Rebecca Lobo

Rebecca Lobo (born October 6, 1973, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.) is an American basketball player who became one of the original stars of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).

Lobo was part of a close-knit, basketball-oriented family. Her sister, Rachel, was a basketball coach at Salem (Massachusetts) State College, and her brother, Jason, later a lawyer, played basketball for Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Lobo began breaking records in the sport at Southwick-Tolland High School, becoming the all-time leading scorer—male or female—in Massachusetts state history while also managing to star in field hockey, athletics (track and field), softball, and academics.

Lobo matriculated to the University of Connecticut, where in 1995 she led the women’s basketball team to its first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) title and a perfect 35–0 record. For her efforts she was named Most Outstanding Player at the NCAA Final Four competition, the Associated Press’s Player of the Year, and the Naismith National Player of the Year. She also won the Wade Trophy for her leadership on and off the court, as well as the NCAA’s Woman of the Year award for her outstanding achievements in athletics, academics, and community leadership. Over her college career she averaged 16.9 points and 10.1 rebounds per game and blocked 396 shots.

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A 6-foot 4-inch- (1.9-metre-) tall forward, Lobo became one of the original players of the newly formed WNBA, which began play in 1997. Her first five seasons were spent with the New York Liberty. She was acquired by the Houston Comets in 2002 and retired the following year. Lobo’s professional career was marred by injury (a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee sidelined her for two seasons), and she was never the dominant player in the WNBA that she had been as a collegian. With her mother, RuthAnn Lobo, she cowrote The Home Team: Of Mothers, Daughters, and American Champions (1996), an autobiographical account of RuthAnn’s battle with breast cancer. Lobo married sportswriter Steve Rushin in 2003, and she worked for ESPN as a commentator following her retirement. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.