She Got Game

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AUG 2, 1999

Although women's basketball has only come to prominence in the U.S. in the last few years, Cooper has been competitively engaged since 1981, first as a player for USC, then in local European leagues and for two U.S. Olympic teams. She is currently a star with the WNBA's two-time defending champion Houston Comets. All this experience should give the 36-year old Watts native, who has helped raise two nephews and watched her mother battle breast cancer, a deep well from which to draw. But her memoir reads like a perfunctory exercise riddled with motivational platitudes ("If there's one thing my life illustrates it's this: `Put an obstacle in front of me and I'll overcome it.'" Readers learn that during Cooper's fatherless childhood, her mother "worked to give us a better chance in life," but Cooper doesn't delve beyond this. The story looks like it will take a more substantive turn when Cooper describes her struggles to adapt and embrace new cultures when she played in Spain and Italy, but again she offers only superficial details ("Paella is a rice-based dish usually made with seafood or chicken.... It's delicious"). Had it been told well, Cooper's story could surely have been inspirational.