THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 6, 1996 TAG: 9605060143
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF & WIRE REPORT
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
For the second consecutive year, an Old Dominion women's basketball great will enter the Basketball Hall of Fame when Nancy Lieberman-Cline is inducted tonight.
Also going into the Hall in the game's birthplace of Springfield, Mass., are former NBA stars George Gervin, David Thompson and Gail Goodrich, 1950s star George Yardley and the late Kresimir Cosic of Croatia.
Lieberman-Cline, who was voted into the Hall the first year she was eligible, scored 2,430 points, grabbed 1,167 rebounds and dished out 961 assists at ODU from 1976 to 1980. She led the Lady Monarchs to consecutive national championships in 1979-80.
At age 17, Lieberman-Cline, dubbed ``Lady Magic,'' was the youngest member of the 1976 Olympic team, which won a silver medal. She made history in 1986 when she became the first woman to play with a men's professional team, signing with the Springfield Fame of the USBL.
Anne Donovan, who made the Hall last year, has said Lieberman-Cline's game helped bring her to ODU. ``Her flair for the game, her pure enjoyment of it, I had never seen another player like that,'' Donovan said.
Yardley was the first man called ``Bird'' to soar in the NBA, the first to score 2,000 points in a season and the first rookie to stage a contract holdout.
Yardley, with a master's degree in engineering from Stanford, didn't sign in 1953 until the Fort Wayne Pistons upped their offer from $6,000 to $9,600 - more than double the average rookie salary - and tossed in a $1,500 signing bonus.
One night the Celtics tried putting a young Bill Russell on the 6-foot-5 Yardley. He scored 42.
From 1976 to 1986, Gervin averaged 26 points in 10 NBA seasons, nine of them with San Antonio. He holds the single-game record for most points in one quarter - 33 against New Orleans in 1978.
Goodrich averaged 18.6 points in 14 seasons, hitting a career high of 25.9 per game in the LA Lakers' 69-win season of 1971-72.
Thompson starred for Denver, averaging 23 points in a nine-year pro career, after leading N.C. State to a national title in 1974. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Nancy Lieberman-Cline led the Lady Monarchs to national titles in
1979 and 1980.
[Color photo appears on Page C1]
KEYWORDS: BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME
by CNB