The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
LEO’S IMPACT ON NORTH WILL BE FELT FOR YEARS
Senior inspired younger players as she was by previous Rangers
Slicing down the left side of the lane in the Canton Civic Center last week, Destiny Leo looked like a car that was running out of road.
Two defenders to her right had her walled off from the paint, and the baseline was rapidly approaching.
The unflappable senior guard from North left her feet and floated a soft teardrop toward the hoop with her left hand – her off-hand — and kissed it off the glass. Nothing but net. Danny Gallagher, coach of the Magnificat girls basketball team who was playing North that night, threw his hands up and turned away as if it say, “Are you kidding me?” thus adding his name to along list of Northeast Ohio coaches who very well might attend North’s graduation this spring just to make sure Leo goes through with it.
For four years — longer if you count her junior high seasons — Leo has made it look easy on the basketball court.
It didn’t matter if it was right-handed, left-handed, from the perimeter or in the paint, driving to the hoop or hitting a shot from deep while fading away, off one foot, while double-teamed and sipping on a glass of ice tea — Leo made it look easy.
OK, that last part might be embellished a bit, only because there’s no video proof she’s done that. But after seeing what she’s done the last four years in Rangers’ orange and black, does anybody want to bet against her being able to actually do that?
With a dazzling 30-point output in the Rangers’ season-ending loss to Canton GlenOak on March 6, Leo wrote the last chapter of her ledger as a North Ranger.
The final synopsis — her career numbers — were stunning.
Starting all 103 games of her four-year span, Leo poured in 2,227 points — placing her 24th on Ohio’s all-time list. She pulled down 747 rebounds, dished out 263 assists, pilfered 217 steals and blocked 132 shots in her career.
Easy as pie, right?
Not so fast.
There was actually a time Destiny Leo wasn’t very good. She insists there were times in her younger days that shots at her back-yard hoop on High Tee Street in Willowick either caromed atop the family’s garage or ricocheted out toward the street and needed to be flagged down before getting to the traffic.
Oh, and that one day in front of the North varsity girls team?
That was the worst. “I was like in sixth grade,” Leo said. “I was at the high school practice and they have this drill called ‘Plus-One.’ I just couldn’t make a shot. Not one. The whole high school team was there watching. Couldn’t make a shot. I was so frustrated and embarrassed.”
That story probably makes every coach who faced Leo the past four years mumble to themselves, “Where was THAT when WE played North?” Leo shrugged. “People think basketball comes easier to some people than others,” she said. “That it came easy to me. But it didn’t. I worked hard. Me and my dad always used to go down to Manary Park and play, every since I was old enough to remember.”
Like that day in the gym when she couldn’t hit a shot with the whole varsity team watching, Leo worked on her shooting.
If she ever lacked in free throw-shooting, though her career percentage of 81 percent (439 of 538) suggests she never has, she practiced to get better.
When teams pressured her, she worked on her ball-handling. Averaging 2.6 turnovers per game over a four-year, 103-game career speaks volumes to her ball security.
When people considered her a liability on the defensive end of the floor, she worked at it and not only had a knack for intercepting passes or pick-pocketing
opponents, but also for taking charges.
If there was a way to get better, she found it and dedicated herself to erasing her perceived weaknesses.
That passion made her the dominating player she is today.
But all the numbers aside, there are two areas in which Leo impacted the North program. And while Leo has played her last game as a North Ranger, those facets of her game and existence at North will live on for years to come as she takes her talents to Cleveland State University on a basketball scholarship.
First, Leo’s presence on the court made everyone on her team better.
Leo’s skill set demanded attention from the opposition unlike few — if any — in The News-Herald has ever commanded. Game plans were devised, films were studied and schemes were derived just to deal with Leo.
That meant other Rangers got left alone — and made the opposition pay.
“As I’ve said all season, when too many eyes go to her, there are a lot of girls who make big plays, and they did that tonight,” Force said after the Magnificat game, a statement that held true in many (or most) games the past four years.
Another way Leo made her teammates better was seeing her work ethic, attention to detail and pure passion for the game. The phrase “First girl in the gym, last girl to leave” was coined well before Leo picked up a basketball, but it fits her and her work ethic perfectly.
And when fellow Rangers, whether it be currently in high school or
in junior high or youth leagues, see their leader — don’t call her a star, she hates it — working like that, it energizes them to do the same.
The second way Leo’s existence will live on for years is the inspiration she has infused into the program.
Leo herself was one of those little kids not so long ago.
“We used to always come to games to watch North play, and Lynsey Englebrecht was my idol,” Leo said. “It was, ‘Oh my gosh! I want to be like her.’ I watched how she played. I studied her. I wanted to be like her.”
In somewhat of a passing-of-the-torch fashion, Leo passed Englebrecht as the all-time leading 3-point shooter at North earlier this season, a feat that was made more special in that Englebrecht had a front-row seat as an assistant on North’s staff.
Whereas Leo looked up to Englebrecht and aspired to be like her to the point where she put in countless hours to assure that status, there are now undoubtedly countless girls in Eastlake — maybe even across Lake County or farther — who did the same the past four years in admiring Leo and putting in practice on the outside chance of being that good someday.
That type of inspiration drives not only successful programs, but also successful people.
Leo never asked to be a role model, but she is one — because of how she works, carries herself and succeeds on and off the court.
“She’s a once-in-a-lifetime player,” Force said. “She has left a legacy of girls who think differently about basketball because of her.”
She’s a player who helped North win 88 of 103 games (.854) over a four-year span, including three league championships, three trips to the Division I district finals and two regional runner-up finishes.
Not to mention her eyepopping individual numbers, which Leo shrugged off after her final game as a Ranger.
“The points come and go. That’s not really what matters,” she said. “Yeah . ... That’s not what matters to me. I’m just proud. I’m happy to have a family with all of these people.”
By family, Leo meant her blood relatives, her teammates, her coaches, her school mates, and the North fan base that has followed not only her, but the North girls basketball program the last four years.
Many will remember Destiny Leo for the points she scored, the All-Ohio honors she won or the deep tournament runs on which she led the Rangers the past two seasons.
Her biggest contributions, however, are her passion for the game, the drive to be the best version of herself, the youngsters she has inspired and her love for her teammates and school.
Those reasons — not the points she scored — will be why Destiny Leo’s fingerprints on the North girls basketball program will be seen and felt long after she’s graduated.
Kampf can be reached via email at JKampf@NewsHerald.com; On Twitter @NHPreps and @JKKampf_NH