Rebecca Lobo

Rebecca Rose Lobo (born October 6 1973 in Southwick, Massachusetts) is an American television basketball analyst and a former player in the professional Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 1997 to 2003. Lobo, at 6' 4", played the center position for much of her career.

Career

High school

Rebecca Lobo holds the state scoring record with 2,710 points in her high school career in Southwick-Tolland Regional High School in Massachusetts.

College

Lobo attended the University of Connecticut and helped lead the Huskies to the 1995 National Championship with an undefeated 35-0 record. In her senior year, she won the 1995 Naismith and College Player of the Year award.

Professional

After college, Lobo joined the WNBA for its inaugural season. Lobo was assigned to the New York Liberty during the league's first player allocations on January 22, 1997. She spent the first five years of her career with New York. However, in the first game of the 1999 season, she grabbed a rebound and as she landed she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in a nasty injury to her left knee where her entire lower leg bent inwards at a 50 degree angle and never fully recovered.

ports announcing

Today, Lobo is seen as a reporter and color analyst for ESPN with a focus on women's college basketball and WNBA games.

Family

Lobo is the youngest daughter of Dennis and RuthAnn Lobo. Her father is half Cuban and half Polish. Her mother is of German and Irish heritage.Thomson Gale biography.] RebeccaLobo.com.] Her brother Jason played basketball at Dartmouth College. Her sister Rachel played basketball at Salem State College.

She is married to former "Sports Illustrated" writer Steve Rushin. On December 25, 2004 Rushin and Lobo had their first daughter named Siobhan Rose Rushin. Their second daughter, Maeve Elizabeth Rushin, was born on August 10, 2006. She is now pregnant with their third child.

Breast cancer advocate

In 1996, Lobo and her mother, Ruth Ann Lobo, collaborated on a book entitled "The Home Team" [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568361998] , which dealt with RuthAnn's battle with breast cancer.

Rebecca was the 1996 spokesperson for the Lee National Denim Day fund raiser which raises millions of dollars for breast cancer research and education.

Trivia

*A street named "Rebecca Lobo Way" in Southwick, Massachusetts, where she attended high school, was named after her.

*Represented the US Women's basketball team in the "Banging Hard in the School Yard" episode of Martin. Lobo was the tallest member of the team. She is mentioned in the second season of the comedy show The Upright Citizens Brigade, in the episode "Spaghetti Jesus". In the sketch, a character who tries out for the WNBA says that "Rebecca Lobo held me down with one hand and called me a bitch."

*She was the speaker at the class of 2008 commencement of the University of Connecticut's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. [cite web
last = University of Connecticut
first =
title = Information About May Commencement
url=http://commencement.uconn.edu/may/
accessdate = 2008-05-10 ]

Notes

References

* cite web|accessdate=2007-04-24|url=http://www.gale.com/free_resources/chh/bio/lobo_r.htm
title=Rebecca Lobo |work=Hispanic Heritage: Biographies
publisher=Thomson Gale
* cite web|accessdate=2007-04-24|url=http://www.wnba.com/rebeccalobo/fun_facts.html
title=Vital Stats
work=RebeccaLobo.com
publisher=WNBA

External links

* [http://www.nba.com/blog/blog6.html Rebecca Lobo's blog]
* [http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Pressbox/7750/ Lobo Land - unofficial fan site]