Lauren Jackson

Early life

Jackson, whose nicknames include "Loz", "Jacko" and "LJ", was born in Albury, New South Wales, on 11 May 1981, the older of two children of Gary Jackson and his wife Maree Bennie. Both her parents played for Australia's national basketball teams and Jackson inherited her height from both parents. Jackson was 196 cm by the time she turned 16, after she gained 15 cm in height when she was 15 years old. Her father, Gary, played for the Boomers in 1975, while her 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 metres) mother, Maree, played for the Opals from 1974 to 1982. Bennie played in two World Championships, and for the women's basketball team at Louisiana State in the late 1980s, wearing the number 15, the number Jackson wears in her mother's honour. Bennie was one of the first Australians to play in the American collegiate system, where she was known for her aggressive style of play and was nicknamed "the assassin". Her parents continued to play basketball locally on a social level when Lauren and her brother were young, and her family had a basketball court in their backyard when Jackson was growing up. Her grandfather played for the Western Suburbs Magpies.

Jackson grew up in Albury, where she attended Murray High School.

Jackson started playing basketball at the Albury Sports Centre when she was four years old. As a six-year-old, she told others that she would one day play for the Australian national team in Basketball. Her mother taught her how to play. She first played competitive basketball as a six-year-old she played on a local under-10 side. Her mother was her coach for two years. This was difficult for both mother and daughter in order to change their personal dynamics. As an 11-year-old, Jackson was not the best player in Albury, but she played in the under-14 Australian Country Championships. Her team made it to the Grand Final one year, and she played in the match despite having hurt her knee. She was upset after the event. In response to this, her parents sat down with her and explained she did not need to continue to play if she did not want to. Following this conversation, she went to her room and typed a message on her computer that said "from this day on, nothing will stand in my way..."

When she was 14 years old, Jackson led her New South Wales side to a national championship gold. Her performance in the tournament attracted the attention of the national team selectors. Tom Maher said of the game: "Right then and there, I said, 'Is this the best thing I've ever seen?' It was just unbelievable. Those old guys had seen a lot of basketball, and they were drooling." As a competitor at the 1999 Australian Under-20 national championships, she won the Bob Staunton Award for the tournament MVP. She was described as a basketball prodigy by the time she was seventeen years old.

Professional career

Jackson was recognised as one of the world's best basketball players by the time she was 21. She has been described as Australia's best female player and the best female basketball player in the world. She has said regarding being the best female basketball player in the world: "I don't really think about it. Nobody really talks to me like that. It's not something I'm conscious of. My family and people who have known me all my life, they see me for who I am, and crack open a beer or a bottle of wine with me. They know I have to train, but the rest of it is really laid-back."

Jackson plays two positions, power forward and centre, and has the ability to make jump shots and spinning bank shots.

Jackson had a rivalry with American basketball player Lisa Leslie. The rivalry reportedly started when Jackson was on tour in the United States with the Opals as a 16-year-old. The rivalry intensified in 2000 at the Olympics in the gold medal match when Jackson purposely pulled off Leslie's hair extension while both were trying to grab a rebound. Jackson treated the incident as a joke, saying "It was something to joke about even though we lost the gold medal." Leslie did not feel the same way about the extension pulling incident. The rivalry continued when Jackson transitioned to the WNBA and her Seattle Storm team played Leslie's Los Angeles Sparks, who at the time were the best team in the league. The rivalry was so intense that their coaches had to coach around it, sometimes choosing to keep one off the floor when the other was on. The coaches feared if they left the players on the floor together, their own player would foul out in an attempt to get the best of the other player. Leslie and Jackson have played together as team members in the WNBA's All-Star game. Their rivalry thawed somewhat by 2007 but they did not become friends.

WNBL

Jackson was offered a scholarship with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 1996, when she was just 15, but her parents said no to this, as it required her to move from Albury to Canberra. The next year, she accepted a scholarship and joined the AIS basketball team in the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) for the 1997 season. The programme considers her one of its success stories. With Jackson leading a side composed of the best 16- to 17-year-old development players in the country, the AIS won the WNBL championship in the 1998–99 season.

Jackson joined the Canberra Capitals for the 1999–2000 season and helped them win the championship, recording 15 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks in a 67–50 win over the Adelaide Lightning in the grand final. She helped the Capitals return to the grand final in 2000–01, where they lost to the Sydney Panthers despite her 22 points and 20 rebounds. She won her third championship in 2001–02 with a victory over Sydney in the grand final. She was named grand final MVP for the first time after recording 29 points and 21 rebounds.

In December 2002, a Capitals' game against the Townsville Fire in Townsville was moved to the Townsville Entertainment and Convention Centre, which seated 5,000 people instead of at the Fire's normal 800-seat stadium, because it was felt Jackson would draw that large a crowd. She did, with 4,110 people showing up to the game and setting a regular season attendance record for the Fire. Canberra lost the match despite 23 points from Jackson, which was six below her average of 29 points per game at that point in the season. At the time, the attendance was the best ever for a regular season WNBL game, with only two Grand Finals games in the post season having more people in attendance. Jackson went on to lead the Capitals to the 2002–03 championship where she was named grand final MVP for the second time. She played with the Capitals in the 2003 FIBA Club World Cup for Women where she averaged 30.6 points and 11.4 rebounds per game.

In October of the 2003–04 season, Jackson had a 48-point game. This was her highest individual game point total at the time and is her single highest WNBL point scoring game.

At the conclusion of the 2005–06 season, Jackson had played 154 WNBL games and won five championships.

WNBA

Seattle viewed Jackson as a franchise player. On the court in the WNBA, she was known for her sharp and stinging comments directed at other players. Opposition players knew they could get at Jackson by giving her sneaky fouls and nettling her back with some trash talk. While playing in the WNBA, she has dyed her hair different colours several times. She ranks 35th in the league for total played games with 308. She has played 9,958 minutes in the league and ranks 16th all time in this category. In her career, she has made 2056 field goals, ranking third all time in this category. She ranked fifth all time in the league with 4,456 field goal attempts. She ranked 34th overall career wise in the league with a field goal percentage of 46.1%. Career wise, she ranks 10th overall for three-point field goals with 430. She attempted 1219 three-point field goals in her career, ranking 10th on the league's all time leaderboard. She was ranked second all time in the league for turnover percentage with 9.4.

In 2001, Jackson was drafted first when she entered the WNBA draft in the fifth year of the league having a draft and was selected by the Seattle Storm. Her parents stayed with her in Seattle for the first month she played in the WNBA in 2001. Jackson's first season included 32 games played over the course of 11 weeks, a much more difficult competition in terms of total games compared to Australia's domestic league. She played in 21 games. Jackson ranked eighth in the league with 406 field goal attempts. In her debut game with the team, she scored 21 points. On 3 July 2001, Jackson set a WNBA record for most minutes played in a single game with 55 in a game against Washington that had four overtime periods. That season, she averaged 15.2 points per game, came in second for the WNBA's Rookie of the Year award. At the end of the first season with the Storm, Jackson required surgery on her right shoulder. She attempted 129 three-point field goals this season, ranking eighth in the league. She had a player efficiency rating of 22.5. Jackson ranked seventh in the league in this category for the season, and was a WNBA All Star.

Jackson was a WNBA All Star again in 2002, and played in the All Star Game. She averaged 17.2 points per game. She was the team's captain, the youngest in the WNBA at the time. During one game which was attended by 11,000 fans, the fans loudly chanted her name. In 2002, Carrie Graf, who had been an assistant coach on the Australian national team from when Jackson for played for it, changed coaching positions in the WNBA from Phoenix to Seattle specifically to make Jackson feel more comfortable playing for the team. She was estimated to have earned $200,000 to play for the Storm in 2002.

Other

In December 2006, Jackson moved to South Korea to play for Samsung Bichumi of the Women's Korean Basketball League. In February 2007, she was named Most Valuable Player of the league's all-star game. In March, she set a league record with 56 points in a game against Kumho Redwings. It eclipsed her previous personal record of 48 points in a game for Canberra in the WNBL in October 2003. She was named the league's Most Valuable Player after averaging 30.2 points per game.

Immediately following her season in Korea, Jackson moved to Russia where she was paid six figures for a one-month stint with WBC Spartak Moscow Region. The team had just won the 2006–07 EuroLeague. Her teammates included Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, and Tina Thompson. Jackson helped Spartak win the 2006–07 Russian Superleague title.

Jackson continued playing for Spartak in 2007–08 and 2008–09. The team won the 2007–08 Russian Superleague title as well as the 2007–08 EuroLeague and 2008–09 EuroLeague. She scored 35 points in a EuroLeague game on 11 April 2008 against UMMC Ekaterinburg. It was her highest single-game scoring total in a Euroleague game. She averaged 23.6 points and 7.1 rebounds per game in 2007–08.

In 2009, Jackson had an option of extending her contract with Spartak for two more years. However, following the assassination of team owner Shabtai Kalmanovich, she decided against extending her contract. She later returned to Spartak for the 2010–11 season. On 3 December 2010, she was named the EuroLeague Women Player of the Week after recording 28 points and 14 rebounds against VICI Aistes. She averaged 17.3 points and 8.4 rebounds per game prior to leaving the team in early January 2011 because of an injury, returning to Australia for her recovery. Part of her treatment involved getting an MRI. According to Jackson, she left Russia for Australia because "I couldn't move, the swelling was very obvious, and the pain was just a little bit too painful. That's when I got home to all these messages and e-mails from people back in Australia who had seen the scans and said 'you need to come back (to Australia) and start your rehab right away'."

For the 2011–12 season, Jackson joined Ros Casares Valencia in Spain, playing in the Liga Femenina and the EuroLeague. She ranked 16th in the league for three-point field goal shooting percentage at 41.5% and 17th in the league for three-point field goals made per game at 1.4. She scored 16 points on 29 March 2012 against Sparta&K M.R. Vidnoje, her highest total number of points in a single game in the 2011–12 season. She helped the team win the 2011–12 EuroLeague championship.

National team career

Jackson made the Australian under-20 team when she was only 14 years old. She was first called up to the senior national team when she was 16 years old. Her national team coaches Tom Maher and Carrie Graf say positive things about Jackson to the press and others but they rarely have said those things to Jackson. This is a strategy designed to help motivate Jackson to play better. Tom Maher who was the coach that called her up said, "She's so good she could be the greatest sportswoman in the world. She's that extraordinary." Graf has described Jackson as one of the superstars of the game.

Jackson was a member of the 1997 Australian Junior Women's Team that won a silver medal at the World Championships in Brazil. At the time, she was 16 years old. She averaged 14.3 points per game and 9.9 rebounds per game. She was also a member of the 1998 Australian Senior Women's Team that won a bronze medal at the World Championships in Germany. At the time, she was 16 years old and the youngest Australian woman ever to be named to the team. In the tournament, she averaged 10.9 points per game and 3.9 rebounds per game. She was a key part of the team's success. She was coached in the tournament by Tom Maher. She came off the bench to play.

In the Olympic test tournament in the lead up to the 2000 Summer Olympics, Jackson scored 18 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. She was a member of the 2000 Summer Olympics team that won a silver medal. At the 2000 Games, she scored 127 total points, had 23 total blocked shots, 12 steals and 67 rebounds. She averaged 15.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game. In the 76–54 loss in the gold medal game, she scored 24 points and had 13 rebounds. She led the team in points scored and total rebounds. Going into the Olympics, her team was ranked third in the world. At the Sydney Games, she was coached by Tom Maher. The gold medal final was against the United States.

Jackson was a member of the Australian Senior Women's Team that won a silver medal in the World Championships in China in 2002. She averaged 23.1 points a game in the competition and was named to the All-Star team for the tournament. She averaged 5.4 rebounds per game. In a semi-final match against the United States, Jackson fouled Lisa Leslie three times in the first six minutes of the game. The team lost while Jackson spent most of the time on the bench. By January 2003, Jackson had played over 100 games with Australia's senior side. She competed in the 2003 World Championships and was named the International Basketball Federation's Most Valuable Player. At the FIBA Diamond Ball Tournament for Women 2004, she averaged 22.7 points and 14.0 rebounds per game.

Coaching career

Jackson served as head coach of the Albury Wodonga Bandits women's team in the 2019 NBL1 season.

Health issues

Jackson has had multiple injuries. In 2008, after the Olympics, she had surgery to fix her ankle. In 2009, she had two stress fractures in her back. In December 2010, she had an Achilles injury. She sustained the injury playing in Australia. Between January 2011 and February 2012, she had surgeries to assist with Achilles and hip injuries. She had surgery on her left hip acetabular labrum in June 2011 in Vail, Colorado at the Richard Steadman Clinic. She said of the surgery: "This is a really, really tough decision, but after talking with my doctors and my family, we felt that immediate surgery is the best course of action. With something painful like this hip injury, I want to be especially proactive. I plan to stay in Seattle to be here with my team and try my best to be back on the court as soon as possible. My goal is to be at full strength by the end of the season." She did rehabilitation twice a day in an attempt to speed her recovery. Afterwards, Jackson injured her right knee, requiring more surgery in 2012. Another knee injury while playing in China in 2014 degraded into arthritis, and her knee required much surgical intervention during the following years, including a long hospitalisation in January 2016 after her knee joint suffered a postsurgical infection. All the consequences of this knee problem led to Jackson's first retirement from pro basketball in March 2016. During her WNBL return in 2022, Jackson played several games with a broken foot before a tear in her right Achilles ended her season in February 2023.

After retiring, Jackson went through a partial knee reconstruction, and decided to quit the painkillers and sleeping pills that she had been taking since the age of 20 to deal with chronic pain, leading to drug withdrawal. Her unretirement in the 2020s had Jackson using medicinal cannabis to reduce her pain.

Celebrity

By 2003, Jackson was being recognised around the world from countries like Portugal and Japan. She said of her private life: "I don't really have a private life. I've found it difficult as an athlete, to maintain a relationship. It's not one of my best points but I've got family and friends who compensate for that. When I was younger I went out and had a lot of fun, and there were moments when people criticised me for that, and you know what, I'm young, I'm going to do that, and anyone who is going to get on me for that ... I really didn't care." She does not like to go out to clubs because she gets recognised by too many people, and everyone wants to comment on her height. She partied a fair amount in her early 20s. By 2010, she was not able to stay out at night clubs until 5:30 am any more because she lacked the stamina.

In response to getting a hug from Yao Ming at the 2008 Summer Olympics during the closing ceremonies, internet rumours started that Jackson and the married Yao were romantically involved. These rumours were incorrect. Jackson said of them: "When we came across this Yao Ming thing it was like, 'Oh...My...God! When I tell you we were in hysterics...because anybody who knows me knows that would be the last thing on my mind. A 7-foot 6 Chinese man? That's just not my thing. I really respect him as a player. And people who know me know I can be wild and over-the-top. I'm affectionate and that night I guess I was affectionate with the wrong person. I guess the Chinese people don't do that stuff very often, so the cultural [differences] was a big thing. But I don't care. You have to laugh about things or you'll be crying, which I would probably have been doing anyway [because of the loss and surgery]. I made the most of my last night at the Olympics and had a great time."

When people google Jackson, some of the first search results feature her in the nude. Jackson said of this: "Instead of being known for my basketball skills, all of these nudie shots are always the first thing you see." She posed nude in an Australian magazine, Black+White, that featured Olympic athletes who were set to compete in Athens in the 2004 Summer Olympics. The expensively printed magazine/book has been produced for the last three Olympic Games and, by the 2004 edition, was considered uncontroversial in Australia with its "artistic" approach to nude photography, and its equal coverage of male and female athletes, although it did create a stir in the United States. She also posed for the 2005 edition of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Of posing nude, she said, "if offered the opportunity, I think that it's a personal decision. Whether you do it for the money or whatever, again, I think it's a personal decision. I don't know whether I would say yes or no. I guess you cross that bridge when you come to it. I don't think it's a bad thing, I'm not against it."

Honours

Jackson was named the Australian International Player of the Year in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. In 2005, she was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport's 'Best of the Best'.

In 2011, the Albury Sports Stadium was renamed the Lauren Jackson Sports Centre. A thousand people showed up at the renaming ceremony, at which Jackson was the guest of honour.

Jackson was the flag bearer for Australia at the 2012 Summer Olympics. On 8 June 2015, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Jackson was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020, the same year in which she was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. The following year, she was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and was named to the WNBA's 25th anniversary team. Jackson was an inaugural inductee to the University of Canberra Sport Walk of Fame in 2022.

In November 2024, Jackson was honoured at the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Awards, receiving The Dawn Award. The award recognises an individual, team or organisation who "show courage and bravery and have changed sport for the better".

Personal life

Jackson earned her Higher School Certificate in Canberra while she was training with the Australian Institute of Sport. Jackson studied for a psychology degree at Lomonosov Moscow State University and continued via correspondence from America. In 2007, she was working on a university course in business management. In 2010, she was taking classes at Macquarie University in Sydney. Her coursework was centred in cultural studies and included topics like women's rights and racism. After injuries prevented her from studying, she was back working on her degree in 2012 and had aspirations on becoming a United Nations diplomat. She also considered becoming an advocate for women. Her interests regarding gender studies were inspired by a book regarding the rape during the Rwandan Genocide, and Jackson is even an ambassador of a foundation that seeks to empower the abused women of that war. By 2015, Jackson was trying to get a Bachelor of Gender and Diversity at the University of Canberra, mostly through distance education.

Jackson's first child was born in 2017. She had a second child in 2018.

In 2016, Jackson became the leader of the Australian Basketball Alliance and joined the new ownership group of the Melbourne Boomers. She served as a commentator for the Seven Network during the 2016 Olympics, on studio rather than travelling to the Games because of her pregnancy.

She released an autobiography, My Story: A Life in Basketball and Beyond, in October 2018.