Lindsey Brooke Yamasaki (born June 2, 1980) is an American former professional

women's basketball Women's basketball is the team sport of basketball played by women. It began being played in 1892, one year after men's basketball, at Smith College in Massachusetts. It spread across the United States, in large part via women's college compet ...

player.

Life and career

Yamasaki was born in

Oregon City, Oregon ) , image_skyline = McLoughlin House.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = The McLoughlin House, est. 1845 , image_flag = , image_seal = Oregon City seal.png , image_map ...

, to Syd and Kriss Yamasaki. She has a sister named Britt, and a brother named Kobi. Lindsey attended

Oregon City High School Oregon City High School is a public high school in the Northwestern United States, northwest United States in Oregon City, Oregon, a suburb south of Portland, Oregon, Portland. History Oregon City High School was established in 1885 on the lower ...

, where she led the women's basketball team to four Oregon state championships and finished #1 in the ''USA Today'' national rankings for three years. She was one of the most sought-after recruits for college basketball when she graduated in 1998 and was named the most highly recruited female athlete of 1998. Yamasaki was named a WBCA All-American. She participated in the WBCA High School All-America Game, where she scored sixteen points, and earned MVP honors. On full scholarship at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, Yamasaki led the team to the Pac-10 regular season championship in her senior season, 2001–2002. Her Stanford women's basketball teams made the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball tournaments every year, but never won more than two games in the tournament. Yamasaki's 4-year statistics at Stanford were 13.9 points per game, 44.3% field goal percentage, 38.9% 3-point field goal percentage. During the

2002 WNBA Draft The 2002 WNBA draft was the first to implement a lottery that arranges the order of the first four overall picks. The lottery gave four teams with the identically worst record of 10–22 from the 2001 season an equal chance to own the first o ...

, the 6-foot-2-inch Yamasaki was the 13th pick in the 2nd round (29th overall) to the now-defunct

Miami Sol The Miami Sol were a professional women's basketball team that was based in Miami and entered the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in 2000. They played their games at American Airlines Arena as the sister team to the Miami Heat of the ...

, averaging 3.5 points per game in 15 games in 2002. In 2003, she played 24 games for the

New York Liberty The New York Liberty are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The Liberty compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as part of the league's Eastern Conference. The team was f ...

averaging 0.7 points. She also played in the

National Women's Basketball League The National Women's Basketball League, often abbreviated to the NWBL, was an organization governing professional basketball leagues for women in the United States. The league was founded in 1997 and began play in the Fall of that year. The league ...

for the San Jose Spiders, in the Turkish Women's Basketbol League for Ceyhan Belediyespor and Botas Spor, as well as for the San Antonio Silver Stars where she tore her right Achilles in June 2005. In 2006, she trained with the Seattle Storm in pre-season and was released by the team in May 2006, after which she decided to retire. In 2008, Yamasaki was named as the first head coach of the first ever women's basketball team at the

Academy of Art University The Academy of Art University (AAU or ART U), formerly Academy of Art College and Richard Stephens Academy of Art, is a private for-profit art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. S ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Stanford statistics

Source

USA Basketball

Yamasaki was selected to be a member of the team representing the USA at the 2001 World University Games held in

Beijing, China } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. After winning the opening game easily, the USA team faced Canada and lost a close game 68–67. The USA team defeated Japan to earn a spot in the quarterfinals. The USA team fell behind by 12 points against undefeated Russia, but came back to win the game by eleven points. The next game was against the unbeaten host team China, and the USA team won 89–78. The USA team won their next two games to set up the gold medal game; a rematch against the host team. China would stay close early, but the USA team prevailed and won the gold medal with a score of 87–67. Yamasaki averaged 6.9 points per game.

References

External links

An unofficial fansite

Lindsey's WNBA Player Profile

Academy of Art University press release
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamasaki, Lindsey 1980 births Living people Academy of Art University faculty American expatriate basketball people in Turkey American sportspeople of Japanese descent American women's basketball players Basketball players from Oregon Miami Sol players New York Liberty players Sportspeople from Oregon City, Oregon Small forwards Stanford Cardinal women's basketball players Stanford Cardinal women's volleyball players Universiade gold medalists for the United States Universiade medalists in basketball American women academics