Coaching Is No Longer a Slice of Life for This Hall of Famer

Golf is her sport now, so it was no surprise she was at the course when the calls came.

In June, an official from the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., called Billie Moore at her Fullerton home to tell her she had been nominated for enshrinement and got the answering machine.

“I’m not in right now, so please leave a message. . . .”

After the election a few days later, several more callers from Springfield heard the same recording.

“They called several times while I was playing golf, so when they finally reached me I was thrilled, of course,” said Moore, 56, the former women’s basketball coach at UCLA and Cal State Fullerton.

She’ll be inducted tonight, along with former NBA players Kevin McHale and Wayne Embry, former Georgetown coach John Thompson and an NBA pioneer era owner, the late Fred Zollner.

Since being notified, Moore said, it’s as if she has experienced her 24-year coaching career all over again.

“The first thoughts I had after they told me were of all the players, all the other people who had a part in my coaching career,” she said.

“If it was an individual sport, I’m sure my feelings would be different. When I’m inducted, the spotlight will be on me, but I’ll be sharing the moment with a lot of people who were part of it over 24 years.”

Moore was the first coach to lead two schools to national women’s basketball championships--Fullerton in 1970 and UCLA in 1978. She compiled a 140-15 record in eight seasons at Fullerton and was 296-181 at UCLA.

Moore left UCLA in 1993, citing burnout after 16 seasons. She hasn’t coached since but hasn’t dropped out either.

She works as a consultant to college and WNBA coaching staffs, is a motivational speaker and runs WNBA off-season camps.

Since 1993, she said, not a year has passed without at least one coaching offer from major schools, plus two from the WNBA.

“No one has made me an offer yet I couldn’t turn down,” she said. “Retirement is great. I recommend it.”

Said Tennessee’s highly successful Pat Summitt: “Billie Moore has had more influence on my coaching career than anyone. She was my mentor. She’s had a huge impact on my coaching style.”

In the mid-1970s, Moore, then the coach at Fullerton, was an assistant on several international teams with Summitt as a player.

When Moore became head coach of the 1976 U.S. Olympic team, Summitt, Ann Meyers and Nancy Lieberman were three of her players. Now, Moore joins Meyers and Lieberman (now Lieberman-Cline) in the Hall of Fame, with Summitt a certain future selection.

“The one thing she always stressed to me was to never lower your standards for any reason, particularly when you’re up against negative recruiting,” Summitt said. “I had a problem after the ’76 Olympics when two players on the team transferred to Tennessee. I got a lot of flak from it. I absolutely did not recruit them, but the accusations that I did bothered me so much I called Billie.

“She told me: ‘As long as you know in your heart you’re in the right, you will always feel good about this.’ ”

Meyers, a four-time All-American at UCLA and member of Moore’s 1978 national championship team, recalled Moore’s coaching style.

“Billie always had a certain intensity about her, and her players would pick up on that,” she said.

“It gave us a feeling for every game that we were going in fully prepared.”

“When she came to UCLA that first year [1977-78], she was under a lot of pressure. She came in to an all-senior lineup and while we’d made some waves, we hadn’t really had that breakthrough season.

“She took those players and blended them together well, right from the get-go. She taught us how to compete at a very high level. We lost a game at North Carolina State in January that year, then didn’t lose another game and won the national championship.”

By 1992, Moore says, she knew her passion for coaching was ebbing.

“We made the tournament that year and our second-round game was at Texas,” she recalled.

“We beat them, 82-81, before a big crowd--really a big win for us--and when I walked off the court with my assistant [Kathy Olivier, now UCLA’s head coach], she said to me: ‘What’s wrong? You don’t look happy.’

“And I said to her: ‘To tell you the truth, I’d rather be playing golf.’ ”

The next year, the UC system was offering senior faculty retirement deals. Moore left and never looked back.

In the interim, women’s basketball has made great strides. College players can now aspire to pro careers in the U.S.

When the NBA was quietly formulating its plans to enter the women’s basketball business in 1996, Moore was an oft-consulted expert.

She’s impressed, she says, by the WNBA’s marketing skills, but not impressed by some of the players’ commitments to the enterprise.

When some WNBA players, during WNBA labor negotiations last spring, made demands such as charter air travel, Moore, like many, was appalled.

“I think there are athletes in the league who think the league has made it, that they’re starting out on third base,” she said. “They haven’t got it made. They’re still at bat. This is still a very fragile thing.”

She also questioned the WNBA’s 1996 decision to play in the summer.

“But it worked,” Moore said. “They showed everyone that basketball is a year-around sport.”

And so is golf.

Hall of Famers

People who will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame tonight and their biggest accomplishments:

* WAYNE EMBRY

Five-time all-star center in 1950-60s; NBA’s first black general manager (Milwaukee Bucks) and president (Cleveland Cavaliers).

* KEVIN McHALE

Seven-time all-star forward with Boston Celtics in 1980-90s; member of NBA’s 50th anniversary team.

* BILLIE MOORE

Women’s coach at Cal State Fullerton and UCLA; 436-196 record; won national championships in 1970 and 1978.

* JOHN THOMPSON

Coach at Georgetown; 596-239 record; won national championship in 1984, first by a black coach.

* FRED ZOLLNER

Fort Wayne-Detroit Pistons owner; helped oversee merger of two leagues that led to NBA being formed in 1946.