WNBA's Originals Leave League in Good Shape

Thirteen Years Later, Founders Give Way to New Generation

The opportunities for female athletes were so minimal back then it was no wonder Lisa Leslie had modest expectations when she first heard about the WNBA. She envisioned a summer league, with games in small gyms and players wearing reversible jerseys.

"When I saw our locker room was the same locker room that Magic and Kareem and James Worthy had once come out of, I was just overwhelmed with the possibilities," she said.

Critics gave the WNBA little chance when it began, predicting it would join the WBL, ABL and soccer's WUSA on the trash heap of failed women's leagues. Even the support -- and the deep pockets -- of the NBA wouldn't be enough to make it relevant.

Now here it is, 13 years later. Leslie is the league's all-time leading scorer and last of its founding stars and, as she prepares to say goodbye, the WNBA is not only surviving but thriving.

"I don't remember there not being a league," said Candace Parker, who was 10 when the WNBA started and is now Leslie's teammate on the Los Angeles Sparks. "And that's a great thing."

Leslie was unstoppable at USC, the Pac-10's all-time leader in points, rebounds and blocked shots. She was thrilled at the prospect of representing the United States at the Atlanta Olympics, two years after she finished school, but figured that would be the end of her basketball career.

There was, after all, nothing more for her in America.

Professional leagues for women operated overseas, so women who wanted to keep playing had no choice but to become international travelers. Sheryl Swoopes, dubbed the "female Michael Jordan," played in Italy and Russia. Cynthia Cooper spent 11 years in Italy and Spain. Teresa Weatherspoon was a six-time All-Star in Italy, and played another two years in Russia.

Leslie decided to stay in the United States, signing with the Wilhelmina modeling agency and planning a career in broadcasting.

Then, in April 1996, the NBA's Board of Governors announced the creation of the WNBA.

"I wasn't quite as sensitive to the gender discrimination until we launched the league and everyone said it was going to fail because it was women. That's ridiculous," NBA commissioner David Stern said.

As irked as Stern gets now about gender equity -- the ho-hum reaction the U.S. women got for winning their fourth straight gold medal in Beijing compared to the adulation showered on the men's team is "enough to make you into a feminist" -- it was economics that drove the creation of the WNBA.