You Let Some Girl Beat You? Read online

  Advance Praise for Ann Meyers Drysdale

  “A stunning portrayal of one of today’s legendary women’s basketball treasures. Ann Meyers Drysdale provides a candid look at the courage, faith, and determination that it takes to be a champion on the court and in life.”

  ~ Alana M. Glass, Esq., Forbes.com SportsMoney Contributor

  “A fascinating and inspiring story, and so relevant today! Many of the obstacles Ann Meyers Drysdale overcame decades ago are still alive and well and her courageous story can help us all to triumph.”

  ~ Vera Tweed, Newsmax Contributor

  “Annie was one of the greatest players ever. I didn’t say male or female, I said ever.”

  ~ Bill Russell, Celtics great

  “Ann always stayed one step ahead of the competition in terms of preparation. It made her strong on the courts and it’s what makes her so strong as an executive today.”

  ~ Julius Erving

  “She was the only woman to sign a no-cut contract with the NBA. She was mad good and she had so much heart, that it didn’t matter what size she was.”

  ~ Jamaal Wilkes

  “She’s a legend.”

  ~ Robin Roberts, host Good Morning America

  “She’s a modern-day Babe Didrikson Zaharias.”

  ~ Jim Brown, Hall of Fame running back

  To my sons, DJ (Don Jr.) and Darren,

  and my daughter, Drew,

  Who Inspire Me Every Day

  In Loving Memory of My Love,

  my late husband, Don Drysdale

  To my Mom, Pat Meyers,

  and all my siblings and relatives

  who have ALWAYS

  been there for me.

  The Story of Ann Meyers Drysdale

  by

  Ann Meyers Drysdale

  With

  Joni Ravenna

  Foreword by Julius Erving

  California

  USA

  Behler Publications

  California

  You Let Some GIRL Beat You?: The Story of Ann Meyers Drysdale A Behler Publications Book

  Copyright © 2012 by Ann Meyers Drysdale

  Cover design by Yvonne Parks - www.pearcreative.ca.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Some of the names have been changed and some conversations have been condensed in order to retain the flow of the narrative.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Meyers Drysdale, Ann.

  You let some GIRL beat you? : the story of Ann Meyers Drysdale / Ann Meyers Drysdale with Joni Ravenna; foreword by Julius Erving.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-933016-78-8 (pbk.) -- ISBN 1-933016-78-7 (paperback) 1. Meyers Drysdale, Ann. 2. Basketball players--United States--Biography. 3. Women basketball players--United States--Biography. I. Ravenna, Joni. II. Title.

  GV884.M48A3 2012

  796.323092--dc23

  [B]

  2012008330

  FIRST PRINTING

  ISBN 13: 9781933016-78-8

  e-book ISBN 9781933016-87-0

  Published by Behler Publications, LLC

  Lake Forest, California

  www.behlerpublications.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Foreword by Julius Erving

  1.A Woman in A Man’s World

  2.Chasing What I Loved

  3.The Man Who Was Not Intimidated

  4.Let The Race Begin

  5.You Let Some GIRL Beat You?

  6.Learning to Harness the Fire Within

  7.UCLA & That Old Nemesis: Change

  8.The Olympics – A Dream Come True

  9.“Precious Medals”

  10.The Championship, At Last

  11.A League of Our Own

  12.The Right Strategy Equals Success

  13.Burning Up the Courts Like Lava

  14.Waiting It Out

  15.Gal’s Got Game

  16.My Big Broadcasting Break

  17.Goodwill Toward All

  18.Juggling It All – Life With Don and Our Children

  19.Any Other: Loss

  20.Fly Me to the Moon

  21.Moving On

  22.A Single Mother

  23.The Road to the Boardroom is Through the Locker Room

  24.Where We Go From Here

  Acknowledgments

  Awards/Halls of Fame

  FOREWORD BY JULIUS ERVING

  Annie and I met at the Dewars Sport Celebrity Classic at the Riviera Hotel in the 70s, where we were both asked to compete. I had followed her career at UCLA, and of course, I was also familiar with her brother, David Meyers, because he’d been playing in the NBA for the Milwaukee Bucks.

  I knew Annie had come from this amazing family of athletes, but there was something about her that drew both me and my wife at the time, Turquoise, to her. She was a sweetheart, but there was also this fire that burned in her.

  Annie had grown up one of eleven kids, and I imagine she did what she could to earn her parents’ attention the way I once collected coke bottles in the projects just so I could have some pocket change.

  That weekend in the 70s at the Dewars charity event, Turq and I both adopted Annie as our own, but for different reasons. Turq wanted to get her into makeup and purses. She took Annie out shopping, hoping to ‘girlie’ her up. But Annie wanted to hang out with me to play ball … any kind of ball—softball, basketball and tennis.

  Playing pickup basketball with the guys, I’d always want Annie on my team because I knew that she had the I.Q., the physical talent, and the drive to win.

  When you play pick-up basketball, if you want to stay on the court you have to win game after game after game. Sometimes one wrong play means the difference between winning and losing, but with Annie, there was very little losing.

  When I was growing up in the projects, there were two girls who I played regularly with up through 8th grade; Debra Chow and Juanita Hayden, so I was unfazed by playing hoops with girls. Either you could play or you couldn’t. I expected Annie to get knocked down and to get back up. I also expected her to set picks, hit her shots, and to be able to drive to the basket and take the contact. The only time I became a little bit protective was when we had some of the football players like Walter Payton and Joe Washington, who were better blockers and tacklers than they were basketball players, and I wanted to make sure they didn’t get too crazy. I didn’t need to worry, though. Annie could handle them all.

  We also had guys like Rick Barry and Calvin Murphy playing with us. These were guys who knew how to play the game and they were pretty shocked to see that Annie could not only play with the guys, but that she could score.

  In the years that followed we’ve become tight friends, like family. There was a bond created back in the 70s, and it’s only grown stronger over the years. We’ve started growing older together and sharing our experiences as parents. While we were brought together by circumstances, we’ve remained close by choice.

  When I reflect on what made Annie a great player on the courts, the first thing I think of is how physically gifted she was. She could run, she could jump, she was quick as a cat, and had these great hands. Annie was also mentally as tough as anyone I’ve known and always seemed to find a way to deliver when the pressure was on. Beyond that, Annie was always a smart player. She always stayed ahead of the competition in terms of preparation. That’s why she later became a great broadcaster and a gre
at front office executive for the NBA and WNBA with her posts at both the Phoenix Suns and Mercury. She always does her homework and comes in ready to go.

  Annie used to come visit me and Turq at our home on Long Island. We would play tennis, golf, and pick-up games. She would beat me at tennis and beat me at golf. The only thing she couldn’t beat me at was basketball, but I would’ve loved to see how that went if Annie was 6’6” rather than 5’9”. There was always competition between the two of us, but along with it was a genuine friendship and mutual respect. I don’t remember once in my life ever introducing Annie to anyone who didn’t immediately say, “Wow, she’s such a nice person. I can see why you’re friends.” Everyone is impressed by the kind of person she is. I like to think that nice people are attracted to other nice people. But underneath that sweetness, there’s this strength.

  A lot of people know about her but they don’t totally know her story, the challenges she had with Don dying and raising her three young children by herself and making it work. Annie had become the first woman to do so many things that it’s hard to list them all. She could have let the tragedy of losing Don change her, but she didn’t. Her attitude has always been so positive, so strong.

  Annie doesn’t let difficulty overcome her. She’s a fighter. How she can be thought of as so kind on one hand, and such a fighter on the other, I’m not sure. I guess that’s what makes Annie, Annie. There’s no one like her.

  I think that’s part of our bond, hers and mine, that we’ve both known great personal loss. Annie knows that I’m the last surviving member of my immediate family. I’ve lost my mother, step-father, my sister, and my brother. Annie lost one of her sisters, one of her brothers, and her father in addition to losing Don. I think we can look at each other, and though we know we’re changed by those losses, we didn’t allow them to dictate what we had to get up and do the next day. They don’t hold us back from doing those things we must do. I think I’m an encouragement to her and there’s reciprocity there.

  When Don died, I could immediately relate to having someone so significant in your life suddenly not being there. What are you going to do about it? It’s not, how did this happen to me? It’s what am I going to do about it? Annie just rolled up her sleeves, picked up the mantle and said, “Okay, I have to be mother and father here.” She had so many offers to coach or manage this or that team, and there were some big NBA teams that were after her, but while the kids were little she put them first. Finally, when the kids were old enough, she said, “I have to get up and go out there and be productive and, in doing that, I’m going to be a motivator, inspirer, and role-model for my family. Hopefully they won’t have to go through what I’ve gone through, but if they do encounter that kind of loss in the future, they’ll be prepared.”

  Certainly, her daughter will be prepared for the challenges that women face because there’s still so much gender bias out there. I never had that bias, probably from having played with Debra and Juanita every day. The projects were a three-story housing project in Nassau County, Hempstead, Long Island called Park Back Gardens, but there was nothing garden-y about it. There was a park next to us called Campbell Park and that combination was my life until age 13. That’s where I learned the fundamentals of the game and the street. At 13, my father passed and my mother remarried, and we moved to another community where I had a very different life. But the foundation was laid in those first thirteen years. Other people may have considered it underprivileged, but we were proud of who we were. It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was the other side of the tracks, and there were people living a better life.

  Annie grew up differently than I did, but there was never that sense of entitlement from her. Annie is so far removed from that. She knows that talented athletes come from everywhere. They come from the streets, the suburbs; they come from hard-scrabble, inner city schools, and from elite prep schools. It’s a melting pot, and once you’ve reached that level of athleticism that it takes to become the first woman to receive a full ride to a Division I school like UCLA, the way Annie did, you’re in that place where everybody’s treated equal. You step on the court and if you can’t play, you’re going to get your butt kicked, regardless where you came from. But not Annie; she didn’t get her butt kicked at UCLA because there was no woman anywhere who could play the way she did. She became an All American and a Champion. She was so impressive that, in his later years, Coach Wooden said in an interview that Annie was the one who really got women’s basketball going in this country.

  What she did at UCLA was more than just impressive; it was a door-opener. When Annie went out for the Pacers, I ran a basketball camp that was open to girls. But again, I was more liberal than others might have been at the time. I also have three daughters (and four sons) and my youngest, Julianna, who’s six and very athletic, met Annie this year.

  A couple of months ago I took Julianna down to a Mercury practice. My daughter and I got a chance to talk to the women about basketball and their boss, Annie. The players couldn’t say enough about her. “She’s just a wonderful person,” they all said.

  Later that season, Julianna and I were at a shoot-around for the Phoenix Mercury when they played the Atlanta Dream in Atlanta. Annie and I were sitting on the side talking while the girls were practicing. Julianna was at the other end of the court running back and forth from one side of the bleachers to the other. Annie and I both looked at her and smiled. Nobody had told her to do it.

  Maybe Annie will be the one to inspire Julianna the way Babe Didrikson inspired Annie when she was little. Maybe Annie will be the one to inspire your daughter, too. I can’t know this early if I have a daughter who is as driven as Annie, but I hope so. The world could sure use a lot more like her.

  ~ Julius Erving

  1

  A Woman in a Man’s World

  “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.