Editor’s Note: This is the final part in a four-part series on LSU athletes in professional sports.
Washington, D.C. — At 5 foot 3 inches tall, former University guard Temeka Johnson isn’t in any way a typical basketball player.
But ever since the late Sue Gunter recruited her to become a Lady Tiger in 2001, Johnson has made a career of proving that it is her heart, not her height, that matters.
From winning the Lieberman Award for the nation’s top point guard in collegiate women’s basketball in 2005 to helping the Phoenix Mercury win the 2009 WNBA title, Johnson’s passionate play has fueled her rise to the top of the game.
With her trophy case now full of accolades, when Johnson speaks people listen, especially LSU coach Nikki Caldwell and the current Lady Tigers.
“You can see when she comes into a room that she has a presence,” Caldwell said. “Although she is not the tallest player that has ever come through LSU, she has, if not one of the biggest voices, the biggest heart and one of the biggest impacts.”
From the first moment she stepped foot onto the hardwood at the PMAC, Johnson brought speed and a knack to distribute the ball to the Lady Tigers.
The New Orleans native smashed the Lady Tigers’ career assists record set by Pokey Chatman (1987-1991) with 945 assists during her LSU career (2001-2005), averaging 7.3 dishes per game. Johnson tallied a LSU single-season record of 289 assists in the 2003-04 season alone.
Along with setting the single-game assist record with 17, she became the Southeastern Conference’s all-time career assist leader in 2005.
Although she is known for creating opportunities for others, Johnson made plenty of plays herself as the only Lady Tiger to tally at least 1,000 points, 500 assists and 500 rebounds in her career.
In 2004 and 2005, she led LSU to back-to-back Final Four appearances under Gunter’s successor, Chatman.
Looking back at her LSU career, Johnson said she appreciated the opportunity to play for Gunter and a staff that pushed her to excel.
“They saw something in you that you didn’t even see in yourself,” Johnson said. “[Gunter] gave me an opportunity to prove that I can play as small as I am. In my mind, I never even considered my height, and in hers, she never even thought about it as well. It was mind over matter, and you can’t teach heart.”
Although her LSU career was defined by consistency with 127 consecutive starts at point guard, Johnson’s professional career has been marked instead by her ability to adapt after playing for five different teams during her decade in the WNBA.
Johnson started her WNBA career right where her LSU career left off by becoming the 2005 WNBA Rookie of the Year after being drafted sixth overall by the Washington Mystics.
The rookie averaged 9.3 points, 5.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game while shooting a career-high 45.8 percent from the floor and starting all 34 games for the Mystics.
Even though her numbers declined during the next three seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks, Johnson returned to her Rookie-of-the-Year form during the Mercury’s 2009 title run, averaging 9.6 points and 4.6 assists per game while starting all 34 games.
Johnson said she has become a well-rounded player rather than a specialist in any one area because she had been asked to play such different roles in each situation.
During this past offseason, she decided to spend some time around LSU’s program again while she rested and let her body recover.
When given the chance to speak to the current Lady Tigers, Johnson’s message was simple and honest.
“I was truthful to them [and said,] ‘Listen, this isn’t the will of the world. There is more to this game than what you see and you think it is,’” Johnson said. “I just talked to them about appreciating the people that paved the way and [about] respecting the game.”
For Caldwell, the opportunity to have a player of Johnson’s caliber willing to come back to be around the program “means so much more than you can really put into words.”
“Temeka is not only an outstanding basketball player, but she’s an outstanding person,” Caldwell said. “She speaks in a way to this generation, in particular to our kids, our team, in a way that they understand. They grasp what it really means to be a Lady Tiger.”
You can reach Morgan Prewitt on Twitter @kmprewitt_TDR.