You Let Some Girl Beat You? (10 page)

“Annie, I bet this lipstick would look great on you,” or “You'd look so good in that dress, Annie.”

They were very sweet. They loved to shop, and they wanted me to enjoy it, too. And I did enjoy it, but only because it was time spent with them. As for pastimes, I'd much have preferred being on the court competing. That's where my pulse quickened. I wasn't used to Saks. I was more of a Sears girl.

As wonderful as Turq and Dana were, I was afraid to say anything about where I'd rather be. It brought back too many memories of elementary school and being told that I wasn't behaving “lady-like.” When I finally explained that as much as I enjoyed their company, shopping really wasn't my thing, they were terrific.

Nonetheless, I would be invited to several more Dewer's events in Vegas, and each time I'd end up bringing home another purse.

“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible.
And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.”
~ Amelia Earhart

When the tennis tournament in Las Vegas ended, I returned to California and continued to play USA basketball (taking Silver at the World University Games after racking up Gold at the Jones Cup) through the rest of the summer until school started back up. As a junior at UCLA, I was now competing on the women's volleyball team (which would make it to the Final Four), as well as our basketball team where Mosher was still coaching.

As before, we were expected to win, probably more so now that I'd come off the Olympic team. In a 98-45 win at San Diego State, I had one of three triple-doubles in Bruin women's basketball history, with fourteen points, ten rebounds, and twelve steals (No. 2 in single-game history). Overall, we were 20-3 and West Coast Athletic conference champions. However, we again lost to Coach Moore's Fullerton Titans 91-87. At the end of the season, I had led the team in scoring (18.3) and rebounding (7.3), and for the third consecutive year, I earned All-Tournament honors and was again named Kodak All American. Ironically enough, the first-ever three-time All American basketball player had been John Wooden. I couldn't ask to be in better company, but it still wasn't enough.

As honored as I was to receive the prestigious awards for a third year in a row, we still hadn't taken the championship. Instead we were relegated to runner-up for a third time by losing to that other monkey on our back, Wayland Baptist, at the NWIT. The personal accolades felt like consolation prizes. What I needed was for the Bruin women's team to win a national title. Under Coach Wooden, my brother had won two for the men's team—one his sophomore season and one his senior year. I wanted to be part of a championship team. Now, going into my senior year, I knew this would be our last chance. The thought of falling short was unacceptable, and I remained concerned as to whether we could do it under Coach Mosher. Apparently, the UCLA athletic department had the same concerns, and I started my senior season with my third coach. It would be the same woman who'd helped Team USA medal in Montreal.

With Billie Moore at the helm, I had no doubt we could win the AIAW National Championship for UCLA—just as she and my sister Patty had done for Cal State Fullerton in 1970. Billie would later say she liked coaching me a lot more than she liked coaching
against
me.

Our starting lineup for the '77-'78 season consisted of 6'1” freshman, Denise Curry (who went on to be a three-time All American and win Gold at the '84 Olympic games), 6'1” senior center Heidi Nestor, 5'6” sophomore guard, Dianne Frierson, and a 5'8” junior named Anita Ortega, who we nicknamed ‘Juice' because she had as many moves as O.J. Simpson. She would both go on to play in the WBL with the San Francisco Pioneers and eventually become a police sergeant and the first Afro-Puerto Rican female to supervise an Area command after being assigned to the police station of L.A.'s crime-ridden Hollenbeck precinct in 2009.

Denise Corlett and Beth Moore were the sixth and seventh players on the team. Denise became a three-time champ at UCLA in volleyball, basketball, and badminton (beating me by a championship). Beth was a smart player and good friend, and our resident cheerleader before each game. “Annie will have your backs. Annie won't let the team lose.”

What she failed to mention was that I wouldn't be diplomatic about it. “Come on! What were you thinking? Son of a biscuit-eater, get your head in the game!” were my standard lines. When I'd get all Mr. Hyde on my teammates on the courts, they'd scratch their heads, confused. “Was that
Annie?”

That I was quiet and demure off the courts and loud and aggressive on them was nothing new. I'd always been that way. “An animal on the courts, and a perfect lady off,” is how Coach Kenny described me. I wish I could say it was something deliberate, but I had as much control over it as Dr. Jekyll had over his transformation once he'd swallowed the potion. Once I hit the hardwood, some sort of chemical response in me kicked into high gear and I became another person.

My split-personality reputation had travelled throughout the national collegiate women's basketball circuit, but up until my senior season, our UCLA Women's team hadn't been further than San Louis Obispo. And we travelled by van because, back then, most colleges didn't have the money to travel out of state like they do today. (Thank you Title IX.)

Now, in my senior year, we were flying back to New York to play in a tournament at Madison Square Garden, which brought back memories of that first game against the Russians back in '74. Our first opponent was the defending three-time AIAW Champs, Delta State, who had just graduated Lucia Harris, their Player of the Year. We lost in the first game to Delta State, but beat Rutgers (who had lost to Carol ‘Blaze' Blazejowski's Montclair State) in the consolation game.

From there, we flew to College Park, MD to play ahead of the men's game. There was a great rivalry between UCLA and Maryland men when my brother played. Now there were at least 14,000 people in the stands at Cole Field House, and we lost in front of every single one of them (88-92). Then we went to Greensboro to play North Carolina State, where David's team had lost in '74, so it was another great rivalry, and again we lost. So now we had lost three of our last five games, were 6-3 overall, and I was beside myself.
Are we not going to make it again!?

After that game, I got in the locker-room shower and cried for a good fifteen minutes as the hot water rushed over me. I'm not sure whether I felt sorry for myself, the team, or the school, and what looked to be a repetition of the previous three strikes, but when I got dressed, Billie told me she wanted to talk back at the hotel.

We sat in the lobby after everyone had gone up to their rooms. “This team needs you, so you have to be a leader. You can't quit because they count on you. This means you have to pull yourself together and refocus.”

She was right, but I didn't want to hear it. Billie wouldn't let up, though, because she knew how upset I could get, and she was concerned that my energy could spread throughout our team like a contagion. It could be deadly or euphoric, depending on how I felt, and Billie wasn't afraid to do whatever it took to snap me out of it. Even when she got mad at me, I may have pouted inside, but I still was able to play at the higher, more controlled level she was looking for. She knew when to praise me, and when to be hard on me.

After her talk, I felt a sense of urgency, and I did everything I could to convey that same sense of urgency to my teammates. Had any psych majors played on our team, I'm sure they would have tossed me on a couch and declared that my need to go all the way was some holdover from a childhood competition with David. And I'd have said, “Fine. Call it whatever you want. Just get out there and play to win.”

I wasn't into psychobabble. I wasn't into the
why's
of anything. All I cared about were the
how's
. The paralysis of analysis wasn't for me. I was all about action. And I consider praying to be active.

In our next game against Long Beach State, I was in the zone, posting up, driving, getting all my free-throws, making my shots from outside, and all my teammates got me the ball. I scored a career-high thirty-nine points, tying my brother, David's, career high. I also had eleven rebounds, four assists, and six steals. The final score was Bruins: 107; Long Beach State: 94. Next came a 99-72 win over Cal Poly Pomona at Pauley Pavilion, where I scored thirty points. In a game against Stephen F. Austin's team, which was coached by Sue Gunter at Pauley, I remember being sick going into the game. I'd had chills and thought I might throw up, but my focus didn't waiver. I recorded the only quadruple-double in UCLA basketball history—twenty points, fourteen rebounds, ten assists, and ten steals. A season that started out so dismally was suddenly shaping up. And we wouldn't lose another game going into the regionals.

The first Regional game up in Palo Alto was critical. It was against Long Beach State, again. It was a close game that went back and forth. With seconds left, Beach up by two, Anita Ortega came in with the play of the game, stealing the ball to tie it up in regulation. Long Beach had a chance to win it at the buzzer, but missed a twelve foot baseline jumper. We scored five points in overtime to beat them by one point. Now we only had to beat Las Vegas to make the Final Four. We ended up beating them by 100-88, reaching 100 points for a thirteenth time that season.

At last we'd made it to the Promised Land: The Final Four to be played at Pauley Pavillion.

In the semi-final against Montclair State, we were going up against Carol Blazejowski, the nation's leading scorer, who was averaging over thirty-three points a game. We knew we couldn't stop her, but we would do our level best to contain her. Nobody else on her team scored in double digits, and we had the home court advantage. Still, we were lucky to hold Blaze to forty points, beating them 85-77. The
L.A. Times
described most of the action as “Meyers against Blazejowski.” All I could think when I saw the article was,
Thank God the Bruins won.

We'd wait to see whether we'd be up against Wayland Baptist or Maryland. Either way it would be a re-match; and no one in the bleachers would want their money back—not with all the history there. I was more invested than anyone. If the Olympics had been a dream come true, winning the championship was every bit one of my dreams.

March 25
^th
, 1978 was the final game at UCLA before an AIAW record crowd of nearly 10,000 spectators, while five NBC cameras nationally televised to millions more. My teammates and I hunkered down for the game that would decide it all. We were up against Maryland, who had beaten Wayland Baptist College in the other semi-final, and to whom we'd lost earlier in the season in large part because I'd allowed myself to get into foul trouble yet again. It's not often in life you get a second chance. And this time we were on our turf with our family and fans in the stands. It was payback time.

I scanned their faces as the crowd shuffled in. Making their way to the same spot in the bleachers where they always sat were the Meyers clan, each wearing Colgate smiles and the Bruin blue and gold. Wilt Chamberlain was also there, along with Coach Kenny. Missing were Coach Wooden, who was at the Men's Final Four, and David, who was playing in the NBA with the Bucks. As for Mom, there was nothing that could have kept her away. She had yet to miss one single game my entire senior year. She'd come to see me in the Olympics and she'd come to the Pan Am Games. She was always there, up in the stands, cheering, just as she had been when I was younger, just as she had been for all my brothers and sisters. She knew we were playing on a very special night. It was March 25, 1978. The next day I was turning twenty-three years old.

This was going to be a difficult game. Billie put me on Maryland's starting point guard, Tara Heiss, an offensive All-American powerhouse who went on to become Maryland's first women's basketball player to score 1,000 points, and who was largely responsible for their win earlier in the year. Billie was sure that the game would come down to defense. It didn't matter, since I loved playing both ends of the court, and I knew defense was a fundamental, pivotal part of the game. And in this game, particularly, it would be crucial that whoever was holding Tara off needed to burn with the same intensity most players reserve for offense. Billie knew I could do that.

In our first meeting against Maryland, my fellow teammate, Diane Frierson, had matched up against Tara. I'll never forget the look in Tara's eyes when she had the ball on the first play of that final game and realized that I'd be guarding her. She'd played against the Bruins enough to know that I played every possession like it was my last. I was able to contain her during the entire first half, and she went scoreless. Meanwhile, I was posting up and getting shots inside and getting in the free throw line and hitting my jumper. At the half, the Terrapins walked off the court like they heard bagpipes. Their coach rallied them for the second half, because Tara woke up. But by then, it was too late. The tone for the game had already been set.

We defeated Maryland 90-74 winning our 21
^st
consecutive game. My stats were strong (20 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists, 8 steals), but my Bruin teammates contributed every bit as much, especially Anita Ortega and Denise Curry. Now, at last, we had taken the AIAW National Crown.

My brother, Mark, came down onto the court, hugged me, and then hoisted me onto his shoulders to a chorus of “Happy Birthday.” The band joined in followed by the crowd. Through the players and throngs of spectators, Mark carried me over to the hoop so I could take down the net to the beautiful sounds of UCLA fans cheering. It's one of those special times I think back on and find it impossible not to smile.

We'd finally done it. The Bruin women had won their first and only championship. Through my tears, I saw Billie Moore heading toward me. “I know you could have doubled the points you scored this year,” she said “but then we wouldn't have won the championship.”

It sounded a lot like what Coach Wooden told Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) when he was at UCLA, “Lew, you can lead the nation in scoring, or you can win.”

Lew won three titles for UCLA, and now the women's team had finally done it.

Four years later, the final chapter would close on the AIAW. The Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women had begun twelve years earlier and had represented one of the biggest advancements for female athletes on the collegiate level. The association had functioned in the equivalent role for college women's programs that the NCAA had done for men's programs at a time when the NCAA had no interest in women's sports.