With the 2020 NBA draft taking place later this month we will spend the next couple of weeks taking a walk down memory lane with a choice collection of players who are celebrating an awesome anniversary this year. From the 1st player in NBA history to score 2000 PTS in a season (70th anniversary) through the 2000 Pac-10 POY (20th anniversary), these stars have all seen their dreams come true in past drafts. We commence our series with George Yardley. He was a 2-time All-American at Stanford, NBA scoring champ in 1958, and elected to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in 1996. George passed away in 2004 but HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with his sons Rich and Rob Yardley about the 70th anniversary of their father getting drafted.
Your grandfather was the 1st person to captain both the baseball and basketball teams at the University of Chicago: who is the best athlete in the family, and did your dad credit at least some of his success to genetics? RICH: My dad never talked about his dad much but no doubt he had some impact on him. ROB: He was not a big fan of his dad, as he was a vicious/abusive drunk who died due to his drinking. Neither I nor Rich could play a lick.
Your father was a 2-time All-American at Stanford: what did it mean to him to win such outstanding honors? RICH: He never talked about his basketball career. ROB: He felt he was not a true All-American because the West Coast guys would vote for him and the East Coast guys would not: it was very parochial. He was not even a scholarship player at Stanford. Today a “consensus” All-American is a consensus All-American.
In 1950 he was drafted 7th overall by Ft. Wayne (4 spots behind Bob Cousy): what did it mean to him to get drafted, and why did he wait a few years to join the team? RICH: They did not offer him enough money so he decided he did not need them. He also wanted to play in the 1952 Olympics. The West Coast players did not get a lot of respect/recognition even back then. ROB: Being drafted back then was not as big: the salaries were small and baseball was king. He waited because he wanted to play in the Olympics. If it were not for his owner (Fred Zollner, aka “Mr. Pro Basketball”) the NBA would not even have survived. He enlisted so that he would end up in the Navy.
In the 1951 AAU title game he scored 32 PTS for his San Francisco Stewart Chevrolet team in a win over the Colorado Collegians and was named tourney MVP: what did it mean to him to win the title, and how did he like playing for fellow Stanford legend Hank Luisetti? RICH: He said that the AAU was as good as the NBA in those days so he felt that winning the AAU was as big a deal as winning the NBA title. Luisetti was clearly his predecessor. ROB: Those were the biggest thrills of his life. Playing for Stanford, Luisetti was his hero. That box score actually sits in the Hall of Fame: none of his teammates even reached double-digits.
That year he began a 2-year period of service in the Navy, but a broken hand in the final game of the season kept him off the 1952 Olympic basketball team: why did he choose to enlist, and how disappointed was he to miss out on the Olympics? RICH: I assumed there was a draft, as he did not have a lot of respect for the military at all. He was basically guarding the Admiral’s tent: they just wanted him to play basketball. He was crushed to miss out on the Olympics because it was his lifelong dream: I do not think that he ever got over it. I turned down a chance to play on the Olympic volleyball team…and only later did it occur to me that it might have meant a lot to my dad. ROB: He said that missing the Olympics was the biggest disappointment of his life.
He made the NBA All-Star team each year except for his rookie season: how was he able to be so consistent for such a long period of time? RICH: He got his break when Jack Molinas got caught gambling on games. When Jack got bounced out of the league my dad took his spot. ROB: Dad attributes it to different things. He hated training camp and the cold weather so every year he would quit and say that he was not coming back until the team offered him a higher salary than the previous year. He got credit for being a sports negotiation pioneer: he just genuinely wanted to quit.
Take me through the 1955 Finals:
In Game 7 George King made 1 of 2 FT with 12 seconds left, then stole the ball from Andy Phillip with 3 seconds left in a 1-PT win by Syracuse: where does that rank among the most devastating losses of his career? RICH: It certainly did. For years he blamed Hal Greer for missing a layup toward the end…but many years later he found out that it was not Greer! He was a fierce competitor and was always good in the clutch. He said that everyone choked but that the best players learned to deal with it. ROB: That is right up there. There was a blizzard in Syracuse so they only had 3000 people show up for Game 7 of the Finals: I cannot imagine that happening today. He would always say, “The ring is the thing”.
It has been alleged that some Ft. Wayne players conspired with gamblers to throw the series, as evident by the Pistons blowing a 17-PT 2nd quarter lead: did your dad feel that this was real or just a rumor? RICH: My dad was a very moral guy so he would not have gambled on a sport in which he was involved. He thought that was the lowest form of life. I would guess that if that did go on he would not have taken any part in it. ROB: At the time he did not suspect that anyone was cheating, but in hindsight he thought it might have happened. He did not get along with his former teammate Jack Molinas, who later got kicked out of the league due to gambling.
Take me through the 1956 playoffs:
They had a 5-PT win over St. Louis in Game 5 of the Western Division Finals: how on earth did they become the 1st team to ever come back from a 2–0 deficit in the playoffs? RICH: He was a star player and really relished being put in a tight spot. I never even knew that he had played in the NBA until someone told me in the 8th grade. ROB: He thought St. Louis big man Bob Pettit was the best player in the league at that point. In sports you tend to have runs.
In Game 5 of the Finals he scored 30 PTS in a loss to Philly to lose the series: how was he able to play his best when it mattered the most? ROB: He was always the kind of guy who rose to the occasion. He won national titles in tennis as well as some golf tournaments: he always wanted the ball in his hands at the end of big games.
In February 1958 he scored a career-high 52 PTS in a game against Syracuse: was it just 1 of those scenarios where every shot he put up seemed to go in because he was “in the zone”? RICH: It meant a lot to him to be able to perform that well. I think he hit a lot of consecutive shots in that game: he was a perfectionist. ROB: He went off in the final few games of the season and said that none of the great players in the league could be stopped when they put their mind to it. It helped that he was a good outside shooter and a mobile athlete.
He finished that season as the league’s top scorer with 27.8 PPG and became the 1st NBA player to score 2000+ PTS in a season: what was his secret to being a great scorer, and was he considered the best player in the league? RICH: He was a very focused athlete. I think he trailed Bob Pettit in the scoring race before Pettit got injured. He said he cherry-picked his last bucket because the opponent tried to hold him under 2000. That was the year the team moved to Detroit and not many fans showed up. He was into winning as a team, not receiving individual accolades. ROB: He was certainly 1 of the best in the league and was consistently an All-Star: his coach just let him shoot. He said that he would not have traded himself straight up for Pettit, who was a better rebounder. Walter Dukes accused my dad in a magazine of not passing to him because he was racist…but my dad called him and said he did not pass to him because he had terrible hands and could not catch the ball! He also played with Dick McGuire who was a great passer but not as great of a scorer.
What are your memories of Game 7 of the 1959 Eastern Division Finals with Syracuse (he and Dolph Schayes combined for 67 PTS in a 5-PT loss to eventual champion Boston)? ROB: He said that was really the year that his team should have won the title. He hated Coach Red Auerbach and thought he was the most overrated coach in the world, although I do not agree with him. The reason my dad downplayed his scoring record is because the greatest player in the league was not a great scorer (Bill Russell).
He averaged 20.2 PPG in 1960 before retiring at age 31, becoming the 1st player in NBA history to voluntarily retire after averaging 20+ PPG in his final year: how do you feel about the promise he made to your mom that he would retire before you and your siblings started school? RICH: That is a true story and I thought it was great. Part of the reason he quit is that he had an offer to play in another league and an arrangement to get paid $500/game to play home games: no road trips, no practice, etc. If any of the checks had cleared then it would have been a great deal! ROB: That is true and I think it was very commendable of him to honor his commitment to mom. He was making around $20,000/year, so it would be much tougher to retire today if he was making $10 million/year. When the Lakers moved to LA he asked my mom if he could play for the Lakers but Syracuse would not give up his rights.
Following his retirement he started his own engineering company, where he was able to expand his expertise with missiles: why did he choose engineering, and how did he like the corporate world compared to the sports world? RICH: Back then all NBA players had to have a day job…and his day job happened to be a rocket scientist. He actually had some patents and really enjoyed it. He liked competition but did not miss the NBA, as he finally got to do something that he wanted to do. He won several national tennis titles and even played basketball in the Senior Olympics. ROB: He would get really tired of basketball even during the season so it was a great diversion to use his mind in the off-season. Defending a Bob Cousy/Bill Russell pick-and-roll is a great subject, but he also liked thinking about rockets. He was a smart guy who liked using his mind.
In 1996 he was elected to the Hall of Fame: where did that rank among the highlights of his career? RICH: He always said it was not that big a deal but I think that it was really important to him. ROB: He said it did not matter but he loved it. It was a bigger deal than he would let on. He had the shortest career of anyone in the Hall of Fame…but when you make 6 All-Star teams in 7 years it is not always about longevity. He got to see a lot of people at the induction who he had not seen in many years.
In 2004 he died from Lou Gehrig’s Disease: when people look back on his career, how do you think that he should be remembered the most? RICH: He was a basketball player who also had a life off of the court. He was prouder of his off-court accomplishments, as he contributed to society besides bouncing a ball and putting it through a hoop. He built refineries and power plants. Whenever he was asked to speak he said that kids would get a bunch of accolades and money and just put it up their nose, but there is so much more to life than basketball. He also thought that agents were not doing their clients any favors. ROB: At the end of his life he became a Christian, which I think is very important. He was a cerebral and tenacious player: what he most emphasized was playing your hardest and never mailing it in. He enjoyed team sports and never wanted to let down his teammates. Everyone wants to start so the hardest thing is to have a good attitude when you are coming off the bench. He was the shortest forward in the league but would finish in the top-10 in rebounding because he always worked hard.
