Justice Served : Aspiring Lawyer, Judge Tina Thompson Quickly Delivers Verdict at USC as Likely All-American With Relentless Style

T.J., T.J. Jr., and . . . Tina?

In the masculine, knock-down, no-holds-barred world of inner-city playground basketball, the story of T.J., T.J. Jr. and Tina Thompson stands out.

This was four, five years ago, and Tina Thompson--now a standout on the USC women’s team--was developing her game against men, not girls.

“Even when she was a high school sophomore, Tina could flat-out play,” said T.J. Thompson, 50, father of the 6-foot-3 sophomore who leads the Trojan women into the NCAA tournament this week.

Thompson’s father talked recently of Robertson Park playground games with Tina and his son, T.J. Jr., now 23.

“Every time we showed up to challenge someone, there’d be some talking” he said.

“One time a guy said, ‘Aw, T.J., you brought your daughter--and she’s a girl!’

“I said the same thing I always said, ‘Hey, man--she’s got a game. You won’t be talking that mess after we play. In about 30 minutes, you’ll be wishing she was on your side, not mine.’

“We’d win one game, and they’d say, ‘That was luck!’ Then we’d win the second one, and they wouldn’t have much to say. Then in the third game, they’d go to some really hard checking and bumping.

“Tina always got knocked around pretty good, but she could dish it out too. Those tough games, that’s when she really made her game.

“She could play inside if she had to, or outside. I’d tell her, ‘If you got a jump shot outside, let it fly!’ She was reluctant to shoot.

“One time, we beat a team that had Chris Mills (now with the Cleveland Cavaliers) on it.”

That was the Thompson family in the early ‘90s, the scourge of the three-on-three basketball leagues at Robertson Park.

“Tina’s a much tougher player now,” her father said. “I had to quit playing because of bad ankles, but I tease Tina. I tell her, ‘You know I could take you inside any time, don’t you?’

“And she tells me, ‘Dad, you know I don’t let anyone go messing in my office.’ ”

Little wonder that T.J.’s daughter grew up to be a major high school star at Inglewood Morningside High, then became the Pac-10 freshman of the year last season.

She is now playing at a level that should put her on some All-American teams this season or next. Before this weekend’s games she was second among Pac-10 scorers at 20.3 points a game, second among rebounders at 10.4 and fourth in blocked shots.

She is a strong, physical player, with a relentless, consistent power game inside. She played mostly on the perimeter in high school but made a swift transition inside.

“She’s an outstanding player now, but she hasn’t even scratched the surface of her potential,” said Tara VanDerveer, coach of conference champion Stanford.

Thompson says she flipped back and forth between USC and Stanford, finally choosing USC: “I just knew more people there, and I wanted to be close to home.”

If her father had had his way, Tina would have been a Bruin.

“I wanted her to go to UCLA,” he said.

“But UCLA was too late. They never called her until (former USC coach Marianne) Stanley had spent a lot of time with her.”

What the Trojans got was a sore loser, T.J. Thompson reports.

“The thing about Tina is, she hates to lose at anything,” he said.

“If I beat her at Ping-Pong or dominoes, she’s mad for about an hour. It’s the same with basketball. You should see her play one-on-one with her brother in the back yard. They really get it on.

“After she got to be a (high school) sophomore, I couldn’t beat her anymore.”

Sound familiar? Tina Thompson’s coach, Cheryl Miller, also developed her game playing back-yard basketball with her father and brother, a guy named Reggie Miller.

Thompson got another edge a year ago, when Lisa Leslie, last season’s college player of the year, took Tina under her wing.

When Thompson committed to USC in the spring of 1993, she and Leslie played a lot that summer, with Leslie prepping Thompson for the college game.

“Lisa made me a better player, definitely,” Thompson said. “Her aggressiveness as a player helped me more than anything.”

Some have felt that Thompson, as a sophomore, was asked to carry too heavy a burden this season after she and Leslie had led the Trojans to the Pac-10 championship a year ago.

“I don’t feel that way,” she said.

“Michelle (Campbell) and Rashida (Jeffrey) have contributed a lot this year. I don’t feel like I’m alone out there.”

Thompson, a near-straight-A high school student, says she gets mostly B’s at USC. She’s a sociology major but considers herself a pre-law student.

She aspires to be a judge.

“I’d like to practice law and specialize in juvenile law,” she said. “A lot of young kids out there need legal representation more than anyone. After that, I’d like to be a Superior Court judge.”

Said her father: “If Tina tells you she’s going to be a judge, you can count on it--she’ll be a judge.

“She’s a very hard-working, very goal-oriented person.

“I used to drop her off at the playgrounds at 6 o’clock after dinner, then pick her up at 10. She’d play that whole time. Then I’d get up in the middle of the night and find her asleep at her desk, her head on her books.

“Then she’d have me wake her up at 5:30 so she could study in the morning, before school.”