ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610120002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DALLAS
SOURCE: JAIME ARON ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nancy Lieberman-Cline had barely been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame when a friend suggested she make a comeback.
Lieberman-Cline laughed it off. Sure, she was in pretty good shape. And the basketball skills that helped her become the first woman to play in a men's professional league were still relatively sharp. But a comeback? At 38?
The idea seemed even more ridiculous considering what she would have to give up: involvement in broadcasting, basketball clinics, motivational speaking, a sports marketing company, a weekly newspaper column. Plus time with her husband and infant son.
Still, the thought kept nagging her. On Sept. 25, Lieberman-Cline laced up her basketball shoes and joined Athletes in Action to prepare for a 16-game tour she hopes will help her earn a spot in the WNBA when the women's pro league backed by the NBA begins play next summer.
``I know [failure] is a possibility, but I think you'll see a different, smarter version of me,'' she said. ``I'm still as big and strong as any point guard in women's basketball. I'm at the same playing weight I was in college. I can still shoot the ball. I can still pass the ball as well as anybody.''
If she's successful, the player known as ``Lady Magic'' would be the first person to play professional basketball after being inducted into the Hall of Fame, hall officials said.
``All I'm looking for is respect,'' Lieberman-Cline said. ``I'm not looking for anybody to give me anything. I figure that if I play and do what I can do, everything else will fall in place.
``To me, the most important thing is to see, in my own heart of hearts, if I can play. Number two, I want to show everybody else that I can play.''
Lieberman-Cline isn't jumping into this unprepared. She's spent the last six weeks training vigorously with longtime Continental Basketball Association player Ron Spivey, personal trainer Dale Kuehne and with the Collin County Community College men's basketball team.
Spivey, Lieberman-Cline's teammate on the Springfield Fame of the United States Basketball League when she broke the gender barrier in 1986, pushed her through four-hour drills six days a week. Kuehne added a weightlifting and running regimen that improved her strength and endurance.
``Whatever kind of player I am today, I'm going to be two times the player in June because of the way I'm working,'' she said. ``This is only the first quarter for me.''
Lieberman-Cline began playing basketball with boys on the blacktop courts of New York. The toughness she developed led to a spot on the 1976 Olympic team as a high school senior. To her silver medal, she added national championships at Old Dominion in 1979 and '80.
Lieberman-Cline made her biggest splash during her two-year stint with the Springfield Fame.
At 5-foot-8, 120 pounds, Lieberman-Cline was known for her aggressive style that soon spread throughout the women's game. That contribution and all her other accomplishments helped her become the 11th woman inducted into the Hall of Fame last May.
This summer at the Olympics, Lieberman-Cline was still mulling the idea of a comeback when a conversation with Magic Johnson, the player to whom she was often compared, helped her decide.
``He said, `Do you love it? Are you willing to pay the price? Then make the commitment and do it,''' she said.
The American Basketball League, an eight-team women's pro league that begins its inaugural season this fall, got wind of Lieberman-Cline's comeback and tried signing her. She said she was offered $125,000 to front the New England Blizzard in place of former Connecticut star Rebecca Lobo, who decided to take some time off from playing despite being the team's top draft pick.
Lieberman-Cline turned down the offer because the ABL wouldn't allow an out for her to join the WNBA.
``The motivation from the beginning has been the NBA,'' she said. ``I'd be lying to say it wasn't. I never really had thought about playing in the ABL until a few weeks ago.''
Although playing in the WNBA is Lieberman-Cline's aim, the league has made no commitment to her.
``I would like to be treated with some respect for my [place in] the history of the game,'' she said. ``But if they put me in the draft and make it harder for me, I'll do that too.''
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Nancy Lieberman-Cline, known on court as ``Ladyby CNBMagic,'' now has a son, 26-month-old TJ.