Goodrich Among Six to Enter Hall of Fame

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Gail Goodrich, the 1961 Los Angeles City Player of the Year at Polytechnic High who went on to stardom at UCLA and with the Lakers, was among the inductees to the Basketball Hall of Fame Monday night.

The others were George Gervin, David Thompson, early jump-shot specialist George Yardley, Olympian Nancy Lieberman-Cline and the late Yugoslav star Kresimir Cosic.

Goodrich, paired with Walt Hazzard in the backcourt, led the John Wooden-coached Bruins to their first two NCAA championships in 1964 and ’65.

The backcourt mate of Jerry West with the Lakers, Goodrich was a member of the 1971-72 Bill Sharman-coached Laker team that won 33 games in a row and held the NBA record of 69 victories in a season until the Chicago Bulls broke it this season.

Gervin and Thompson were two of the game’s most compelling offensive players, but they were both shadowed by drug problems.

Gervin, who calls his recovery his personal Hall of Fame, played for San Antonio from 1974-85. earning NBA scoring titles in 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1982. Only Michael Jordan (eight) and Wilt Chamberlain (seven) won more scoring titles.

Thompson fought a cocaine habit as a pro and did a brief prison-camp stint at the time for beating his wife.

“The only way to deal with a problem is to confront it head-on,” he said as Gervin sat nearby. “You’ve got to take the negative and turn it around to a positive.”

Lieberman-Cline helped Old Dominion win national championships in 1979 and 1980.

Yardley, the first NBA player to score 2,000 points in a season, said the drug recoveries of Gervin and Thompson show that “life is bigger than basketball sometimes.”