It's the end of the road for Lehman sister act

While many people just finished their countdown to Christmas, Lynda and Lisa Fields are in the midst of their own personal countdown. It’s one they are taking time to enjoy each step of the way, but also one they know will eventually come to an end sometime in the next two months.

Lynda and Lisa are the sister act on Lehman College’s women’s basketball team, and this season marks the final one in which the pair will play together as Lynda graduates next spring. 

The pair has played basketball together for as long as they can remember, and were even teammates for a year in high school when Lynda was a senior and Lisa a freshman at Truman High. But when Lynda graduated and went to Baruch, and Lisa headed to Nyack College, it appeared the sister act was done for good.

But Lynda eventually left Baruch for Lehman, and when Lisa told Lynda she was not happy at Nyack, the wheels were in motion for a reunion at Lehman.

 “I just felt like this was the homey-est place, if that makes sense,” Lynda said. “Then I talked to my sister. I brought her here because she was having a tough time at Nyack. So I said to her, ‘We could use you here.’ So she said, ‘Do you really want me to go there?’ and I said ‘Absolutely, I want to play with you.’ So I brought her here.”

Once she arrived at Lehman last January, Lisa said it felt like being home.

“It just felt like normal, like how it should be,” she said. “My sister is my best friend. It started in college, that’s when we started to get closer, because I think that’s when she started to miss me.”

The sisters are two of the leaders on a Lightning team that is a legitimate contender for the City University of New York Athletic Conference championship this year with Lynda averaging a team-best 13.9 points, while Lisa chips in just under 7 points a game while ranking second on the team in steals.

“I’m having fun playing with her,” Lynda said. “Sometimes it’s hard because we’ll have the sibling rivalry and we’ll go at it more. But our chemistry is automatically there because we’re sisters, so it’s fun to be out on the court with her.”

The Fields girls come from a basketball family as mom, Lisa, played at the Borough of Manhattan Community College while dad, Arnold, played at Sullivan Community College. And when mom, Lynda and Lisa gather around the television to watch NBA basketball at home, it can become quite the scene.

“We’re always talking basketball in the house,” Lynda said. “My mom is a huge Knicks fan, so whenever the Knicks are on we watch them. But I love Cleveland, so if they play each other, we’re really competitive and we’re always talking back and forth.”

Lisa, a Celtics fans, also gets in on the action.

“When they play the Knicks or Cleveland, there is a lot of trash talking in the house,” she said. “It’s a battle.”

The duo has just over a dozen games remaining in the regular season before the CUNYAC tournament tips off in late February, so the clock is ticking.

“I’m making the best of it because it’s her last year and it’s our last time playing NCAA together,” Lisa said. “So we’re trying to live it up. I’ve been thinking about when it’s over, but I try not to because we’re on a mission right now, so we don’t want to think about the end yet.”

Lynda said her sister has a dream for her this season, one that would end with championship hardware and an NCAA Tournament trip. It would be a fitting end to the sister act at Lehman.

“Yeah my sister wants to win a championship for me more than I do, and that just makes my heart feel so warm,” Lynda said. “She’s putting it out there for me because she wants to see me go out with a bang.”

“I told her that, but she wasn’t supposed to tell anybody,” Lisa said, with a laugh. “That was a moment.”

Then when asked what her perfect ending would be for the two, Lisa wasted no time.

“Cutting down the nets together and then (hashtag) ‘The Fields Sisters,’” Lisa said laughing. “Because we’re a big thing.”