Nancy Lieberman

Nancy Ilizabeth Lieberman (born July 1, 1958), nicknamed "Lady Magic", is an American former professional basketball player and coach in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) who is currently a broadcaster for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA) as well as the head coach of Power, a team in the BIG3 which she led to its 2018 Championship.

Lieberman is regarded as one of the greatest figures in American women's basketball.

In 1975, while still in her teens, Lieberman was named to the USA Team designated to play in the World Championships and Pan American Games, where the team won a gold medal.

During the school year, she played for her high school team, but in the summer, played with an Amateur Athletic Union team in Harlem, the New York Chuckles.

She told former Knick Walt Frazier that he was her hero and that it was because of him that she wore No. 10, saying: "You might not even know this, but you thought you were affecting young guys but you were affecting young, white Jewish women, not just boys."

Lieberman originally was a verbal commitment to Canisius University before being heavily recruited by Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where she attended from 1976 to 1980 and played on the women's basketball team there.

Lieberman also won three consecutive Kodak All-America awards (1978, '79, '80).

Lieberman's WBL career is featured in the book Mad Seasons: The Story of the First Women's Professional Basketball League, 1978–1981.

During that time, she and her team won two consecutive AIAW National Championships (1979, 1980) and one WNIT (Women's National Invitation Tournament) Championship in 1978.

She was the first two-time winner of the prestigious Wade Trophy, a national player of the year award in college women's basketball, and was selected as the Broderick Award winner for basketball as the top women's player in America.

Lieberman was one of six young adults to win the Young American Award from the Boy Scouts of America in 1980.

Lieberman earned the nickname "Lady Magic," a nod to Earvin "Magic" Johnson of NBA fame.

Lieberman set a school record for career assists (961) that still stands today.

She led the team in assists each of the four years she was on the team—in her sophomore year she averaged 8.9 per game.

Lieberman amassed 2,430 points along with 1,167 rebounds in her collegiate career, producing an average of 18.1 points per game.

Lieberman achieved a triple double (40 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists) against Norfolk State in her sophomore year.

Lieberman stole the ball 562 times and assisted a basket 961 times in her college career, believed to be modern records.

She is the holder of several single-game and single-season records, including best free-throw shooting percentage in her freshman and sophomore years.

Lieberman earned her degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Old Dominion University on May 6, 1980.

In 1980 she was selected with the first pick in the Women's Pro Basketball League (WBL) draft by the Dallas Diamonds.

She helped Dallas to the 1981 WBL finals, where they lost to the Nebraska Wranglers in five games.

She was named the "rookie of the year", after averaging 26.3 points per game.

In 1981, she played for the Los Angeles Lakers Summer Pro League team.

She was inducted into the ODU Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.

In 2000, she was inducted into the Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame.

Lieberman is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, the St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

Lieberman was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jerome and Renee Lieberman.

She is Jewish (and described herself as "just a poor, skinny, redheaded Jewish girl from Queens").

Her family lived in Brooklyn when she was born, but soon moved to Far Rockaway, Queens, where she grew up with her older brother Clifford.

She lost great-grandparents in the Holocaust, and her paternal grandparents, who survived, had concentration camp numbers on their wrists.

Her mother brought up the children after a separation and divorce.

While growing up, she was interested in a variety of sports, playing baseball, softball and football with boys, before settling on basketball as her primary sport.

She played basketball primarily on pickup teams with boys, not playing on a girls' team until she was a high school sophomore.

Lieberman's mother Renee was not supportive of her daughter's interest in basketball.

Once, when Lieberman was practicing dribbling techniques indoors because it was cold outside, her mother demanded she stop dribbling because of all the noise.

When she did not stop, her mother punctured the basketball with a screwdriver.

Lieberman found another ball and continued, but her mother punctured that one as well.

This continued until five balls were ruined.

Lieberman then decided she had better go outside before she ran out of basketballs.

While attending Far Rockaway High School in Queens, she established herself as one of the top women's basketball players in the country by earning one of the 12 coveted slots on the USA's National Team.