Friday, Sept. 11 marks a quarter of a century since the 9/11 attacks.
Four hijacked planes. Two trade towers were destroyed in New York City by Flights 11 and 175. A part of the Pentagon was attacked by Flight 77. Then, a group of strangers on Flight 93 banded together in one of the most courageous acts in world history to try to take the plane back from the terrorists, crashing in an open field in Shanksville, PA, and sparing the US Capitol building as the next target.
In all, the attacks took over
3,000 lives and will forever provoke a wave of emotions for those who lived through it.
That includes former Los Angeles Sparks forward and current Old Dominion head coach DeLisha Milton-Jones.
The Sparks won their first WNBA title just 10 days before 9/11.
They first dethroned the then four-time reigning champion Houston Comets in the first round with a 2-0 sweep. Then, the Sparks defeated the Sacramento Monarchs 2-1 in the Western Conference Finals and Charlotte Sting 2-0 in the WNBA Finals. The team, coached by former Los Angeles Laker Michael Cooper, featured a who’s who of illustrious talent: Lisa Leslie, Mwadi Mabika, Tamecka Dixon, Latasha Byears, Ukari Figg and Milton-Jones herself.
Milton-Jones averaged 17.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists in the championship series.
The Sparks reveled in the rush of being first-time champions during that 10-day period, only for the unthinkable to happen on what was Jones’ 27th birthday.
In the days and months immediately after 9/11, sports became a refuge and space for community and resilience in a way it hadn’t been before or since. The following year, the Sparks won their second consecutive title with Nikki Teasley hitting the iconic 3-pointer at the buzzer in Game 2 of the Finals against the New York Liberty.
The power of sports to bring people together across all stripes and to hope for a better day was a lesson learned then—and something that Milton-Jones brings to her coaching career today.
She is set to begin her ninth season as head coach at Old Dominion, and in July, the Sparks retired her No. 8. Milton-Jones joined Leslie, Candace Parker and Penny Toler as the only Sparks players to have that honor bestowed upon them.
Milton-Jones played in the WNBA from 1999 to 2015, playing for the Sparks, Liberty, Washington Mystics, San Antonio Silver Stars and Atlanta Dream.
In an interview with Swish Appeal, Milton-Jones looks back on the title, her teammates, her approach to coaching and 9/11.
It’s been 25 years since the Sparks won that miraculous first championship that you were a part of, and then just a week later, 9/11 happened. Altogether, can you believe it’s been 25 years?
I cannot.
That is mind-blowing to think that it’s been that long, but certain parts of the memory still feel like yesterday, even though a lot of time has passed. And I guess now, I could say that I’ve probably been doing the math in celebration of this being the 30th year of the WNBA. They honored the legends of the Sparks. So, the math has been done, but then when you actually think about the fact that just 25 years ago is when we won that championship and Nikki Teasley hit that shot, wow, just amazing.
What other reflections do you have about that experience? What does it feel like to know that you were part of a team that started a dynasty run in Los Angeles?
Yeah, I think what was amazing about that team was the people.
And, you know, you have some championship teams; if you’re talking about the Houston Comets, I think it’s a well-known fact that they weren’t the best of friends, but they got it done on the court. But for us, it was the opposite. We were extremely close and had a lot of respect and admiration for one another, and when we got on the playing field, that was the binding agent that let us persevere through whatever was thrown our way.
And what was it like to win the championship with that group and in that way?
To win the championship was the cherry on top, you know, because we had hard, grueling practices where Michael Cooper, phew, he held no bars. He used to take out on us what Pat Riley took out on them, you know, when he played. He said Pat Riley took years off of my life, you know, with all the running that we had to do. And now, as a result, he ran us to death.
But it was all for a good reason. And we understood even more, in the hardest moments, why he made practices as hard as they were. So when we faced high levels of adversity, it was not an unfamiliar foe. It was something and someone that we recognized, and we knew how to get through that.
And he set us up perfectly to understand what perseverance meant to win that first coveted championship. And then we were well on our way to the second one. And then you talked about the chemistry and the camaraderie that you all built.
I’m sure you probably talk about this or emphasize this as a coach now. When you form cohesiveness from the outset, you can all persevere through anything, right?
Oh, yes. That is a common conversation that we have around here. When we’re trying to teach these young ones on this grassroots level of D1 basketball, you know, before they get to the pros, that there is a level of importance and emphasis that needs to be put on how you show up and put yourself on display on a daily basis, how good of a person you can be on and off the court, how competitive of a competitor you can be while you’re on the court.
And if you bring that good person coupled with that high level of competitiveness, then, now we have the recipe for something beautiful when everyone on the court is like-minded. But more than anything, what I learned about our time in LA is that, although we were good people, we were all good soldiers fully supporting what our coach wanted. I think everyone came from tremendous basketball programs with great head coaches, and they probably had great cultures that helped us embrace that during our time with the Sparks.
And as a result, we had a great product out there that got it done.
Just a week after the Sparks won the title, the country experienced September 11th. Where were you on that day?
Well, it’s my birthday. I heard about that. So I was in LA, and I’m thinking I’m waking up to phone calls and text messages because people are still congratulating us on winning a championship and then also telling me, “Happy Birthday.”
So I’m getting these calls from all of my family on the East Coast, so it’s super early California time. To some degree, after partying for several days after winning a championship, I’m kind of groggy. I answer the phone for my sister, and I’m like, “Hello.” And she’s like, “Lisha, the world is ending. You got to get to the store. You got to buy water. You got to go get food and this, that, and the other”
I’m like, what? She was like, “Turn on the TV, turn on the TV.”
When I turned on the TV, and I sat there and watched that next plane going to the tower, I was like, “What is life right now?” This is crazy. Forget a championship. We’re now in full-on survival mode.
What is happening? We’re supposed to be the powerhouse of the world. How is this happening on American soil? And then when you start digging deeper into the fact that there were other planes and one was taken down, and one was shot down and one hit the Pentagon, I’m just like, “This is…what have we done? Who is that mad at us?” To the point where they want to almost take down all of our most important defenses, you know, and they’re sending a message. So it was a very frightful time.
Indeed, celebratory on one end from the championship, but then scared for my life on the other, and not really knowing what was going to take place from that point.
You mentioned September 11th is your birthday. So how do you juxtapose all the emotions involved, recognizing the day for what it is and then also celebrating your birthday?
Yeah, well, I think it’s true to the form and the nature of who I am as a person, to where I always look at the glass as if it’s half full. And I’m always trying to have a positive perspective on things.
And what you noticed about the human spirit, let alone the American human spirit, is that in that time of tragedy, you had our entire country come together. It didn’t matter what your race was, what your economic class was, where you were from. It didn’t matter.
People just rallied around each other, came together and we had to figure things out. We had to regroup. I loved seeing people come together for one another. So while I’m mad at (Osama) Bin Laden and whoever else was involved in the 9/11 attacks, I am also celebrating the fact that, yes, it’s my birthday, but at least something good came from something tragic.
We saw America come together. And that’s what makes us great. When all people, regardless of your orientation, your background, your skin color, can still love, respect and care for one another when it matters most.
Obviously, sports played a big role in the healing process immediately after 9/11. Sports became a refuge for so many of us to get back to some sense of normalcy and community. You obviously know this as a player. Now as a coach, when you talk to your players about what sports can do to bring people together, to persevere through the hard times, what is your message?
I think that the same way that we attack a game, there’s a preparation that has to take place, and the beautiful thing about tragedy and sports is that you can see the art enter into life, and then those two worlds kind of combine.
That same preparation it takes to be elite and give your best in that moment of competition, we can also see in life when tragedy strikes. We can bring out our best as a good person, a person of service, a person of gracious gratitude. It comes out, and now we can remedy any sickness or illness; we can conquer any storm.
And that’s what we saw in the human spirit within Americans who were affected by this tragedy: The athlete in everyone comes out. Whether you’re the weekend warrior or you’re the couch coach, there’s an athlete in all of us that can come out in those moments, and we can serve one another in amazing ways.
And sports are that good distraction. It’s the watering hole for a lot of people; it’s the rallying point for a lot of people where nothing else matters but the game. And to know that football, baseball and all these different sports were still, you know, active during that time, while showing respect for the fallen and what we went through, but still the game must go on. It gave people an opportunity to have a different type of conversation and lean into something they can support in a different way, which supported them in the long run.
You’ve emphasized the camaraderie that you and the Sparks established at that time to win those championship. Are you all still close today?
Yeah, we may not talk every day, but boy, when we came together in LA for the 30th anniversary and we celebrated the legends, oh my gosh, we laughed, we hugged, we cried, we’re still texting each other right now, checking in on each other because it’s amazing how much time can just fly by and it can be so fleeting and you look up and, you know, you have a teammate that might be walking with a limp, you have a teammate that may have battled cancer, you have a teammate that may not even be here anymore.
So, when you look around, you appreciate what’s in front of you more. So, it has definitely changed the scope of things in terms of how we check in on each other. Text messages are coming much more frequently than before.
