By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – DeLisha Milton-Jones has a different motor than most people. Some people only play basketball up-tempo but that is her natural state of being.
Her desire to win, to excel, burns very deeply inside her.
You see her passion on the sidelines as the Old Dominion women's basketball coach, where the Monarchs have won 19 games and hope to become the first ODU team to go to the NCAA Tournament since 2008. In practice, she is one part enforcer, one part encourager, as she has molded a cohesive team in spite of having 10 newcomers.
You saw it in her 19 years playing professionally, where she played so hard, with so much fire, that she earned the nickname "D-Nasty."
"Nobody wanted to play against DeLisha," former ODU All-American Nancy Lieberman has said of Milton-Jones. "She was the toughest defensive player in the WNBA to go up against."
"It you wanted to talk nasty, I would talk nasty with you," Milton-Jones added. "If you wanted to go blow for blow, I'd go blow for blow with you.
"I know the people I defended hated me."
But they surely respected her, and so, Milton-Jones has learned, do the crème-de-la-crème of women's basketball.
The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame announced Monday night on ESPN2, at halftime of the Iowa-Maryland women's basketball game, that Milton-Jones will be one of eight new members inducted in June.
Prior to being named a finalist a few weeks ago, it was an honor Milton-Jones said she never expected. And it never would have happened, she said, if it had not been for a middle school coach who refused to play her when she was in the seventh grade.
"I was new to the game, but I had a hunger for it," she said. "My coach would not put me in to save my life."
Instead, she said, a player whose parents had political connections, started ahead of her.
It was unjust and that both angered her and hardened her resolve.
"That drove me," she said. "It drove me to never give up."
She began tagging along with her sister to varsity practices at Bradwell Institute in rural Riceboro, Georgia, where coach Janet Riddick took an interest in her. By the time she was in the ninth grade, she was a varsity starter.
From there she went to Florida, where she won the Wade Trophy, awarded to the nation's best player, the ABL and WNBA, the Olympics and winter professional basketball in Russia and other European nations.
That fire that began in her at age 13 still burns brightly today.
"If it had not been for those moments of defeat I experienced, I would not be where I am today," she said. "I didn't allow it to define me. I allowed it to fuel me. I learned from it."
Her mother, Beverly Milton, wasn't the kind of mom who would go complain to a coach about playing time.
"There was a stick-to-it-ness as to how my Mom raised us," Milton-Jones said. "I stuck it out and am better for it today."
By every measure, Milton-Jones had a great career. She was a three-time WNBA All-Star, won nine international gold medals, finished 11th among all-time WNBA rebounders (2,574) and 16th in all-time scoring (5,571 points).
Yet because she played for the Los Angeles Sparks with stars such as Candace Parker and Lisa Leslie, she said she was often overlooked.
"I played with people who were all about the points and rebounds because it affected their marketing and sponsorship dollars," she said. "I valued winning more than anything.
"But if I had to do my career over again, I would do it exactly the same way. I would do it the right way. And that was being an unsung MVP type player where I had the ability to take over a game, but I'm going to do what's best for the team.
"It was hard to see my teammates become all-stars eight or nine times when I only had a couple to my name. I always knew I would be recognized when the time was right."
Milton-Jones becomes the seventh member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame with ODU connections, joining coach Marianne Stanley, who won three national titles here, and former players Nancy Lieberman, Inge Nissen, Ticha Penicheiro and Anne Donovan. Former head coach Nikki McCray-Penson is also a member of the hall of fame.
Milton-Jones played for Stanley in the WNBA and Donovan in the Olympics and both with and against Penicheiro in the WNBA.
"Nancy Lieberman gave me recognition in this game when I was just a baby," she said. "She wrote an article about 'the best player you've never heard of.'
"She helped shine a spotlight on me."
Milton-Jones got the word last Friday that she would be one of eight inductees, but was told to keep it a secret. When the announcement came, so did the tears.
"It really felt real," after she heard the announcement, she said.
She hugged her husband, assistant coach Roland Jones Jr., and then began fielding hundreds of phone calls and text messages from well-wishers. She said she was up all night.
She shed a few tears at a press conference Tuesday afternoon when asked about the reaction of her players.
"They're so special to me. I don't want to tear up," she said, but she did anyway.
"I know this moment is about me. But there's nothing I wouldn't do for these women.
"They shower me with love and affection. Just seeing how proud they are of me, it tickles me pink on the inside, but at the same time motivates me even more to be better as their leader, as a living example for them."
Jones shared the podium at Tuesday's press conference with Iggy Allen, the standout guard named Conference USA Player of the Week this week. "We were making videos prior to her winning, but when I found out she was in, I was speechless," Allen said. "I was so amped, so happy for her and proud of her."
"I am so thrilled and so happy to share this moment with them," Milton-Jones added. She then nodded her head toward Allen and said: "I'm hoping one of them can someday win this honor."
She shared a lot of credit for her success with Jones, who has moved around to follow her career. She said he worked patiently with her early in her WNBA career and forced her to realize she needed to develop more offensive skills.
She said at times she ranted and raved and sometimes kicked the ball across the court as he put her through shooting drills. "He was so patient," she said.
She coached him briefly with the ABA's Los Angeles Stars in 2005, when she became the second woman ever to coach a man's professional team. He helped provide her the respect that she needed.
"He made a bad pass and missed a layup and I blew the whistle and just tore him a new one," she said. "When everyone in the gym saw me handle him that way, they said, 'I got your back coach,' and the whole atmosphere changed.
"Everyone was like, 'wow, if she can do that to him and he can handle it that way, I'd better get my butt in order.'"
He told her at the time that she could be a great coach. "I told him I was going to play forever," she said, but eventually took his advice.
"Our lives, it's been a living movie," she said. "We are 'Love and Basketball.''
"We fell in love over this sport, and we've stayed in love through this sport. He's my homie, he's my friend. He's everything to me."
Minium: DeLisha Milton-Jones Shares Hall-of-Fame Moment With Her Players
