do things the right way,” Stanley said. “I think she has the ability to be a very good teacher, and if that’s something she chose, I think she would be outstanding.”
Coach Coop concurred, stating his belief that Lisa has the ability to succeed in any future profession she chooses.
“I think she could do just about whatever she wants,” Cooper said. “She’s a very smart, articulate young lady. The world is hers, depending on what she wants to do. She could model and get into that, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to want to some more time at home with her husband and her daughter, but she’ll have sometime to think about it. But whatever she chooses to do, she’ll be good at it.”
BE YOURSELF
Coach Stanley also appreciates Lisa’s lifelong ability to stay true to herself and pursue other goals in her life off the court, such as her modeling and acting careers, while remaining one of the elite athletes in her sport for nearly two decades.
“She’s had a big impact on helping women understand that you can achieve your goals and seek excellence while at the same time being the person you are, having integrity, and being classy,” Stanley said. “You don’t have to sacrifice any of that in order to reach the highest of goals, including an Olympic gold medal. You can be yourself and be a young woman with class and still be one of the best athletes in the world.”
HOMETOWN HERO
After beginning to look ahead and feel nostalgic, Lisa commented on her good fortune of being able to play professionally for her hometown team and to have faithful fans and admirers throughout her decorated basketball career in Los Angeles.
“I feel really blessed,” she said. “I’ve played basketball here in the city where I’ve grown up and really more or less been with my mom and sister and now with my husband and my baby. As far as the fans go, it’s the icing on the cake. It’s so cool to see so many familiar faces and for people to be able to follow my career since high school.”
THE HERE AND NOW
Even while seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, Lisa has retained the wherewithal to both envision life after basketball and remain focused on the task at hand – to provide leadership for her team through both her actions and words, and to do everything in her power to win a third and final WNBA championship – the would-be icing on the cake to an already illustrious basketball career.
