She Got Game: My Personal Odyssey

Although women's basketball has only come to prominence in the U.S. in the last few years, Cooper has been competitively engaged since 1981, first as a player for USC, then in local European leagues and for two U.S. Olympic teams. She is currently a star with the WNBA's two-time defending champion Houston Comets. All this experience should give the 36-year old Watts native, who has helped raise two nephews and watched her mother battle breast cancer, a deep well from which to draw. But her memoir reads like a perfunctory exercise riddled with motivational platitudes (""If there's one thing my life illustrates it's this: `Put an obstacle in front of me and I'll overcome it.'"" Readers learn that during Cooper's fatherless childhood, her mother ""worked to give us a better chance in life,"" but Cooper doesn't delve beyond this. The story looks like it will take a more substantive turn when Cooper describes her struggles to adapt and embrace new cultures when she played in Spain and Italy, but again she offers only superficial details (""Paella is a rice-based dish usually made with seafood or chicken.... It's delicious""). Had it been told well, Cooper's story could surely have been inspirational. (Aug.)