Don't Let The Lipstick Fool You:. Lisa Leslie
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