Goodrich, Yardley Selected to Enter Hall of Fame

Two Southland standouts have been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, it was announced Monday.

Gail Goodrich, a star at Los Angeles Poly High, played on UCLA’s first two NCAA championship teams, 1963-64 and 64-65, before embarking on a 14-year NBA career.

George Yardley, who learned the game on the alley hoops of Balboa Island in Newport Beach during World War II, later played at Stanford before his seven-season NBA career.

Goodrich and Yardley were named with four others, George “Iceman” Gervin, Kresimir Cosic, David Thompson and Nancy Lieberman-Cline.

Goodrich, a left-handed shooting guard, played 14 NBA seasons with the Lakers, Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Jazz. He made five NBA all-star teams.

Goodrich, 52, said he will ask his UCLA coach, John Wooden, to escort him to the induction ceremony May 6 at Springfield, Mass.

“He, along with my dad, taught me how to play basketball, and Coach Wooden has been a big influence in my life,” Goodrich said.

Yardley, 67, was a 6-foot-5 scorer, one of the game’s early masters of the jump shot. In 1958, he became the first NBA player to score 2,000 points in a season--he got 2,001--and he did it with seconds remaining in the final game, on a dunk.

He was traveling Monday and unavailable for comment.

Gervin was one of basketball’s most prolific scorers. His 27-point playoff scoring average remains the sixth highest in the NBA, 10 years after his retirement. He led the NBA in scoring four times.

Cosic was an international basketball figure, starring on four Yugoslav Olympic teams. He played in college at Brigham Young and professionally in both Europe and the NBA. He died of cancer in 1995 at 46.

Thompson was a standout at North Carolina State, leading the Wolfpack to the 1974 national championship. He played nine years in the NBA.

Lieberman-Cline, the 11th woman named to the Hall, said she spent a fretful weekend.

“It looked good--I got a call Friday, telling me to stay near my phone Monday morning,” she said.

“But you never know. Look at Lynn Swann, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro . . . all great athletes who aren’t in their halls of fame. That was my greatest fear, to wind up like that.”

Lieberman-Cline was a nationally known prep star at Far Rockaway High in Queens, N.Y., recruited by more than 100 colleges. She pared her choices to Old Dominion and Cal State Fullerton, she said.

She became a three-time All-American at Old Dominion, leading the Lady Monarchs to consecutive national championships, in 1978-79 and 79-80. She scored 2,430 points.