On Feb. 8, 1990, Morningside High center Lisa Leslie scored 101 points in a prep basketball game against South High of Torrance. In the first half.
The 6-foot-5 senior’s attempt to break the record of 105 points in a game, set by Cheryl Miller of Riverside Poly High in 1982, no doubt would have succeeded had South coach Gilbert Ramirez not forfeited the game by pulling his team off the court after halftime.
(Credit: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection)
Leslie was born in Gardena on July 7, 1972. Her mother, Christine, was four months pregnant with her when her father abandoned the family. Christine later moved Lisa and her two sisters to Compton, where she learned how to become a long-haul truck driver and started her own trucking company. Eventually, she got a trucking route that allowed the family to move to Inglewood.
Lisa had grown to six feet tall by the age of 12. Though most assumed she must be a basketball player, she didn’t take up the game until junior high school. She joined a boys club team in eighth grade. At first her teammates wouldn’t pass her the ball. They changed their minds after she stole a pass and immediately scored.
Leslie began to draw serious attention from college scouts and coaches after playing in the Olympic Girls’ Development League. Before she had even enrolled at Morningside High in Inglewood in 1986, she’d received recruiting letters from more than 100 colleges. (Future Lakers great Byron Scott graduated from Morningside in 1979.)
Her impact on the already successful Morningside basketball program was immediate. As a freshman, she started every game and was named California Freshman of the Year in girls basketball.
The following season, she led her team to the state championship game. The Monarchs lost to Fremont High by one point, with Leslie missing a potential winning shot as time ran out. Two years later, Morningside beat Fremont for the state title, one of two won during Leslie’s tenure.
The second title came the following year when Leslie was a senior. She continued to pile up awards, including the Naismith Girls Player of the Year Award, given to the nation’s top high school basketball performer.
After receiving literally hundreds of college scholarship offers, Leslie chose USC. The Trojans women’s basketball team was 89-31 during her four years at the school. Though the team never won a national championship, it did make the NCAA Tournament all four years.
While at USC, Leslie became a three-time All-American selection, and the first female player to make the all-conference first team for four consecutive years. She also set Pac-10 records for scoring, rebounding and blocked shots, all while also earning her bachelor’s degree in communications.
The Women’s National Basketball Association would have been her next logical step after her 1994 graduation from USC. One problem: the league didn’t form until 1996, and wouldn’t begin play until 1997. She decided to sign with an Italian team in the European pro women’s basketball league for the 1994-95 season.
1996 brought an achievement that Leslie described as one of her proudest achievements in the sport: leading the U.S. women’s national team to a gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She would go on to win an additional three Olympic gold medals.
That first Olympics win increased her celebrity visibility greatly. Rather than return to Italy, she began a career in modeling, working with major fashion houses such as Armani and Anne Klein.
When the NBA began establishing its WNBA offshoot in 1996, Leslie was one of the first players to sign on, along with Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson, Cheryl Cooper and Rebecca Lobo.
She played her entire WNBA career for her hometown Los Angeles Sparks. Another former Lakers great, Michael Cooper, coached the Sparks from 1999-2004 and 2007-2009.
Leslie’s career lasted for 12 years, from 1997 to 2009. The Sparks won WNBA championships in 2001 and 2002.
As for Leslie, she was named to the WNBA All-Star team seven times and won the league’s Most Valuable Player award three times.
On July 30, 2002, during a loss to the Miami Sol, Leslie caught a pass from Latasha Byears, took a couple of steps, then made history by becoming the first player in WNBA history to dunk a basketball.
She announced her impending retirement from the WNBA before the 2009 season, and the team honored her during its final regular season game that September. She retired with league-leading career totals in points scored, rebounds and highest total of points, rebounds and assists per game (PRA). She was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.
Since leaving the sport, Leslie has worked as a model, actress, and occasional television sports commentator. She married pilot Michael Lockwood in 2005 and has two children. In 2022, she launched Aston Rose, a sports-oriented real estate firm in Boca Raton, Florida, where she now lives. She also has coached the Triplets team in the Big3 three-on-three pro basketball league.
There’s still talk of putting a statue of Leslie alongside those outside the Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) in downtown Los Angeles. She would be the first woman accorded that honor. But, despite encouragement from Magic Johnson, it hasn’t happened yet.
Sources:
Daily Breeze archives.
“Lisa Leslie,” by Mariana Brandman, National Women’s History Museum website, 2022.
“No. 9: Lisa Leslie,” by Tom Hoffarth, Tom Hoffarth’s The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall blog, July 15, 2024.
Wikipedia.
