Biography of Nancy Lieberman

Nancy Elizabeth Lieberman (born July 1, 1958 in Brooklyn, New York) is a former standout collegiate and professional basketball player. She is currently a women’s basketball TV analyst and coach. She is regarded as one of the greatest figures in women’s basketball.

Contents

1 Early Years
2 Old Dominion University
3 The 1980’s
4 The 1990’s
5 The 2000’s
6 Personal Achievements and Trivia

Early Years

In 1974, while attending Far Rockaway High School in Queens, New York, she established herself as one of the top women’s basketball players in the country by earning one of only 12 slots on the USA’s National Team. The following year, Lieberman was named to the USA Team designated to play in the World Championships and Pan American Games where she brought home a gold medal in 1975 and a silver medal in 1979.

At age 17, Lieberman was named to the 1976 USA Women’s Olympic Basketball Team, which she would compete at the Montreal Games in the first-ever Women’s Olympic Basketball Team Competition. Shortly after turning 18, Lieberman became the youngest basketball player in Olympic history to win a medal as the United States captured the Silver Medal.

Old Dominion University

From 1976 to 1980, Lieberman attended Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and played on the women’s basketball team there. During that time, she and her team achieved the following accomplishments:
Two consecutive AIAW National Championships (1979, 1980)
One NWIT (Women’s National Invitation Tournament) Championship in 1978
Two-time winner of the prestigious Wade Trophy, a national “player of the year” award in college women’s basketball
Selected as the Broderick Award winner for basketball as the top women’s player in America
Three consecutive Kodak All-America awards (1978,’79,’80)

The 1980’s

In 1980, Lieberman earned a slot on the 1980 Olympic team but elected to withdraw from the squad in support of U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

In the 1980s, she dropped out of college to embark on a professional career in basketball. She played for several basketball teams and leagues, including the Dallas Diamonds of the Women’s Pro Basketball League (WBL), then in a men’s league called the United States Basketball League (USBL), and also with the Washington Generals, who served as the regular opponent of the Harlem Globetrotters. One of her teammates with the Generals was Tim Cline, and the two eventually married. (They have since divorced.)

The 1990’s

She was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1996 and to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.

In the newly-formed Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) inaugural year in 1997, Lieberman played for the Phoenix Mercury, even though she was 38.

In 1998, she was hired as General Manager and Head Coach of the WNBA’s Detroit Shock, a team she coached for three seasons.

The 2000’s

In 2000, she returned to Old Dominion University to complete her undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies. At the time, she had been serving as president of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

In 2004, she became the Head Coach for the Dallas Fury of the National Women’s Basketball League (NWBL), and guided the team to a championship that season.

Personal Achievements and Trivia

She currently lives in the greater Dallas, Texas area with her son Timothy, Jr., and also writes a regular column on women’s basketball for ESPN’s website and appears as a TV commentator for the network.

She has authored several books and videotapes, most of which were “how-to” advice to young female basketball players. But her first book, published in 1991, is her autobiography entitled Lady Magic: The Nancy Lieberman Story. She later co-authored her second book Basketball for Women with ESPN and ABC commentator Robin Roberts.

In addition, she is heavily involved with charities such as the Special Olympics, the Jimmy V Foundation (named after the late Jim Valvano), and is the local chairperson of the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s “Race For The Cure” in Plano, Texas, a support group for victims of breast cancer. She also hosts annual basketball camps for girls in Dallas and in Detroit.

On a more trivial note, she served as a personal trainer to tennis star Martina Navratilova during the 1980s. Their relationship became the subject of a song by lesbian folksinger Phranc.