(Guru's note: Here's the second in a series of diaries being writen by USA veteran Lisa Leslie, also a member of the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks, for the Associated Press.
By LISA LESLIE
For The Associated Press
BEIJING — Welcome back to my Olympic diary. I just left the opening
ceremony and it was awesome. China did a great job with the torch lighting
and the fireworks.
But the one thing we all learned is Kobe (Bryant) is the most popular
player here, maybe the most popular athlete at the Olympics. The crowd was
chanting his name, “Kobe, Kobe,” and the volunteers who were supposed to
be guiding us were trying to get autographs. It is so out of control with
Kobe that LeBron James cracked, “I thought I was famous until I got here
with Kobe.” Kobe is big here in China.
Kobe is also (my daughter) Lauren’s favorite player. Kobe has been
playing with her since we’ve been here; I think he is missing his kids.
Her favorites words are “up, up,” because she likes to be picked up and
Kobe has been giving her lifts. But I told Lauren, there is only so high
you can go. I’m 6-foot-5, Kobe is 6-6 and my husband, Michael, is 6-6.
The thing that stood out the most at the ceremony was President Bush,
his father as well as Laura Bush all were there. President Bush addressed
the U.S. team before the ceremony. He wasn’t sure what to say to us, but
told us to just go out and win as many gold medals as we can. I had met
the president once, Laura Bush twice and the last time I took a picture
was with President Clinton. It is honor and I’m glad as a team we decided
to go to the ceremony.
We almost didn’t go because we play our first game Saturday against
the Czech Republic. But we voted and decided to go. Everyone went except
Tamika Catchings, who was getting treatment. But she is OK. We’re all
ready, so we’ll get some rest now because we want to play our best
basketball.
There has been a lot of talk about our game against Australia in the
Diamond Ball pre-Olympic tournament (USA beat Australia 71-67 to win the
title Tuesday), about how physical it was. Australia said we played dirty
and our coaches warned us that the media was going to ask us, or tell us,
what Australia had said during our press conference. The whole thing
actually caught us off guard. I was kind of shocked by it considering they
play a really physical game. It didn’t seem like it was any more physical
than our games with Russia or Latvia. But just play our game and leave all
the rest to the other team. Sorry for beating you up.
Have to end now and get ready for the Czech Republic. But until next
time, keep cheering us on and supporting us as we go for the gold.
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