Golden mind-set to Leslie’s last Games

There aren’t enough hours in the day for Lisa Leslie to accomplish all she wants to do.

Naps have become a fond memory since she gave birth to her daughter, Lauren, on June 15, 2007. So meticulous about her appearance that she wears makeup during games, she no longer has time to get her hair done, have her nails polished, get a massage.

But one recent day she stayed on the court long after the Sparks’ practice had ended, tutoring teammate Jessica Moore on the fine points of rebounding. She made time for that because she is generous and because, having just turned 36 Monday, she knows that a legacy should encompass more than numbers in a record book.

Leslie, who missed the 2007 WNBA season while on maternity leave, in May was named to the U.S. Olympic team for the Beijing Games. It was her fourth selection and her last.

“When people asked me before, I said I never know,” she said. “But I see it, for the first time in my career, that yeah, there’s an afterlife, so to speak.

“So, yes, this will be my last Olympics, that’s official.”

She is not going meekly after this fourth gold medal.

She’s pursuing it with the single-mindedness that enabled her to keep going when schoolmates taunted her about her height and skinny frame -- the characteristics that now make her look model-elegant in ordinary sweats.

Leslie willed herself to be good at Inglewood’s Morningside High, made herself better at USC, became a cornerstone of the WNBA with the Sparks and has long been a pillar for Team USA at the Olympics and world championships.

She mocks herself as “kind of nerdy” because she’s in bed by 9:30 if she’s not playing, and she jokes about the huge belly she had during her pregnancy.

What she doesn’t readily say is she was so intent on getting fit that she lost the baby weight and more -- so much more that she had to add fat to her diet.

Also unspoken is that in the first major test of her comeback, at the Good Luck Beijing tournament in April in the Olympic basketball venue, she consistently excelled even though Team USA lost the title game to China.

“She prepares herself every day to be great,” said Gail Goestenkors, an assistant coach of the Olympic team and observer of Leslie since her high school days.

“She was not only playing excellent basketball, she was a great leader. She has always been a great player and now she has an added maturity to her game. She’s very patient. We had a lot of young players, and she helped them understand what they needed to do to be successful.”

Leslie is still fiercely competitive, averaging 17.1 points and 9.8 rebounds in the Sparks’ first 17 games. The difference is that Lauren -- her first child with husband Michael Lockwood, a pilot -- has added unexpected dimensions to her life.

Lauren accompanied her to the tournament in Beijing and adapted so well that Leslie plans to take her to the Olympics.

“I couldn’t imagine leaving her behind,” Leslie said of Lauren, who has made some WNBA trips in the care of a nanny.

“Nobody really tells you they come with their own personality. I thought I was going to mold her. No way. She’s super feisty. . . . My husband says, ‘She acts just like you, babe, on the court.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, great.’ ”

Lauren would do well to be like her mother.

Leslie’s recent autobiography, “Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You,” written with Larry Burnett, details her often difficult childhood in Compton. Her father left her mother before she was born; Christine Leslie-Espinoza became a long-distance trucker to support her three daughters.

Tall and gawky, Leslie unexpectedly discovered a passion for basketball and competition while in junior high. The book’s title refers to her insistence on looking polished and feminine while playing a ferocious game.

“You don’t have to let your environment dictate who you are,” she said.

Promoting the book is another task she squeezes into jam-packed days. And before Team USA leaves for Beijing she is teaching at her first basketball camp this week in Hawthorne. At the same facility she has lent her name to a year-round academy she envisions as a haven for kids, clubs and leagues.

“Hopefully we’ll have kind of a melting pot of people and races and nationalities and ages,” she said.

She bridges those gaps easily, whether helping WNBA teammates or the young women who will play beside her at the Olympics.

“It’s really perfect for us in that we’ll get Lisa to show Sylvia Fowles and Candace Parker what it takes to be successful at the international level,” Goestenkors said.

“Lisa is really going to be able to help that transition for our program. They have the young legs, but she has the experience and knowledge. It’s a real handing over of the torch.”

But not before she wins that final Olympic championship.

“I see it,” she said. “I truly believe we have the best team in the world, the best players in the world, and I believe that we can perform at our best for eight straight games and get it done.

“To have a fourth gold medal -- why not? That’s my motto. Why not me? Somebody’s got to win the gold. Why not me?”

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Helene Elliott can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.