THIRTY-FOUR years ago on August 30, history was made when the Indiana Pacers signed Ann Elizabeth Meyers to a one-year, $50,000 guaranteed contract, helping the four-time All-American from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) break the gender barrier as the first woman player ever to ink a National Basketball Association (NBA) contract.
Meyers, a 5-foot-9, 134-pound guard, eventually failed to survive the Pacers’ three-day rookie-free agent camp. She did not make it to the club’s 11-man playing roster. (NBA clubs carried a maximum of 11 players on their rosters during the 1979-80 season.)
Then 24 years old, Meyers was paid $50,000, however, as her contract guaranteed her a front-office job with the Pacers even if she failed to earn a roster berth.
Meyers, who was never drafted by an NBA club, eventually worked as a color commentator during the Pacers’ television coverage in the 1979-80 campaign. It was a time when there were few women in sportscasting.
After six games, Meyers lost her job. She went on to play in the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WPBL) with the New Jersey Gems from 1979-81.
The 58-year-old Meyers, whose elder brother Dave (also a UCLA product) once played for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, is currently the president and general manager of the Phoenix Mercury in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the vice president of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.
Last season (2012-13), an NBA club featured a woman in its TV broadcast booth for the first time in 33 years. Once more, it was Meyers, who did game analysis for the Suns during their cable telecasts on Fox Sports Arizona.
Meyers never played in the WNBA simply because the women’s pro league established by the NBA came to life only in 1997.
Meyers attended Sonora High School in La Habra, California. In 1974, she became the first high school athlete to suit for the U.S. national basketball team. A year later, she joined college cage power UCLA.
In four seasons with the Bruins, Meyers was named to the All-America Team each time – the first female ever to accomplish the feat.
Meyers also holds the distinction of being the first player to register a quadruple-double (at least a 10 in four statistical categories such as in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots) in a game in U.S. NCAA Division I history.
On February 18, 1978, in a game against Stephen F. Austin, Meyers chalked up 20 points, 14 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals.Since then, only one other U.S. NCAA Division I player (male or female) has duplicated Meyers’ feat.
On November 13, 2007, then-23-year-old University of Tennessee at Martin junior guard Lester Hudson, a Southwest Tennessee Community College transferee in just his third assignment with the Skyhawks, had 25 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists and steals in a 116-74 rout of visiting Division II Central Baptist College from Arkansas.
A second-round NBA draftee by Boston in 2009, the 6-foot-3 Hudson has had stops with the Celtics, Memphis Grizzlies (two tours of duty), Washington Wizards and Cleveland Cavaliers from 2009-12.
In November 1986, Meyers married legendary Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale of U.S. Major League Baseball. A Hall of Famer, Drysdale died of a heart attack in July 1993.
Meyers herself was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in May 1993. Later, she was enshrined in the
FIBA Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class of 2007.
Also honored by the international basketball governing body that year were all-time University of San Francisco Dons and Boston Celtics player great Bill Russell and University of North Carolina Tar Heels and U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning coach Dean Smith.