You Let Some Girl Beat You? (2 page)

“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.”
~ Charlotte Whitton

“I've played against Calvin Murphy, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and other male pros in pick-up games, and I've always held my own,” I shouted back at the hoards of reporters, hoping to give as good as I got.

“The
Detroit Free Press
called you the butt of a cruel joke. Any comment?” I didn't recognize the face, but his microphone had an NBC flag.
The Today Show
was preparing to run a segment with the heading: “Ann Meyers' NBA Bid: Hype, Hope, or Hoax?” to compete with my upcoming appearance on ABC's
Good Morning America
.

“It's a free country.” My voice reverberated across the vast banquet hall of the Century Plaza in Los Angeles. Wednesday was L.A., Thursday would be New York. The Indiana Pacers had just signed me to a three-year contract after I'd been chosen as the number one draft pick by the Women's Basketball League, or WBL, and it was big news.

“Minnesota Fillies owner, Gordon Nevers, says you're betraying your own gender going out for the NBA,” another voice called out. “At five-foot, nine-inches, and 134 pounds, wouldn't you be better off in the WBL?”

“I'll let the way I play next week answer that.”

I hadn't made the decision lightly. Signing with the Pacers meant forfeiting my chance to compete at the 1980 Olympics. It also meant angering some people in the Women's Basketball League. The last thing I wanted was to upset anyone. I'd been flattered when the WBL chose me as the overall first draft pick the previous year, but the timing wasn't right. I still had a few classes to finish up at UCLA in order to get my Sociology Degree. And there was the big question of whether I wanted to play professional women's basketball enough to give up my amateur status. I'd played on the first U.S. Women's Olympic Basketball team in 1976, where we'd taken the Silver, but nothing compares to taking the Gold, to hearing your national anthem as they raise your flag. I'd experienced that at other International basketball events, and I believed the U.S. women had a good shot at Olympic Gold in 1980.

Now Sam Nassi, the new owner of the Pacers, was giving me an amazing opportunity to play in the NBA and, suddenly, the stakes had changed.

“Come on, Sam, isn't this just a gimmick to sell tickets?” Sam was sitting to my right, while the Pacers head coach, Bob “Slick” Leonard, was to my left. They were also on opposite sides when it came to my bid.

“We're as serious as a heart attack,” Sam shot back. “Ann's a great athlete. Have you ever seen her play tennis? She can blow 90% of the guys right off the court. If we didn't think she had a chance, we wouldn't have signed her.”

Slick felt otherwise. He had flown out early to California to persuade me not to try out. “Annie, are you sure you really want to do this?”

I chalked it up to generational differences more than anything. While Slick's wife was the GM of the Pacers team, a female
player
was something else. Slick Leonard came from an era unaccustomed to seeing women suited up in athletic uniforms, much less those belonging to a men's team, and I don't think he was too happy about what my bid meant for the Pacers. Larry O'Brian, the commissioner at the time, had already green-lighted it, saying in an official statement, “The NBA does not discriminate against athletes on any basis, including sex.” Slick must have wondered what the world was coming to.

“Annie, there's no way someone your size is going to make this team,” he told me. But the more he tried to talk me out of it, the more determined I was to do it. That's a failing of mine, or maybe it's a strength. Either way, if you want me to do something, just tell me I can't.

I had always played with the guys, and learned to arch the ball over my brothers, who were a foot taller. I realized early on that the winner wasn't always determined by size and strength, just as later I would realize the single characteristic distinguishing an outstanding athlete from a Hall of Famer was not always physical ability, but desire. The capacity to dig deep down and come up with that little extra when others felt like their tanks were empty was, in my mind, the greatest ability an athlete could muster. It was my passion to win that had set me apart, and which had now landed me this invitation to try out for the NBA.

I was born loving athletic competition, especially if it was against the guys, and each time I did something that had never been done before, I wanted to find new frontiers to conquer. I had been the first high school student to make it onto the US National team before going on to lead UCLA women's basketball to their only National Championship after winning a Silver Medal on the first Olympic Women's Basketball Team.

During college, I played pick-up games with guys like Magic Johnson, Mark Eaton, and Marques Johnson at Pauley Pavilion, and with Calvin Murphy and Julius Erving in Vegas. They were fast, but so was I. They had size, but I had quickness. They had strength, but I had heart.

Some said my ability to play at the men's level was taking women's basketball in a new direction. If that was true, it was because the good Lord put me in the right place at the right time. John Wooden had been coaching the UCLA men's team to stratospheric heights for years before my older brother, Dave Meyers, stepped foot on campus and helped lead the Bruin men to their final championship under their beloved coach. I benefitted from having the support of both my brother and Coach Wooden during that period. And there's no doubt the national attention Dave and I received as UCLA's sibling basketball players spilled over onto women's basketball at a time when the country was coming to view women in a very different light. I didn't need my newly earned sociology degree to realize that. You'd have had to have been blind not to see it.

The 70s had given birth to Title IX, which allowed young women more equitable access to school funding. Title IX affected me, in particular, when I became the first female athlete to receive a full athletic scholarship to a Division I university. Culturally, the decade had ushered in the likes of
Maude
and
Mary Tyler Moore,
replacing TV stereotypes like Harriett and Lucy. Now at the decade's close, Patty Hearst, whose automatic-rifle-wielding image was emblazoned in the public eye four years earlier when she robbed a bank with the Symbionese Liberation Army, had her sentence commuted by President Carter, in part, due to pressure from the ACLU, NAACP, and various women's rights organizations.

The image of the fairer sex as hiding behind an apron in the kitchen was definitely being replaced, if not by that of a woman with an itchy trigger-finger, then by that of a woman with a naked ring-finger throwing her hat up in the air to the lyrics, “You're going to make it after all.” If ever there could be a female NBA player, it seemed 1979 might be that time; and it looked like I might be that player.

The press wasn't so sure. Some thought it was just a publicity stunt on the part of Nassi. While I was well aware of the Bill Veck story, the baseball owner who had hired a midget in the hopes of upping attendance, I never believed Sam wanted me as a side show. Sure, there was publicity involved, but not for me. I just wanted to compete, and I'd been given an opportunity to compete with the best. I knew it would be at a price.

Leading women's magazines accused me of slighting my sisters at a time when it looked as though there might finally be a viable women's basketball league. Others implied that the NBA might be trying to dishearten the new league out of existence rather than take a chance on sharing even a slice of ticket revenue. “Shame on you, NBA, for crossing the sex barrier and letting the Pacers sign Ann Meyers when the WBL has been drooling over her for over a year now,” wrote
Mademoiselle.
Sportswriters said I didn't stand a chance. “I am five-foot-nine and weigh 175 pounds, and haven't shaved my legs in thirty-eight years. I have a better chance of dancing with the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes than Ann Meyers has of playing basketball in the NBA,” one
Washington Post
reporter wrote.

“It won't be a joke when they see her play,” Denver Nuggets coach, Donnie Walsh, told the press. “I've seen her play against David Thompson, Wilt Chamberlain, and Quinn Buckner. She's good. From far away, you couldn't tell it was a girl.”

My biggest supporter was the owner of the team himself, Sam Nassi.

It was early August when the phone rang in our home in La Habra, California. I'd just returned from the Spartakiade Games in Russia on the heels of playing in the World Championships in Korea, where we'd won the Gold. That summer we'd also taken Silver in the Pan Am Games. I was team captain and recently named overall first draft pick of the WBL Houston.

“Ann, how would you like to try out in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers?”

“Who is this?” I had taken the call upstairs in my mom's room. I was home just long enough to unpack before heading off to train at the Squaw Valley Camp for the upcoming USA Basketball World University Games in Mexico, and whoever this was, he was lucky to catch me.

“This is Sam Nassi, owner of the Indiana Pacers, and I'd like you to try out for the team.”

Sam who? I'd never heard of him, but he seemed to know me. He'd followed my career and seen the publicity I'd generated for UCLA. To me, Sam Nassi was simply a voice on the phone offering me an outrageous proposition.

The Pacers, however, I knew very well. They were an ABA team who had recently moved to the NBA. Though the conversation was brief, it was long enough for me to see that Sam was serious. I was flattered and excited but I wasn't about to let it show.

“Well, I'll have to speak with my family first.” We exchanged further pleasantries before signing off. I bolted downstairs and slid into the kitchen to tell my mother, practically knocking her over onto the cold linoleum.

I then made several calls. One was to my older brother, Mark, who had just become a Personal Injury attorney. I realized I would need legal representation, and at twenty-four, the difference between a sports lawyer and a PI lawyer meant about as much to me as the difference between a German Shepherd and a Doberman. All I knew was that my brother would look out for me. Mark negotiated a three-year personal service contract for $150,000. Whether I made the cut or not, for three years I would be with the organization in some capacity. At that time the minimum annual salary for an NBA player was $50,000, a lot of money back then.

Another call was to Julius Erving, whom I had played with in various celebrity tennis tournaments, and was a very close friend. Julius was already a legend in the ABA and the NBA. He was one of the most celebrated basketball players of his time. I knew Julius would be supportive and happy for me, and he was.

But the most important call I made from Mom's kitchen was to my older brother, Dave. His opinion had always mattered more than anyone's. If anybody could advise me, it would be Dave. The Bucks had nabbed him in a trade with the Lakers four years earlier, after he'd led UCLA to two championships and been chosen as the NBA's 2
^nd
overall draft pick. Dave had been there, and he'd know what to tell me.

“That's really great, Annie,” he began. “But there's no one in the NBA who is 5'8” and 134 pounds.”

“5'9”,” I reminded him. “And you said there's a kid in Atlanta who is only 5'8”.”

“Charlie Criss, and he weighs 165 lbs. and he's the lightest guy in the NBA.”

The conversation wasn't going where I wanted.

“Well, don't expect any special treatment. After all, you're potentially taking some guy's job.”

It seemed it always came down to this; the right of men over women to have a job, to get the promotion, to be nominated the party's presidential pick. But Dave? He didn't subscribe to this sexist theory of the world. No, my guess was Dave was more concerned for my physical welfare than anything else. I assured him that I didn't expect to be treated any differently than any of the other contenders, and that I could take care of myself. All I wanted was to go out there and show them I could play.

The truth was, while I wanted Dave's advice and my entire family's input, deep down I think I'd already made up my mind, or at least my heart. God had given me another opportunity, and this time I wouldn't be held back. Five years earlier—while in high school—I'd chosen not to play on the boys' team. Now, I had that chance again, but on a much bigger stage. This time, I wasn't going to allow anyone to talk me out of it.

I headed up to Squaw Valley and let two days of training with the USA team pass before I worked up the nerve to tell them I wouldn't be going to Mexico to compete in the World University Games, nor would I be eligible for the '80 Olympics. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.

When I returned home to La Habra, there were three weeks remaining before the trials. I trained every day, all day, often with my brother Jeff. We played as many as fifteen pick-up games a day. When we weren't playing, he drilled me with shots, conditioning, and mentally helped me prepare.

“You'll never get a shot off like that,” he'd say.

He knew what I'd be up against, and he wanted to toughen me up as much as possible. I'd run the stairs and keep my hands fast by using a speed-bag. I may not have been able to do anything about my height or bulk, but I could compensate with speed, quickness, and my shooting ability. I was a pretty good outside shooter, and with the then newly-implemented NBA 3-point rule for field goals from beyond a 23'9” arc, that talent was in great demand.

It goes without saying that I was about to go up against a lot of good outside shooters, and all of them would be bigger and stronger, but none of them could have loved the game any more than I did. Desire and talent don't discriminate between male and female anatomy. I hoped Slick wouldn't either. I wanted to show him that I could play. And for three days, that's exactly what I did.