A ride home, and a father’s challenge, launched Augustus on the path to greatness

By: ROBIN FAMBROUGH
Written for the LSWA

(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of feature stories spotlighting this year’s induction class of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. The Class of 2024 will be enshrined Saturday, June 22, at the Hall of Fame’s home in Natchitoches to culminate the 65th Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration.)
One car ride home from Greenville Elementary changed Seimone Augustus.
Augustus recalls “having a moment,” because her team lost an afterschool basketball game, and she did not know how to handle it.
“We were walking to the car and my dad said, ‘They beat you and that’s the end of it.
You have to learn to be a good loser before you can be a great winner.’
Then Seymore Augustus asked, “‘What do you want to do? Do you just want to be good? Or do you want to be great?’”
They sat in the car for a few minutes before a short drive home.
“When I got out of the car I said, ‘I want to be great.’ Then I stormed in the house,” Augustus noted. “And my dad said, ‘We’ve got work to do.’ And that was it.”
Two high school state titles at Capitol, three Final Four Appearances at LSU, three Olympic gold medals and four WNBA titles were years away.
Hoop dreams and the work required to reach them came into focus at age seven or eight for Augustus, a two-time National Player of the Year at LSU.
With induction into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, all in a span of six months, Augustus ponders major successes and her path to them.
The June 22 induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame is also a full circle moment for Augustus, who recently joined the LSU women’s basketball staff as an assistant coach for the 2024-25 season.
“It’s a celebration of me, but this is also a celebration that gives me a chance to express gratitude to the people who were significant in helping me get to where I am today,”
Augustus said. “The opportunities I had and people who helped made it possible.”
She is part of the 12-member Class of 2024 to be honored June 20-22 in Natchitoches.
For participation opportunities, visit LaSportsHall.com or call 318-238-4255.
From the beginning
By the time Augustus reached Capitol High School, she had dunked in a middle school game and was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated for Women with the headline, “Is she the next Michael Jordan?”
Augustus averaged 24.8 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.0 assists in high school, leading her team to a 138-7 record —which included a 52-game winning streak.
First, there were lawn chairs, bowling gloves and a gravel driveway that made dribbling difficult.
“These days everybody wants a trainer. … Parents spend two or three hundred dollars for a session,” Augustus said. “I’m thinking, ‘Well hell, I made it to the Hall of Fame and all I had was some lawn chairs.’ Isn’t that something?
“We laugh about it … the bowling gloves and the glasses that prevent you from looking down. Tying one arm up behind my back to force me to use my other hand. And setting out lawn chairs in the yard.”
As Augustus watched NBA games, she worked to emulate what she saw, putting her flair into each move. She studied basketball skills videos on VHS tapes.
Augustus played games, but not always in a traditional manner. Father and daughter rode bikes or walked to gyms and/or street ball courts in Baton Rouge’s inner city.
“I attribute a lot of who I am and what I am to who I played against growing up here in Baton Rouge,” Augustus said. “I always say there was not a place I did not go to play a game. I wasn’t on a travel ball team. We didn’t have the funds.
“My reputation then was, ‘I played against that girl.’ It did not matter … old, young, middle-aged, male or female … I would play you. That’s how you become a street legend. People would say, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that girl putting in some work. And her dad was right there with her.’”
A big break
Augustus played a limited amount of AAU basketball. First, she played for the Baton Rouge Lady Tigers, facing future LSU teammates Temeka Johnson and Roneeka and Doneeka Hodges.
The next year her father put together a team that played in a national tournament in Cocoa Beach, Fla.
“I never really got out of Baton Rouge until I was 10 or 12,” Augustus said. “We didn’t make it out of pool play (in Florida), but those few games changed my life forever.”
Augustus netted an invite to the Blue Star Elite camp in Terre Haute, Indiana, with her play.
Future WNBA stars such as Diana Taurasi, Nicole Powell, Swin Cash, Kara Braxton and Shyra Ely were there.
“I did not know about a (player) ranking system or who any of these players were. That was great for me; I had no fear, no anxiety,” Augustus said. “I used to wear little pigtails nd they gave me a nickname … they called me puppy.
“They would say, ‘You got game, but you’re still a puppy. You can’t get on the porch with the big dogs just yet.’”
Star power
Soon, plenty of people knew Augustus’ name and her story. Fans stood in line for hours to get into Capitol games at home and on the road.
The late Pat Summitt of Tennessee and UConn’s Geno Auriemma were among the long line of college coaches who came to Baton Rouge while pursuing Augustus.
The LHSAA’s girls basketball tournament set attendance records three of the four years Augustus played in it, including a night in 2002 when SLU’s University Center was sold out — something that did not happen again until the LSU women played SLU last December.
Three of LSU women’s basketball’s top five all-time home attendance games happened during Augustus’ career.
LSU assistant coach Bob Starkey sees it as a foreshadowing of the popularity enjoyed by today’s stars such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
“I think we should all be grateful for what is going on today in women’s basketball, and it’s because of players like Seimone,” Starkey said. “We set attendance records when at home and led the SEC in road attendance because people wanted to see her play.”
Next level talent
A relentless work ethic and passion defined Augustus as much as her ability at LSU.
Starkey, the late LSU head coach Sue Gunter and others saw focus that superseded the pressure that came with elevating LSU onto the national stage.
“Seimone was able to do the things she did because she focused on what she could control, like her effort in every practice and game,” Starkey said. “She was proud to do things for this program that had never been done before. I think that is an underrated part of her accomplishments.”
Starkey cites specific examples of Augustus’ basketball IQ, including her decision to take a decisive charge from Stanford’s Candice Wiggins in an NCAA regional final.
“I told Seimone not to leave her player,” Starkey said. “But she was smarter than I was.
Seimone played with Wiggins in the summer and knew she would drive to the basket.
So, she took the charge.”
A pro’s pro
After scoring 2,702 points at LSU and sweeping National Player of the Year honors in 2006, Augustus was the No. 1 WNBA draft pick by the Minnesota Lynx.
She was voted the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year in 2006 and averaged more than 20 points a game over three seasons. A torn ACL cost Augustus most of the 2009 season and surgery to remove fibroid tumors limited her games in 2010.
Future hall of fame players Lindsey Whelan, Rebbekah Brunson, Maya Moore and Taj McWilliams-Franklin joined the team in 2011. What happened next was magical.
“In 2011, the stars aligned. I had more talent around me than I had ever had in my career,” Augustus said. “The only thing we had to figure out was how to make this talent work.
“Everything aligned. All of us were wanting this big, beautiful moment. We all had a thirst for it. Years of losing and an injury ended. That made me believe in faith and fate.”
The Lynx won four titles in a seven-year span. Augustus was the MVP of the 2011 finals and scored 36 points in one game, the second highest total in a finals series.
Proud Olympian
The WNBA did not exist when Augustus was a little girl. Her idols played on the 1996 Women’s Dream Team.
“I think the ultimate for any player would have to be an Olympic gold medal,” Augustus said. “It is for me. The poster on my wall was the 1996 national team.
“I looked up to Teresa Edwards because I thought our games were similar. It was an honor to represent my city and my state.”
Augustus conveyed all that during an emotional press conference after the 2016 gold medal win in Rio de Janeiro. Widespread flooding had hit the Baton Rouge area, making it difficult to contact her parents and relatives.
“For all the greatness there is about her … she’s about to be in every hall of fame invented.
“Nothing has changed Seimone,” LSU’s Starkey said. “We live in a society now where you don’t find a lot of humility. Seimone is humble. She loves Baton Rouge, LSU and Louisiana.”
In a word
Grambling coach Courtney Simmons was a star at Southern Lab at the same time Augustus played at Capitol.
“Original, that’s the word to describe her,” Simmons said. “There’s no one else like her.”
Former LSU teammate Johnson, now an assistant coach at Western Kentucky, says taking a charge from Augustus in an AAU game tested her mettle.
Now, resilient is the word Johnson chooses to describe Augustus.
“Seimone has been through things, the injuries and losing those first years in the WNBA. She had people who doubted her. She always came through it.”
Humble is the word another LSU teammate, Quianna Chaney, the current Southern Lab coach and former SLHS player, picks.
“She is very down to earth … always has been,” Chaney said. “And grateful for all she has.”
As a youngster, Augustus won regional and state competitions to earn a spot in the Elks National Hoop Shoot competition in Boston. The trip included a visit to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
“I got to put my hand in the ball where you get to see how big Michael Jordan’s hand is,” Augustus said. “I never, ever put myself there.
“It was like being shown a snippet of your life, or what it could be, before you live it.”
Others saw it. Current LSU coach Kim Mulkey lobbied to get a statue for Augustus that now stands outside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
“As a (assistant) coach at (Louisiana) Tech, I watched her dominate as a player in high school,” Mulkey said. “I didn’t get to coach her, but I’m so proud of her. Seimone means so much to LSU and the state of Louisiana.”
 Robin Fambrough is a Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee as the 2020 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism. She is the longtime high school sports editor and writer for the Baton Rouge Advocate.