Championship Attitude

For some reason, I never get tired of winning," says Los Angeles Sparks center Lisa Leslie. "I enjoy being crowned champion whether it's the WNBA championship trophy, an Olympic gold medal or just recognition of all the hard work that I've put in when I'm not in front of the lights, cameras and all the action. I'm working really hard every day to be the best that I can be."

Her two-time Olympic teammate Dawn Staley states, "I wouldn't leave the country without her. She's the best player in the women's game."

Leslie's versatility shows in the statistics. Not many other centers in the WNBA can speak about 3-pointers, but she can talk about the three 3's she made vs. the San Antonio Silver Stars last August. At times it seems the 6'5'' Leslie can do it all - from inside to outside. While she abundantly enjoys that reputation, she plainly says it is the result of tireless hard work.

"After each WNBA season I watch tape and see what I'm doing and what I could have done better," says Leslie, 31. "I watch the NBA. I watch some of my favorite players and pick up moves that have been effective for those guys out on the floor. Then I write them down and I implement them.

"I start working on them every day," she continues. "It takes about four to six months to learn a new habit, and it takes six to eight months to actually make it a part of your game without having to think about it."

This year the new moves had to take a bit of a back seat to rebuilding. Still hurting from the knee injury she sustained at the 2003 All-Star Game, Leslie spent most of the autumn rehabbing her knee.

In general, Leslie says, it's not hard for her to come down off the intensity of a WNBA season and then focus on her work for the coming year.

"Especially since the Sparks didn't win the WNBA championship this year, we didn't three-peat. That's motivation enough for me," she says. "We're also defending our Olympic gold medal. That's another motivation in itself. I want to be the best. I want to get out there and perform well. That's pretty much all it takes for me to get up in the morning."

Indeed, this coming year will be filled with additional athletic challenges for Leslie. She was one of the seven players named to the U.S. National last October. They will be the nucleus of the U.S. Olympic women's basketball team this coming August in Athens, Greece. It will be a third Olympics for Leslie, who earned gold in 1996 and 2000. Staley, who was also a member of the 1996 and 2000 teams, says Leslie's name is synonymous with U.S. women's Olympic basketball. Given the MVP award she earned at last year's World Championship, that statement seems well-founded.

The accolades also line Leslie's WNBA resume. She was the league MVP in 2001, MVP of the All-Star Game in 1999, 2001 and 2002. and MVP of the championships in 2001 and 2002. She has been named All-WNBA First Team five times: 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003. She was the first WNBA player to reach the 3,000-point mark. And everyone knows she is the one and only WNBA player to dunk in a game.

She has also been acknowledged outside of basketball - twice having been named Team Sportswoman of the Year by the Women's Sports Foundation (2001 and 2003). In many ways she is the living embodiment of the foundation's mission to empower girls and women through sports.

"We want young girls and boys to see the connection and correlation between sports and their actual lives," Leslie notes. "Playing sports encourages them to get better grades and strive to go to college, to be better citizens and obviously for young girls to avoid early pregnancy.

"I think I've been able to avoid a lot of pitfalls I could have experienced as a teenager because I was playing sports," she adds. "Lastly, I think it really helps raise self-esteem. Once they realize that bodies are different - some are heavier, some are taller, some have bigger feet (something Leslie has often joked about regarding herself) - young girls learn to love and accept themselves the way they are."

Healthy self-image in hand, she is not above some good-natured self-deprecating humor. Over the years, she's appeared in TV commercials, such as "Women's Shoes" and "Nobody Dunks in My House" for Bud Light, both of which were designed to amuse.

"The shoes ad (where she wound up wearing sneakers to a party) really captured me being silly," Leslie says. "Especially when I was dancing and had that little face as my tennis shoes squeaked. 'Nobody Dunks in My House' is that attitude of when I'm on the court. It was cool.

"I'm a pretty silly person and I love to laugh."

She also appreciates serious pursuits that require mental acuity. Leslie is currently pursuing her masters in business administration at the University of Phoenix and is scheduled to graduate on june 12.

"It works a different side of my brain," she says. "I used to get headaches a lot when I first started just from thinking and reading so much. I've learned so much on the business side of life. I now understand the financial statements, statistics, marketing - things that I'm really involved in with different companies in certain respects. Totally having the opportunity to understand the dynamics of how a corporation works from a management's perspective has been very educational for me."

Her ultimate goal is to emulate another basketball player who won championships in Los Angeles - former Lakers star Magic Johnson. Over the past decade Johnson has become a successful entrepreneur, often developing businesses within predominantly black neighborhoods.

"I would like to help build up our community in that same aspect," she notes.

Leslie also continues to forge a career in broadcasting. This season she has a job with FOX Sports West commentating USC's men's basketball games.

With the WNBA season so intense, off-season is also a time for simple enjoyment.

"I get to hang out with my friends. I get to actually go out, like go dancing," she says. "I get to go to the spa and get a massage. I get to travel - like to Hawaii - and just relax. Those are things I almost never get to do during the season."

Given the financial opportunities available to her in the U.S., Leslie forgoes playing overseas. She admits she does miss competition.

"I enjoy my training, working out and getting more physically fit and better," she says. "But I also enjoy the competition of displaying my game in front of a crowd. That's part of the enjoyment and why I love playing."

She is proud that the women of the WNBA have proven that the women's game can continue to evolve after the college level.

"Many people comment how much they can appreciate the pureness of our sport," Leslie says. "They see the fact that we're executing and playing basketball.

"It's been a blessing for me to be able to touch the lives of people," she adds. "I'm very happy that I've been given a God-given talent to do that."

Copyright Ashton International Media, Inc. Feb 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved