USC's Cameron rebounds after the birth of her son

USC guard Brynn Cameron had to take a year off to give birth to her and Matt Leinart's son, Cole. AP

USC had just put a scare into the U.S. national team and it was Brynn Cameron who had scored eight consecutive points in a 10-0 run that put USC up by 11. Lisa Leslie had to summon everything to stave off a humiliation on her alma mater's floor, so when Leslie locked eyes with Cameron across the court, the all-world 6-foot-5 center went loping across the court, took the 5-10 guard by the arm and asked, "Are you still breastfeeding?"

"We're probably the only two basketball players in America in the middle of that right now," Cameron said, interrupting her story with a laugh. "I told Lisa I was trying to stop."

It's been a fabulous fall for new-mommy athletes. Six months after Leslie delivered daughter, Lauren, she led the national team to an undefeated run of college teams. In September, Lindsay Davenport won her first tournament after a three-month maternity leave. Australia's Jana Rawlinson won the world 400-meter title eight months after she had her baby, and last month, Paula Radcliffe won the New York City marathon 10 months after giving birth -- and 10 months and one day after finally hitting pause on her training.

And yet, where all those women are professionals, Cameron is not. And where they all had to get their bodies back, this 21-year old had to get her mind right, too.

"I really thought my life was over," Cameron said of the day last summer she was sure was her worst -- and now counts one of her best.

The three-point sharpshooter had had her sophomore season cut short when a first surgery to repair the labral tear in her left hip didn't work. She had a second surgery in March and broke up with her BMOC boyfriend, quarterback Matt Leinert, right after. Three months later, when her gut told her something was up, she begged her sister Emily to take a trip to the drugstore. A doctor told Cameron the blue line wasn't a mistake, that she'd conceived in early February and the fair-haired perpetual teacher's pet started wailing.

"I kept saying, 'This is horrible' and 'This is the worst thing that ever happened,'" Cameron recalled. "You're supposed to graduate from college and then get married and then start a family. I thought the baby and I were done for."

It wasn't a rare sentiment. It was only in September that the NCAA specifically set protections for pregnant athletes, and only after reports surfaced of college athletes being threatened with the loss of their scholarships and, sadder still, being pressured to have abortions.

Cameron cried when she told her parents and again when she told Leinert ("We both cried," she said) and when it came time to tell USC coach Mark Trakh, she had her dad call him. Which might have been unnecessary.

"Coach is part of the reason I wanted to come back," Cameron said. "He was so supportive and I heard when he told the team he just said, 'We're going to have a little one at practice next year.'"

With that stress lifted, Cameron moved home to her parents' in Newbury Park, Calif., signed up for home study and completely quit working out. Even now, when she thinks about the walk her doctor told Leinert to take her on when she first went into labor -- the way she was sweating and hurting after two blocks on Santa Monica Boulevard and the way Leinert asked her if she was having a heart attack -- she can't help but laugh.

"I was not one of those pregnant ladies," she said, referring back to Radcliffe and Davenport and that whole crew. "Those women must have something special."

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