CROSS SECTIONS MAGAZINE / WINTER 2014
Liberman, convinced Jen to coach for Crossroads. She loved coaching, and soon after, Jen also found a passion for teaching as a Crossroads Middle School math instructor.
also named the 1995 League Singles Tennis Champion, and she was the No. 1 singles player on the team when it won the CIF title that same year.
Jamila Banks ’90
Jamila first discovered basketball in Palms Park, where she and her brother participated in after-school sports. She was in fifth-grade when she decided that she would like to try basketball; however, there wasn’t a girls team. Jamila decided that she would be the only girl on the otherwise all boys team. She thrived through her own natural talents and the encouragement of her teammates. Jamila came to Crossroads her sophomore year after transferring from Brentwood. She participated in Crossroads sports year-round. In the fall she was the outside hitter on the varsity volleyball team. In the winter, she was lead forward on the varsity basketball team and in spring she ran varsity track. Her time on the basketball team was phenomenal. Jamila was awarded AllWestside for three consecutive years. She was named MVP for the Delphic League in her junior and senior years. The Los Angeles Times named her an All-Star in her junior year when she averaged 20.2 points and 10 rebounds per game and totaled 45 blocks and 62 steals. She was selected as the MVP at the Westlake School for Girls Tournament and made the Cabrillo All-Tournament Team. She was All-CIF in her junior and senior years and by the time she graduated, her basketball team had won 77 consecutive regular season games. After graduating, Jamila played basketball for one year at Howard University. She decided to stop playing and pursue academics instead and, with the mentoring of Crossroads Spanish teacher, Rebecca, traveled throughout Latin America as an educational correspondent. She was the recipient of the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award in 2000. Although district budget cuts cost her the job several
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BANKS years later, she persevered and now teaches in a Spanish Immersion program at Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica. Jamila continues to love and participate in sports and is still an active member of Crossroads, as a mother of a student-athlete and, now, as an inaugural honoree of the Athletics Hall of Fame. Yasmeen Yamini-Benjamin ’95
Yasmeen Yamini-Benjamin was an Upper School sophomore when she first attended Crossroads. She had come from the magnet program at Palms Middle School and chose Crossroads because of its strong academic base and promising outlook for college options. Yasmeen began playing basketball during the summer before her ninth-grade year. For years, tennis had been her sport of choice; however, basketball has always held a special place in her heart. Yasmeen began playing as a forward guard for the Girls Basketball team in 1992. By the 1993 basketball season, she was named to the Los Angeles Times Westside Girls Basketball Second Team. In 1995, she was voted AllCIF in basketball. Yasmeen was
Yasmeen’s athletic prowess on the basketball court caught the attention of Division I colleges. She was offered an athletics scholarship to the University of California-Santa Barbara and committed to play for them. Although her first year of competition at UCSB ended with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, Yasmeen eventually realized that the setback was a blessing in disguise. She had entered the school as a student-athlete and, due to her injury, would finish UCSB as an astounding student. In June 2006, Yasmeen was one of six people who earned her doctorate from UCSB’s Gevirtz School in counseling, clinical and school psychology. Today, Yasmeen is working as a psychologist in New York, and one of her most recent projects involved an art show for veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. For this event, art was used as a therapy for these veterans, allowing them to display issues they were suffering through. Yasmeen was a natural athlete and a gifted student. She saw adversity as an opportunity for growth, which has made her the woman she is today. She feels fortunate to have learned the art of critical thinking at Crossroads, and she respects the values she learned during her time as a Roadrunner. “It really does take a community to facilitate individual success,” she says. “I thank my amazing family and Crossroads for providing an opportunity (for me) to have a phenomenal education.”
YAMINI-BENJAMIN