It Takes Three To Three-peat

The pecking order within the Houston firm of Cooper, Swoopes & Thompson was never clearer than on May 15, when the three-time WNBA champion Comets were honored for the first time at the White House. The Comets' irrepressible guard, Cynthia Cooper, the league's two-time MVP, worked the Rose Garden like a Borscht Belt comic, presenting a ceremonial Comets number 1 jersey to the President. Then celebrated forward Sheryl Swoopes reminisced about her previous White House visits, in 1993 with national champion Texas Tech and in '96 as a member of the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic team. As the cameras fired away, the third member of Houston's Big Three, 6'2" forward Tina Thompson, lurked in the background, to which she had been essentially relegated in the program.

Thompson is accustomed to being upstaged. Though Houston coach Van Chancellor insists that each has been equally integral to the team's remarkable three-peat, Cooper and Swoopes were named first-team All- WNBA last season, while Thompson was second team. Swoopes and Cooper finished first and second, respectively, in the 1999 All-Star voting, while Thompson trotted home fifth. Cooper and Swoopes wear their own signature shoes; Thompson usually wears Air Swoopes. No wonder that when Thompson learned that SI was interested in writing a story about her, she said, "Why me? Did Cynthia and Sheryl turn it down?"

Entering the league's fourth season, which begins on Monday, Thompson is the Comets' career leader in rebounds and blocks, and her point total ranks seventh on the WNBA's career list. "On any other team she would be the franchise," Swoopes says. "We know mat without Tina, we wouldn't have three championships, so I really admire her for handling the recognition she doesn't get."

While Thompson occasionally bristles at her lack of celebrity, she comprehends the public relations dilemma. "How many players on one team can be poster girls for the WNBA?" Thompson says. "I'm only 25, and all the focus on Sheryl and Cynthia gets me a lot of open shots, so I'll wait my turn."

Growing up in Southern California, Thompson aspired to be a judge, and the pursuit of justice has shaped her career. When Tina was nine, her big brother, Tommy, let her tag along with him one day to Robertson Rec Center near their home in west Los Angeles. As Tommy played a half-court pickup game with his friends at one basket, Tina practiced on the opposite hoop until one of her shots caromed down to the boys' end. A player snatched Tina's ball, carried it out the gym door and tossed it across the street, proclaiming that a girl could never be any good at basketball. Tina responded by spending nearly every day that summer shooting alone on an asphalt court outside the rec center. "At first I didn't love the game," Tina admits. "I kept playing to get my revenge."

The following summer she joined a rec league team with Tommy and his friends. As the only girl on the squad, she rarely escaped the bench until the day only six players showed up, one fouled out, and the coach was forced to play her. "The coach told me, 'Whatever you do, don't shoot,' " Tina recalls. "So naturally my plan was to shoot as soon as I got my hands on it." With time running out and her team trailing by a point, Tina launched a 20-foot jumper and swished it to win the game. Before long, Tina was among the first players picked at Robertson.

Apparently predestined to shadow fame, Thompson joined the varsity as a sophomore at Inglewood's Morningside High the season after Lisa Leslie earned the program national acclaim by scoring 101 points in a game. She even followed in Leslie's footsteps to Southern Cal, where from 1993 to '97 Thompson quietly produced a career double double. A sociology major, Thompson had planned to attend law school, but she postponed that goal with the advent of two women's pro leagues. The night before the 1997 WNBA draft Thompson put the prospect of broader exposure ahead of immediate financial gratification by accepting that league's $50,000 offer and spurning a $150,000 deal with the American Basketball League. The next day Chancellor took a risk of his own by passing on several top veterans to select Thompson with the league's first-ever draft pick.

Thompson required just one game to show how well she could augment Cooper and Swoopes, pouring in 23 points, including 10 in overtime, as the Comets beat Charlotte in their preseason opener. She attracted almost as much attention that evening for what she wore as for what she scored. On the court she sported her favorite lipstick, Diva, a style note that dated back to her first season at USC when she forgot to remove it before a game against Maryland and scored 23 points. Thompson continues to be so sure of Diva's charms that the day before a recent exhibition game at Washington, when she discovered she'd left her lipstick at home, she prevailed on her friend Chamique Holds-claw of the Mystics to drive to a mall and purchase a new tube for her.

Thompson may wear Diva on her lips, but diva is not in her makeup. Power forward describes both her position and the manner in which she plays it She played the first week of her WNBA career with a broken nose, which she had suffered in practice. Last August, in the final moments of Houston's clinching win over the Los Angeles Sparks in the Western Conference finals, Thompson and Leslie were ejected after getting into a scrape that incited a bench-clearing scuffle. "Tina's a good friend, but you wouldn't know it on the court," Leslie says. "She's not dirty, but she isn't afraid to fight and scrap and fuss and maybe even bust your lip to try to win a game."

Since joining the WNBA, Thompson has been one of the top three-point-shooting forwards in the league—she hit 35.1% of her treys last season—and one of its best post defenders. After she was released by the U.S. Olympic team last summer, she practiced tirelessly to become more of a threat to shoot off the dribble. Says Mystics coach Nancy Darsch, "If you wanted the prototype WNBA power forward who can run the floor, rebound, set solid screens, handle the ball and shoot the three, you'd clone Tina."