The view from the bench was something Lindsay Stockton had never experienced. It ate at her so much, she dedicated herself to ensure a change of scenery for her final two seasons at Montana State. Now her legendary father is the one with a view from the bench and things could not be better for the Stocktons and the Montana State Bobcats.
[restrict paid=”true”]Stockton, Montana State’s feisty senior point guard, started five games as a true freshman and her future looked bright. But her sophomore year, she played the least minutes of any Bobcat, riding the bench on a .500 team that lost in the first round of the Big Sky Conference Tournament for the second straight season.
Doubt crept in. Stockton wondered if Montana State was the right place for her. She wondered if she would ever play. She decided to take her future into her own hands.
“It hasn’t always been easy for her and that’s a big reason for her growth,” said John Stockton, Lindsay’s Hall of Fame father who played 19 seasons and made 10 NBA All-Star teams as an iconic member of the Utah Jazz. “You learn a lot sometimes when you are sitting and watching. It opens up your ears a little bit, makes you willing to change a little bit.
“Did we talk about it? I don’t think we talked about the mental parts. She figures stuff out on her own. She’s a pretty bright girl. She thinks a lot. Getting to work through it herself was a huge help to her growth.”
Following a sophomore season that saw her play just 11 minutes a game during conference play, the 5-foot-6 ball of energy decided she was fed up. She went to Montana State head coach Tricia Binford’s office for a meeting and made a proclamation. She would be Montana State’s starting point guard as a junior, Stockton told Binford. Then she went to work.
“She was pretty darn confident about it. I said, ‘We’ll see. You will have to earn it,’” MSU’s 11th-year head coach said. “She came back and she earned it. I’m totally proud of that mentality. When you watch Lindsay on the court, that sort of confidence is really contagious.”
Stockton filled the off-season following her sophomore year with shooting drills, consistent workouts with her basketball-crazy siblings and CrossFit workouts with her mother, Nada, a letterman in cross country and volleyball at Gonzaga. Whether she was working out with her professional basketball playing brothers — Michael plays for the Canton Charge and David plays for the Reno Bighorns, each teams in the NBA Developmental League — or working out with her Gonzaga-bound sister, Laura, or taking tips from her Hall of Fame father, Lindsay was determined to change the narrative of her career.
“Not playing for the first two years, I’ve never rode the bench like I did those first two years,” Lindsay Stockton said on Tuesday. “I didn’t like the results, I didn’t like that we weren’t winning. I didn’t know if I could change it as much as I did but I just had to do something. I was done sitting on the bench and I was done watching us lose.”
Two years later, Lindsay is in the midst of a storybook senior season, the tone-setting, tempo-dictating captain for the top team in the Big Sky. Stockton is among the league leaders in assists (3.9 per game) and steals (1.6 per game) as the Bobcats are out to a 12-1 start in Big Sky play. MSU’s 19 total wins tie the most under Binford in a single season and the 12 conference victories are Binford’s most against league competition as MSU heads to Montana for a rivalry showdown on Saturday afternoon.
“It has been a tough career here,” said Stockton, who’s Bobcats posted a 47-43 record before this season, including 30-28 in league play. “We haven’t gotten the wins we necessarily wanted. Me personally, I haven’t played as much as I wanted. It’s just been the last two years. All this coming together is why we came here. This senior year will be a dream hopefully if we finish the way we wanted to.”
A key to the Bobcats’ surge has been the steadying presence of John Stockton on the bench next to Binford. In late October, just weeks before the season, former MSU assistant Kellee Barney abruptly resigned. Binford scrambled to fill the opening on the staff. She decided to take a chance and call John, the NBA’s all-time leader in assists and steals and widely considered one of the greatest point guards in the history of the game.
John has always put a priority on his six children. Whoever is in their senior collegiate seasons athletically becomes his focus, whether it was his oldest son Houston’s final season as a safety for the Montana Grizzlies in 2010 or Michael or David’s senior seasons at Westminster College (2011) and Gonzaga (2014), respectively. John planned on coming to almost all of Lindsay’s games this season so when Binford reached out, John decided to take a chance.
“Having his calm demeanor here has helped our team as far as the composure aspect,” Stockton said.
Growing up in Salt Lake City, Lindsay idolized her older brothers. She still considers herself Houston, Michael and David’s “forever little sister”, hoping each time she takes the court she can make them proud.
John retired from the NBA in 2003 with 11 All-NBA selections, nine NBA assist titles and a legacy as an all-time great to his credit. Lindsay was 10 years old when the family decided to move back to John and Nada’s native Spokane.
In between various business ventures, John has helped coach several of his kids’ teams. He helped out with the Sandpipers, an AAU team that also featured Montana State senior forward Alexa Dawkins. John remains visible, helping from the bench or on the sideline during Spokane HoopFest each year. But he always tried to keep his family, particularly his children, out of his bright spotlight.
“My dad does a really good job of making sure nothing he has done effects us,” Stockton said. “He tries so hard to keep us out of any limelight, not that he is the most famous person in the world. He’s never wanted us to feel too special about that or get us involved in the signing autographs or the pictures and stuff. He’s done a great job of making it be really normal. He’s just a dad.”
Lindsay starred at Gonzaga Prep while David, like his father, was playing for Gonzaga. David’s senior year came to a head during the West Coast Conference tournament as he led the Bulldogs to the WCC title, earning all-tournament team honors in the process. Now it seems it’s Lindsay’s time to carry the torch for her basketball family.
“My family is everything to me,” Lindsay Stockton said. “Athletically, I just want to make them proud. I want to be like them. You never stop wanting to be just like your brothers. I would do anything to get them to say, ‘Lindsay is a great basketball player, I love watching her.’”
John Stockton built a reputation as a fearless competitor with a high basketball IQ, peerless court vision and the will to compete, each features his daughter displays in the Big Sky. Lindsay’s competitive nature is striking, her playing style one of an energetic, aggressive defensive stalwart with arguably the quickest hands in the league.
When asked if Stockton is the league’s most competitive player, Binford simply laughed and said, ‘Lindsay is pretty darn competitive and I’ll leave it at that.’ While John’s competitiveness helped the Jazz reach back-to-back NBA Finals — famously losing to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls — John sees another member of the family when he looks at his daughter.
“She gets that from her mom,” John said. “I say that part tongue in cheek but also very truthfully. We are all competitive people in our house. That’s what Lindsay grew up with. She might be the most competitive one out of us.”
On Saturday, Montana State has an opportunity for its first regular-season sweep of the Lady Griz in Binford’s 10-plus seasons. The 19-5 Bobcats have at least six games remaining — all 12 Big Sky teams now make the conference tournament — and the school record of 24 victories, set in 1988, is within reach.
“I hoped we would do it sooner but I’m glad it’s happening this year,” Lindsay said. “It’s been surreal that it’s been four years already but the fact that we are winning, we are playing so well this year has been so special.”
The last time Montana State played in the NCAA Tournament in March of 1993 was five months before Lindsay was born. John was in the midst of an All-NBA season that saw him average 15.1 points and 12.0 assists per game. Almost 23 years later, Lindsay’s career is winding down and John gets to watch from a seat he never thought he’d sit in.
“This sure wasn’t something I’d ever expect would happen,” John Stockton said. “It’s been a great experience with all these girls and this coaching staff, not just Lindsay. It’s been eye-opening for me on how hard these girls work, how hard the coaches work and how dedicated everybody is. It’s been a wonderful experience. As a dad, with your daughter being able to spend her senior year with her and participate in something we both hold so dear, it’s really hard to put into words how important and how much fun this has been for me.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
