Don't Let the Lipstick Fool You

by Lisa Leslie

  Aunt J.C. was so glamorous and fun. In a good, interesting way, she was all the things that my mother was not. Mom was more well rounded, but she was not always glamorous. She was bigger and taller than her sister. Mom would pick and choose when she wanted to look really sexy, but she always looked like a lady. Aunt J.C., on the other hand, always seemed to be in Diana Ross mode. She had the big hair, shiny lipstick, and lots of sparkly, unique outfits that made fashion statements. Aunt J.C. always went to work wearing heels and looking sharp. To this day, I have never seen her in sneakers. She wears nylons, really pretty dresses, and blouses that are made of linen, silk, or satin. Her hair is always curled, very stylish, and, do not forget, big. Her jewelry is terribly expensive. Her perfume has a scent of class that lingers for hours. When my Aunt J.C. enters a room, people take notice. I wanted to be just like that.

  But I was feeling anything but glamorous. I was an awkward, gangly twelve-year-old who stood out at six foot one. I was literally head and shoulders above everybody else. When I was at school or walking home, kids would tease me about my size. They would point and laugh and say, “Wow! You are so tall! You look like Olive Oyl.” They called me all kinds of names. Skinny Minnie. Bony. I would come home crushed! Mom would tell me to keep my head up high and understand that when people talked about me, they were only exposing their own insecurities. I tried to see it that way, but it was difficult.

  Mom spoke from experience. She had been six foot three since she was nineteen years old, so she knew all about growing up tall. Plus, she wore really thick glasses as a child. Kids made fun of her and called her names, but she never let her height discourage her.

  Besides fitting in at school, one of my main concerns was fitting into clothes. I did not understand that when I was growing so tall and so quickly, every pair of pants I wore would look as if they had shrunk. The cuffs would stop well above my ankles. It looked as if I had rolled them up to walk through a flood. Truth was, I constantly outgrew everything that I owned, and nothing ever fit right. Mom started shopping for me in the men’s department. I wanted to wear fashionable kids’ clothes like everybody else my age, but my days of fitting into children’s clothing were over, and it was painfully embarrassing. What twelve-year-old girl wants to dress like a man? Not me.

  My feet were size 12, and I walked around wearing these leather shoes that Mom bought for me on a trip to Tijuana. I wore those shoes every day for a full year. Before long, there were holes in the bottoms of them. Rain would seep in, soak my feet, and stain the leather. One day I got on my knees and prayed, “God, when people look at my clothes, make it look like they fit right, even if they don’t. Can I please be able to get pants and jackets that are long enough?” Then I would add, “And please let people see me as beautiful.”

  I prayed a lot growing up. My family was pretty religious, but Dionne in particular used to go to church every Sunday to enjoy the choir and congregate with other people. She always was a people person. When I asked if I could tag along, it was one of the few times that she agreed without getting irritated with me. Dionne and I would walk together to church each Sunday, just the two of us. This gesture is the one thing I will always be grateful to her for; I am not sure if she ever knew it, but Dionne helped bring me to Christ when I was just seven years old.

  So I believed in the power of prayer from a very young age, and I have never doubted that God answers prayers. I know that He does not always answer my prayers exactly the way I ask, but He does answer me eventually. To this day, whenever I pray, I say, “May Your will be done,” because I understand that God sometimes has something else in mind for me, a different direction, a new focus, or a greater plan that is more important for me than clothes that fit or shoes without holes. But when I entered Whaley Junior High in Compton in 1984, that was exactly what I prayed for. Instead, God gave me basketball.

  For years I had to put up with people saying, “You are so tall. Do you play basketball?” I got sick of hearing the question. Before I began junior high school, the game meant nothing to me. It was not even a tiny part of my life. We did not have any basketballs at my house, and I had never watched a game on television, so I had absolutely no understanding of the sport. I had seen some neighborhood kids shooting baskets down the street, but I never considered playing until junior high.

  Sharon Hargrove was a very popular girl in school. We called her Shay. She came up to me and asked if I wanted to try out for the basketball team. I was hesitant. After all, I knew I was not tough or strong. My most athletic activities had been tetherball, kickball, and jumping rope. I was very good at double Dutch. Basketball, though, was something completely new and different. But I wanted to fit in, and when one of the most popular girls invited you to join her team, you had to give it some thought. I decided to give basketball a try.

  For the first time ever, I was trying out for a team. You could say I was more than a little behind on the learning curve. Our coach split our squad into layup lines. He wanted the right-handed girls in one line and the left-handed girls in another. Of course, I wound up being the only player in the southpaw line. I remember him saying, “Just hit the ball off the top of the square on the backboard.” I did, but about all I could do was make a layup. We went through some drills, and I did okay, but I vowed that the next day I would be right-handed so I would not have to be in a line all by myself again.

  That tiny insecurity and my desire to feel included forced me to learn how to use my right hand effectively. Over the years, I developed to the point where I could do almost everything I needed in basketball with either hand. That turned out to be a real plus for me throughout my hoop career.

  Meanwhile, Mom was still trucking across America. I really wanted to make the Whaley Junior High team. I knew it would do a lot for my popularity, but I was nervous about the results. When the team was finally selected and I realized I had a spot, I could not have been more excited. Mom was fine with the idea and gave me permission to play. I did not really know what I was doing, and I was not all that motivated, but it was something to do. I almost never talked about basketball, so when our team went undefeated (7–0), not one person in my family knew about it. Nobody ever came to see me play. Who was I going to invite? To me, it was no big deal. I kept it low-key so that Mom would not feel badly about not being there to watch me. I played the games, had some fun, and made sure that I got home before dark.

  The more I played basketball, the more I figured out the game. I was starting to improve, and when my cousin Craigie realized I played basketball, he started taking me to the gym at Victoria Park in Carson almost every day. I am not exaggerating; we rarely missed a day. Craigie was all about discipline. The first time we went to the gym, he had me do push-ups, sit-ups, and all kinds of exercises before I ever got to touch a basketball. I remember thinking, Dang! All I wanted to do was shoot the ball.

  He would teach me things and then make me play three-on-three pickup games with the guys. I was unsure of what to do, but Craigie just told me to guard my man. I was already afraid of Craigie; I had seen him fight Braquel. So when he yelled at me, I did exactly what he said. It usually worked out for me just fine. And besides, I remember thinking at the time, Craigie was left-handed like me. That seemed to make it all okay. That made us both a little different than everybody else.

  My Uncle Ed helped me, too. He was my mother’s youngest brother, and he took me with him when he played basketball on the outdoor courts at a church in Inglewood. I thought it was very cool that my uncle wanted me to play basketball with him. He would make me play point guard and then have me post up.

  Uncle Ed was a totally positive human being and encouraged me to get out there when he could have just as easily said, “Go sit down, Lisa. You can’t play. You’re a girl.” Instead, he challenged me to rebound, block shots, and talk trash. I could get away with trash-talking, too. I knew the guys were not going to mess with me, because I had my own personal bodyguard there. My uncle was six foot three and about
three hundred pounds. He used to play football at Southwest Community College, and he was huge, so I felt very safe.

  Sometimes I would get pushed, tripped, knocked down, or fouled really hard. Uncle Ed would yell to me, “Get up. Come on. Keep going!” Or he would shout, “You can do it! Go hard! Go strong! Don’t let ’em take that ball away!” It was like when you got bullied at school and your parents told you, “Go back and fight that bully. If you don’t fight him, I’m going to whup you!” That was Uncle Ed’s approach, and it was good for me. I was just learning to play a physical brand of basketball, so his no-nonsense style of encouragement kicked my game up a few notches.

  I felt like I belonged in the gym maybe more than I belonged anywhere else. Even though I was a girl, I could play. I was not babied or given any special favors, but there was always a feeling of love and affection for me at the gym, because Uncle Ed and Craigie wanted me to play and gave me a chance. This gave me tremendous confidence. It was a great feeling to find something that I could do well, and it was also very important at that time in my life to have men support me and let me know that it was okay for me to play.

  Craigie and Uncle Ed were my only male role models as far as basketball was concerned. I still cannot believe that they spent all that time working with me. I was only twelve years old. They were both closer to twenty. How many guys that age really want to take a young girl to the gym with them? I am sure there were a lot of other things they could have been doing, but their time was just what I needed. I appreciated them so much, and I was thankful for every second that they took out of their lives to be with me. That is why I always tried to be quiet, to not talk back, and to stay out of their way and off of their nerves. I looked them in the eye when they talked, and I listened well. I learned a lot, and I improved. Craigie and Uncle Ed liked my attitude. Craigie set me straight in that department the very first day that he took me to the gym. He sat me down and made it short and simple: “If you are going to have an attitude and want to be in here talking and fooling around, I’ll take you home right now and never bring you back.” Believe me. I got that message loud and clear. I think that made Craigie and Uncle Ed want to help me even more.

  Their attention made me feel good. There was no father at home to watch sports with me and explain what was going on. And there was nobody to teach me the game or help me understand the fundamentals. I was just learning to play basketball on the fly—a pickup game with guys here, a practice with my junior high school team there. It was like on-the-job training. Craigie and Uncle Ed were my teachers, and I was their student. Every time we stepped on the court, I tried to learn as much as I could and make them proud.

  At the same time that I was learning basketball, Aunt J.C. was teaching me “girl things.” She was the first person to show me how to put Nair under my arms. We would all sit on her kitchen counter while she explained the necessities of underarm hair removal. We walked with books on our heads, and we tried to practice proper etiquette. We worked on the correct way to eat and sit, and we practiced good posture. It was a good reminder of what my mom had already told me. To this day, my friends tease me about sitting up so straight. “You make me sick,” they tell me, “always sitting up so straight!” I do try to slouch sometimes, but after a while I go right back to sitting up.

  Mom wanted to make sure that her girls knew what girls needed to know. So while she was on the road, Aunt J.C. made sure we learned. I did not know what being feminine was, but I did know what a lady should do and how a lady should act. For example, I knew that when wearing a skirt, a lady should cross her legs so that no one can see what is underneath. This is why I started wearing shorts under my skirts way back in second grade. It was important to me to be feminine, and I liked taking cues from Aunt J.C. and from Mom when she was home. And it is a good thing, too, because I always wanted to look my best.

  When we moved in with Aunt J.C. and she saw my hairdo, I think she wanted to dial 911. Dionne had experimented with a Jheri Curl on my head, and it was not going well. My hair was unhealthy and full of chlorine from the local pool and had turned a shade of orange. You also have to keep getting Jheri Curls every few months, but I was not able to manage it well on my own, and Dionne did not really know what she was doing. I had a dry, orange, Jheri Curl. Something desperately needed to be done to repair the damage, so Aunt J.C. brought in Mike the Hairdresser, who came to her house every Saturday to remedy the situation. First, he would do Braquel’s hair: wash, condition, blow-dry, press, and curl. Then he would do the same for me.

  One Saturday, though, Mike did my hair first. When he was done with me and started working on my cousin, Craigie came home and asked me to shoot some hoops with him. We went around the corner and played for about an hour. It was hot, and I got really sweaty. By the time we got home, my fresh do was not so fresh anymore. My hair was all wet and plastered to my head. I was scared to go into the house because I knew that my hair was ruined. I looked like I had been left outside in a downpour. I was seriously afraid of how Aunt J.C. was going to react.

  When I finally got up the nerve to walk in the house, my aunt spotted me and shouted, “Oh my God! Look what this girl has done to her hair!” She was irate, but for some reason, she was laughing at the same time. “I can’t believe it,” she said loudly. “You just got your hair done!” She stood there in shock. “We were finally getting your hair back nice and clean. It was just starting to look good, and you go out and play basketball? Why did you mess up your hair, Lisa?”

  I did not have any answers for her, but Aunt J.C. had an ultimatum for me. “You are going to choose today, young lady. You can either play basketball or get your hair done, but you cannot do both. Which is it going to be?”

  Without a hint of hesitation, I told her softly, “I want to play basketball.”

  My aunt looked at me, looked at my messy hair, and then said, “All right. Fine. Put your hair in a ponytail, and go play basketball.”

  I knew I had made a big decision that day. I could have said, “Oh, I want my hair done.” Mike probably would have done it again for another ten dollars, but who knows what direction my life might have taken if he had. At that time, being cute and stylish was nice, but it was not my top priority. I wanted to play basketball, so I put my hair in a ponytail and went off to play some more. Honestly, I would have played all day and night if I could have. If Craigie wanted to go to the gym early, I was ready. If he wanted to wait until after 5:00 PM, I would do my homework, eat, and get dressed in a hurry just in case he wanted to leave a little earlier.

  I had found a passion for the game. It had become a major part of my life. I loved the sport, and somehow, I knew it was going to be a big part of my future. I wanted to be very good, so I would take what Craigie taught me and then try it out in practice sessions and games. I started to put two and two together. When I struggled, I would go back to Craigie, and he would have a ton of criticism and suggestions for me. I would absorb all that he told me, store it in my memory bank, and try to do better next time. I turned into a perfectionist, and that was not necessarily a good thing. Basketball is a game where you strive for perfection but never, ever get there. That can be extremely frustrating. This did not keep me from trying, though. Striving for perfection made me a better player, which came in handy the following spring, when I joined a boys’ basketball league and played for a team called the Sonics.

  I did not get to play basketball at school during my entire eighth-grade year, because I switched schools in midyear, but I continued to spend a lot of time working on my game with Craigie. A guy at the gym named Vic suggested that I join an organized team to remain competitive and sharpen my skills. There was no girls’ team, so I joined the team for boys. I was the only girl in the entire league, and I played in the 14-and-under division. Corey Benjamin, who later played in the NBA, was in my league. Craigie loaned me a pair of his basketball shoes to wear with my brand-new #10 Sonics green uniform. It came with white mid-calf socks that had a green stripe
around the top. That was the first “take home” uniform that I ever had. I thought it was very cool, but the uniform was not my size. It was too tight, and I barely fit into it. I wound up wearing very short shorts and a too-snug shirt. I was six foot two, the tallest player in the league, but that was not the only reason I stood out.

  At first, the boys on my own team did not want to pass the basketball to me. This really upset me, so on one of our possessions, I intercepted a pass between two of my own teammates and dribbled in to score a basket. I stole the ball from my own team! After that, everybody started shouting, “Give the ball to the girl!” The Sonics soon realized that if they got the ball to the tall girl in the middle, she could put some points on the board and help them win games. They finally listened.

  I knew I could play a little, and I soon found out that I could do almost everything that the boys could do. I could jump and block their shots. I could slide my feet and play defense. The boys did have a quickness factor that sometimes left me in their dust, so when I played with them, I really had to focus and play super-hard to stay with them. That extra effort against the boys gave me incredible confidence when it came time to compete against girls. Later, in my professional career, my scrimmages with Magic Johnson and his NBA buddies helped me prepare for the battles I faced in the WNBA. To this day, I like to play with men, because it helps me improve my quickness and my moves. This allows me to be more aggressive and play harder with women.