04/20/24
August 23, 2006
"This city, this sport, this is who I am".: Bill Plaschke's excellent write-up of Lisa Leslie. "This is my responsibility," she says. "I'm an athlete who has been blessed with a chance to bring different groups of people together: Different races, cultures, economic classes. If we can get them together and feeling happy for a couple of hours a night, how great is that?"
posted by Ufez Jones to basketball at 02:42 PM - 8 comments
Ufez, thanks for this post. I don't regularly follow women's hoop, but usually manage to look at a few professional games in the course of a season. Of course, UConn games are all over the place here in New England, so I watch quite a few of those. Lisa Leslie has always been synonymous with class. You don't have to be a fan to appreciate people who are willing to give up some of themselves to make others feel a little better. She captures the essence of the real entertainment value of sports in the quote you chose to use. In thinking of it, I cannot recall hearing the name of any women's basketball player linked with something less than proper conduct. I suppose it is a gender thing, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that it goes deeper than that. Is it possible that, in contrast to their male counterparts, the ladies get something more than basketball (such as an education) from the college they attend?
posted by Howard_T at 03:02 PM on August 23, 2006
Great story (even if the writing is so so). Thank you, Ufez, for bringing so many positive stories to SpoFi lately. You are an inspiration!
posted by Joey Michaels at 05:04 PM on August 23, 2006
Lisa Leslie is a class act athlete. Name me one male NBA player who would take that time. Sorry, to busy counting money. I really think the WNBA play because they love the game. Very few NBA players are that way, they want the big contracts because they play so many games. Well guess what the guys in the NHL play more and get paid less than half of any other US sport.
posted by Psycho at 10:21 PM on August 23, 2006
Name me one male NBA player who would take that time. Just looking at the other links on Spofi's front page (which is not by any stretch comprehensive), I see Dikembe Mutombo, Manute Bol & Yao Ming. And yeah, I'm sure there are many American-born players whose heads are not up their own butts too. But better yet, maybe Bill Plaschke should be finding these people. That's kind of his job, and I'm sure they exist, even if (or maybe because) they are making 5-10 times (or more) what the women are making. Hell, if Ryan Leaf can become selfless and community-minded, then it can happen to anyone.
posted by chicobangs at 12:17 AM on August 24, 2006
Name me one male NBA player who would take that time. The NBA does care (flash). Don't let the headlines in your local rag (or for that matter here on SpoFi) make you jaded. But that has nothing to do with Lisa Leslie.
posted by Ufez Jones at 01:10 AM on August 24, 2006
Lisa Leslie has been one of the more visible L.A. atheletes, hell, she does color commentary for USC basketball broadcasts. And its always nice to see her get some pub. And for those of you griping about the style of the article, I have two words for you: Plasch - Kee. Go back and re-read the article. Did you notice that the man rarely has a paragraph that exceeds a sentence in length? Thats no error, that is what shows up in the LAT. I don't feel well.
posted by lilnemo at 05:16 PM on August 24, 2006
Took me long enough to read this, but yeah, good article (or at least good subject). As for "would the NBA do this"...the WNBA is the NBA in some respects; there's a lot of funding and clearly a lot of direction. You see NBA players showing up at WNBA games and WNBA players showing up at NBA games, and while there are certainly genuine fans among them, there's clearly a nudge coming from management: show support for your brother/sister team. It may be because there is less money, less hype, and thus less people on you all the time, that it's easier for WNBA players to spend time with fans -- it doesn't have to turn into an absolute mob scene every time. But there does seem to be a genuine appreciation for fans and a real drive to encourage kids (not just girls). Among her other accomplishments, btw, Lisa Leslie is an MBA. She's got a good head on her shoulders and plenty of places to go at the point where she's no longer playing.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 08:23 AM on August 25, 2006
That article was a little trite, but Lisa Leslie (Lockwood?) deserves a lot more praise than she's gotten for being a decent role model. As a fan of her chief rival, I'm naturally predisposed to rooting against her, but the way she's carried herself, her franchise, her league and her sport over the last decade is admirable, and can't be written or talked about enough.