Making Her Mark With Name-Brand Basketball

It’s hard to miss the name. In all its eight-letter basketball glory, it evokes shot-blocking grace, inside dominance and championships.

Olajuwon.

Hakeem Olajuwon’s legacy as one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players is well documented. But far away from the media glare, at a tiny private school whose gym doesn’t have any bleachers, Abi Olajuwon is developing her own game, trying to establish her own inside dominance and win her own championships.

A sophomore at Los Angeles Marlborough, the 6-foot-3 daughter of Hakeem Olajuwon seems to grow as a player game by game while impressing teammates and adults with her maturity on and off the court.

“It helps her in the classroom, and helps her on the court as well,” said Steve Burnett, college counselor on campus and the interim girls’ basketball coach. “She’s a terrific kid, with a great disposition, works really hard in the classroom, is a really diligent student and is really mature beyond her years.”

The second-youngest of Marlborough’s seven varsity players, Olajuwon stands out for reasons other than her size or name.

“She’s really the backbone of the team,” Burnett said as Marlborough sets out next week to defend its Southern Section Division IV-AA championship. “All the kids come to her with their problems and their issues. She’s the Dr. Phil of the team. She’s always there with good advice. She has a mature way of looking at all the issues.”

She was not allowed to look at any issues for this article. Her mother, Lita Richardson, who was never married to Hakeem, said her daughter was too young to speak to the media, and that she should “focus on basketball.”

But Yale-bound Alex Chen, the only senior on Marlborough’s team, spoke glowingly of what her younger teammate offers.

“Sheer presence,” Chen said. “Everything changes when she’s in the game. She attracts a lot of attention. Without her, I can’t even imagine it.”

Olajuwon’s presence makes life easier on the perimeter for the Mustangs’ best player, junior guard Emily Tay. And she gives Marlborough a player whose size most opponents can’t match.

Erin Myrick, a 6-3 center who has committed to play next season for national power Texas Tech, provided an exception Saturday when Marlborough played La Puente Bishop Amat.

It was an unusual opportunity for everyone involved.

“Sometimes you’ll see a tall kid, but not a kid who’s tall and wide and agile and left-handed, which is an advantage,” Bishop Amat Coach Richard Wiard said of Olajuwon. “And she’s relentless on the boards.”

Olajuwon held her own in the showdown. She scored 12 points and had nine rebounds; Myrick had six points and 13 rebounds. Chasmine Jones, another Bishop Amat post player who faced Olajuwon, had six points and two rebounds.

Bishop Amat, ranked No. 11 in the Southland, defeated No. 21 Marlborough, 51-46.

Afterward, Myrick said, “She needs more work on her footwork, body control and attitude. ... [But] she’s only a sophomore. She’ll be real good.”

Despite her heritage, Olajuwon didn’t begin playing basketball until the seventh grade.

“Especially being so young, only a sophomore, she knows how to fight for position, do things that most kids on the varsity don’t pick up until their junior year,” said Bishop Amat’s Jones, a 5-11 forward who has accepted an appointment to the Air Force Academy. “She’s going to be a lot better.”

There’s no doubt that Olajuwon is a quick study.

“She catches on so fast,” Chen said. “I’ll show her a move, and it’s like, ‘You mean like this?’ There’s an immediate response. She wants to be a better player, and you can tell she wants it.”

She also wants to win. By the time she got back to the bench after the postgame handshake with Bishop Amat players, Olajuwon had begun to cry.

“She puts everything into every game and gets upset when it doesn’t come out the best,” Chen said. “She probably feels she has more [game] than what she showed. She plays with such intensity.”

Even though Bishop Amat won, Chen said the battle among centers went Marlborough’s way.

“Abi won it,” Chen said, “because she showed she can hang with the best of them.”