Lisa Leslie Gold Medals Lisa Leslie Was a Baby
Lisa Leslie was one of the most dominant basketball players of all fourth dimension, leading the U.S. to iv Olympic aureate medals.
By Jim Caple
Subsequently the U.South. Women's Basketball Team beat Australia to win the gilded medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Game, star actor Lisa Leslie showed upward at the post-game press conference wearing four gold medals.
Aye, 4!
She wore those because she had won them all while helping the team win in four different Olympic Games: Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and then Beijing.
"I put this uniform on when I was in the 11th grade and I worked my fashion up to the national team, then the world title, then the Olympics," Leslie said at that printing conference in Beijing.
"My dream was to hang four gold medals around my neck by the time I finished the Olympics hither."
What might have seem a far-fetched dream to some, had become a reality for the 6-human foot-v center from Southern California.
Leslie began competing with the U.S. Junior National Team when she was 17 years old and went on to win many games with Team United states, including globe championships in 1998 and 2002. Her four Olympic gold medals is the most for a women's basketball player, with iv others winning that many as well: Teresa Edwards (who also won a bronze in addition to her four golds), Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Tamika Catchings. The U.Southward. women accept won the gold medal at the past six Olympics.
As Bird said of Leslie so: "She'southward a major reason why basketball in the U.S. — not just Olympics-wise, not just WNBA-wise — is what it is today."
Because of her great success, Leslie was selected to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame Class of 2019. She is the 2d women's basketball histrion receiving that honour; Edwards was the outset.
"Lisa is so deserving of the USOPC Hall," former University of Connecticut and WNBA great and current boob tube analyst Rebecca Lobo said. "There are a few 'originals' that come to heed when you think of Olympians who have won multiple golden medals in basketball – Teresa Edwards, Dawn Staley and Lisa are among them.
"She did equally much as anyone of that generation to set the standard for what Olympic success and longevity tin mean in women'southward hoops."
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Leslie grew upward in Compton, California, the town that has produced several other sport icons, including tennis greats Serena and Venus Williams, basketball Hall-of-Famer Dennis Johnson, baseball Hall-of-Famer Eddie Murray and current NFL star Richard Sherman. (Thespian Kevin Costner likewise grew upwardly there.) Although she was non initially interested in basketball, Leslie started playing the game in junior high.
"I felt like I belonged in the gym maybe more than anywhere else," she wrote in her autobiography, Don't Allow the Lipstick Fool You lot. "Even though I was a daughter, I could play."
Leslie could, even playing with and against boys. She became so good that in 1 high school game, she scored 101 points in one game – and that was just in the first one-half (the opposing team gave up at halftime and then at that place was no second half).
As she connected to grow – Leslie was already half dozen anxiety when in the 6th class — she was recruited past many colleges and somewhen chose the Academy of Southern California. Leslie shined there, earning All-Pac x Conference honors all four of her seasons; she was a three-time All-American and won the Naismith College Player of the Yr award in 1994.
Afterwards playing a season in Italy, Leslie played for the Los Angeles Sparks when the WNBA began in 1997. She led the Sparks to 2 WNBA championships, won three MVP awards and made viii All-Star teams. She also was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
And she was the commencement player in WNBA history to douse!
"My reaction was pure amazement," she wrote in her book. "Coach (Michael) Cooper was jumping up and down when he saw the dunk. Coop had seen his share of not bad dunks during his days with the Lakers, but he was really excited to see me slam one downwards and make history."
Leslie also played overseas briefly with the Moscow Spartak squad, for whom Bird and Taurasi did as well. Her last WNBA flavor was 2009, when she nonetheless averaged 15.4 points per game. She finished her WNBA career with 6,263 points and three,307 rebounds – both league-highs. She likewise made the time to earn a primary'southward caste in business organisation administration.
"I don't think in that location's an athlete on the court today or in this league or in youth leagues all around this state who don't owe a debt of gratitude to Lisa Leslie, or don't look upward to her as an iconic effigy in women's basketball game," and so-WNBA president Donna Orender told the New York Times in 2009. "She has been one of the bang-up competitors, the most fierce competitor."
In 2005, Leslie married Michael Lockwood, who played basketball game at the U.S. Air Force Academy and is a pilot for UPS. They accept two children, Lauren and Michael II. Leslie had her daughter Lauren in 2007, the year she did not play for the Sparks because she was pregnant.
In addition to basketball, Leslie has worked equally a fashion model for Armani, Tommy Hilfiger, Anne Klein and others; appeared in several Tv set shows including an episode of The Simpsons; and worked as a basketball analyst and broadcaster, including for the NBA's Orlando Magic.
And now Leslie too coaches the Triplets squad in the men's BIG3 three-on-3 basketball league. She led the Triplets to a league title in 2019 and was named Coach of the Twelvemonth. It was but some other example of her talent, motivation and power to help others.
"It is likewise important to me to mentor some of America's youngest players," Leslie wrote in her autobiography. "I hope that I tin can put less emphasis on individual skills and more on the team concepts that have made USA Basketball so formidable for so many years in international competition."
As Leslie told students at California State University, Sacramento this September: "Decide what you're passionate virtually and go after it. Take the courage to endeavour, and if you try and neglect, try again."
Jim Caple is a freelance sportswriter who has worked many years for ESPN and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He has covered 12 Olympics and sports on six continents.
Source: https://usopm.org/lisa-leslie-achieving-her-basketball-dream/
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