Nancy Lieberman won just about every award a basketball player can. But earning these awards did not come easily for "Lady Magic."
She battled sexism, took on mental health issues and even dealt with impostor syndrome. Sports kept her head clear and pushed worries aside. And through it all, Lieberman is widely considered one of the greatest to play women's basketball. Lieberman told Investor's Business Daily it took a while, though, before she felt comfortable in her sneakers.
"You know the things so many people go through. In my generation we didn't utter the words mental health. But there were days when I was down or sad or depressed. But sports teach you to play through it," Lieberman, 65, said.
And playing basketball helped Lieberman blaze a trail for other women and prove her skill. "And that's what I was doing, playing against the guys. But if one of the guys said " 'We'll pick her. We want the girl,' " she said, "that's almost like saying you love me and you care about me. And that's very important to me."
Play For More Than Awards Like Nancy Lieberman
Lieberman's list of accomplishments is long. She won silver and gold medals with Team USA at major international tournaments including the Olympics. The Women's Pro Basketball League named her rookie of the year playing for the Dallas Diamonds in 1980. She led the team to the league title in the newly formed Women's American Basketball Association. And the league named her MVP in 1984. Finally, she joined the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.
But Lieberman wasn't playing just for awards. Sports connected her with others with similar interests. "You play sports for fun ... because it makes you happy. You play because you get to do things with your friends," she said. But sports also let her accept herself. "It really wasn't until 1974 when I first tried out for Team USA that I realized that there was nothing wrong with me as a little girl growing up in New York," she said.
Seeing other women playing jazzed her, too. "There were 20 to 50 other women playing basketball. I had always been told, you know, women don't play sports. You're not gonna make anything of yourself," she said.
But making the Pan Am team as a high school junior in 1975 showed her a path. She was not only the youngest player, the team won a gold medal for the U.S. "And then in 1976 being on the Olympic team (that won silver) while still a senior in high school, it made me realize the ground was shifting," she said.
That she could be a basketball champion completely changed Lieberman's life — and ultimately the lives of thousands of women.
Blaze A Trail Like Lieberman
Lieberman didn't set out to inspire other women. Her ambitions were far simpler: "Now there's the potential I can go to college," she said.
College was not likely for her prior to basketball. Lieberman grew up "a poor kid from a one-parent family with no father, no food, no heat and electricity. I was just one grandparent away from food stamps. So pretty much I was hopeless and helpless," she said.
But she became a hero to others. "Nancy Lieberman, a trailblazer and pioneer in women's sports, has left an indelible mark on the landscape of women's basketball," Cathy Engelbert, commissioner of the WNBA, told IBD. "Her remarkable career as a player, coach and ambassador has elevated her influence beyond the court, inspiring countless individuals to pursue their dreams in either playing or working in the sports industry."
Find Your Way
Success on the court helped make up for the lack of support Lieberman received at home. Her mother thought her involvement in sports was unladylike. One afternoon Lieberman was dribbling a basketball in the family's apartment. When she refused her mother's order to stop, her mom took the ball and punctured it. The same happened with the second, third, fourth and fifth ball as a defiant Lieberman dribbled.
Looking back, she recognizes that though she was "maligned for being a girl playing against boys, I used those experiences to prepare me for playing on the USA teams. It taught me tenacity," she said.
She played and won a national title at Old Dominion in 1979, before the NCAA held the first women's tourney in 1982. "Old Dominion was (women's) college basketball. We gave Tennessee, UConn and USC the road map on how to market women's basketball, how to play in front of sold-out crowds," she said.
In a way, she personified women's basketball. She was nicknamed Lady Magic. Because of her renown, the NCAA invited her as a celebrity guest at an event at the New York Stock Exchange in the late 1970s. Arriving in the green room, Lieberman was surprised to learn another guest was Muhammad Ali, who was her idol.
Growing up she idolized the heavyweight champ, admired his brashness, and, most of all, his ability to live up to his braggadocio. When they met, Ali told her, "I hear you're good." Lieberman responded: "No, Mr. Ali, I am the greatest of all time. And I hit people, too."
Win Over Allies
Ali became a friend and advisor to Lieberman for the rest of his life. In 1981, when Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss offered her a shot playing for the team in the summer league under new coach Pat Reilly, she asked Ali. "He thought I should go. But he said, 'Respect everybody but fear nobody,' " Lieberman said.
She also played in the newly formed men's United States Basketball League in 1986 (for the Springfield Fame) and 1987 (Long Island Knights). And in 1998, she began a second basketball career as general manager and head coach of the WNBA Detroit Shock. It required a different mindset.
"The best thing you can do is play the game, because you directly determine the outcome. As a coach, you're still connected to the game, but you're stuck in the fox hole, you're strategizing. Your goal is to get the players to a higher level and make them a cohesive team," she said.
The transition from player to management was "horrible," she said. She remembers making big budget cuts in Detroit when a coach and general manager in 1998. "I put a box of tissues on my desk. I had the player in front of me as I was using the tissue because it broke my heart," she said. "This supposedly tough New York City girl was emotional because I thought I was ruining someone's career."
Solicit Opinions
Lieberman was not ashamed to ask for advice. "I called my Olympic teammate, Pat Summitt, and told her 'This is really hard," Lieberman said. Legendary basketball coach Summitt told Lieberman, "Nancy, you just need to get over it and do your job." "She was right and I just said 'OK' and plowed ahead," Lieberman said.
A decade later Lieberman became coach of the Texas Legends, an NBA Development League (now called G League). It's an affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks. Lieberman became the first woman to coach a men's team. And in 2016, she became only the second woman to become an assistant coach in NBA history.
It was a different world. She turned for advice again. In this case to Pittsburgh Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin. "I called him and said, I love how you are with your players. Would it be possible for me to come to Pittsburgh for a day or so?" She wanted to learn how to help her players set themselves up financially and professionally.
"I had to be prepared, to earn (the players) respect. Because my job was to get them from their first contract to their second and from their second to their third. Because the third, that's generational wealth," she said.
Nancy Lieberman's Keys
- Hall of Fame basketball player who helped open the sport to women.
- Overcame: Obstacles to appreciating her natural athletic talents.
- Lesson: "There's never been a day that I haven't been in love with this game called basketball. It empowered me. (Basketball) has loved me. It has taken me, a poor kid from New York and made her a millionaire."
