WNBA Superstar Lisa Leslie to be 2022-2023 Leader in Residence

Leslie will visit campus Oct. 18 & 19 and give a community keynote address at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 18. Her visit will also include class visits, lunches with students, small group meetings, and more.

“We are thrilled to be able to welcome Lisa Leslie to campus as our next Leader in Residence,” said Dean of Academics Martha Griswold. “Her impact on women’s sports as a high school and college athlete, let alone her being a founding player in the WNBA, make her the perfect person to speak to Chatham Hall students about strength, perseverance, and achieving goals. Students will be energized by Lisa’s visit and gain insight into making dreams become reality.”

Leslie carried the gold-winning Team USA in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. With the 2008 gold medal, she became the first team sport athlete to win four consecutive Olympic Gold Medals. In 2001, Leslie was the first WNBA player to win the regular season MVP, the All-Star Game MVP and the playoff MVP in the same season. That same year she also led the Los Angeles Sparks to their first WNBA Championship. In 2002, she became the WNBA all-time leading scorer, was named MVP of the regular season for the second year in a row in leading the Sparks to their first back-to-back championship, and shocked the world with the first slam-dunk in WNBA history. Leslie would go on to win her third MVP trophy of the WNBA in 2006. Leslie is the first woman to slam-dunk in a professional game. Leslie was inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2015.

Leslie became a commentator for ESPN in 2004, and has since been an in-studio sports analyst for ABC, Turner, Fox Sports Net, Fox Florida, and NBC. She is currently a co-host of CBS Sports' We Need To Talk, and the reigning Coach of the Year of the BIG3. Leslie also starred in the Lionsgate film Uncle Drew alongside NBA superstar Kyrie Irving and NBA legends Shaquille O'Neal and Reggie Miller, released in June 2018.

Leslie authored her own book Don't Let the Lipstick Fool You in 2008, and in 2010 became the first WNBA player turned co-owner of the Los Angeles Sparks. In 2012, she received her master’s degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix as well as launched the Lisa Leslie Basketball & Leadership Academy.

“Chatham Hall’s endowed Leader in Residence program brings female leaders in different fields to campus to give Chatham Hall’s students the opportunity to see what drives them and how they came to their careers,” noted Griswold. “This in turn allows students  to realize that they can attain goals that they set for themselves and be leaders, too, in powerful ways. We can’t wait for Lisa Leslie to join us.”

Past Polly Wheeler Guth ‘44 Leaders in Residence have included former president of Ireland and U.N.high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson, primatologist Jane Goodall, former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, professional tennis player Venus Williams, author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and filmmaker and author Tiffany Shlain.