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Leilani Finau Contact Leilani at alaskansamoan@hotmail.com |
Leilani Finau has been involved in the sport of basketball since she was 8 years old.
She was captain of her high school basketball and volleyball teams and later went on to
play collegiate basketball at Seattle University where she was also a captain for her
junior and senior years. She graduated with a BA in Business Administration and a
minor in Ecological Studies in 2000 and was part of the Native American student
club, Turtle Island People (TIP) as well as the Samoan student club, Alo O Samoa.
Since graduating, Leilani has worked in a range of positions including grants writing,
campaign management, advertising sales, housing counseling, and youth workshop
facilitation in the areas of sports and music. Leilani has worked within and for
diverse communities for places such as El Centro de la Raza, a local civil rights
organization targeting the Latino community and Colors NW Magazine, the local
leading publication on diversity.
She has also worked with Naomi Mulitauaopele
(Stanford ‘98/WNBA '00) at Omi's Legacy Camp, and produced music with local
producers in the Making It Count Workshops in which youth create and record
a song to a CD. Leilani is a singer and songwriter herself and plays the
keyboard for the band Daisy Chain.
In addition to her academic and collegiate basketball experience at SU,
Leilani underwent a 6-month training program for the first open Seattle Storm
(WNBA) team tryout in 2000. While she was not selected to play for the Storm,
the intense training she performed provided a foundation of knowledge for
what it takes to progress to an elite level of athletic performance.
Leilani
also played for the Pro-Am (semi-pro) team P & P Express from 2000-2003 and
played in the Pro-Am tournament as well as in exhibition games with college
teams. Leilani still plays competitive basketball in All-Native Basketball
tournaments throughout the country with a group of women who have become
role models and welcomed guests in the native communities they partake in.
Leilani has been training under Maximum Sports Conditioning Director Daniel Jahn since March 2008.
Phone: 206-371-9559
e-mail: Leilani@maxsc.net
