Former ODU Star Nancy Lieberman To Be Featured Speaker at Norfolk Sports Club Jamboree

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – Nancy Lieberman, the former Old Dominion women’s basketball star and one of the University’s most prominent alumni, will be the featured speaker for the Norfolk Sports Club Jamboree next month.

The jamboree will be held Wednesday, April 23^rd, in the Big Blue Room at ODU’s Chartway Arena. Tickets for the 6:30 p.m. event are available at the Chartway Arena ticket office by calling 757-683-4444.

The sports club was formed 81 years ago and has since held 77 annual jamborees. And while there have been a number of distinguished speakers, including then Alabama football coach Nick Saban and former ODU star quarterback Taylor Heinicke, none has been a female.

Lieberman was supposed to headline the 2020 jamboree but it was canceled because of the pandemic.

She said she's proud to be the first female to speak at a Norfolk Sports Club Jamboree.

“I appreciate the sports club reaching back out to me,” Lieberman said. “Anytime I get a chance to come back to Norfolk, I love it.

“I admire all that the club has done for sports in the Norfolk area, all they’ve done to inspire athletes, male and female. It’s a great organization and I’m honored they asked me to speak.

“I’m more than happy to return to a city I adore, a city that really took me from a kid and turned me into a woman who was going to have an effect on the world.”

Lieberman led ODU to national championships in 1979 and 1980 and to a WNIT title in 1978. She twice won the Wade Trophy, presented to the nation’s best women’s basketball player. She was a three-time Kodak All-American.

She was the youngest player ever to medal in the Olympics in 1976 at age 18 and had a long career as a professional player and coach. In 2009, she became the first woman to coach a men’s team when she coached the Texas Legends in the NBA G League.  

She was the first pro player to play in a men’s league in the United States Basketball League with the Springfield (Mass.) Fame and the first to serve as an NBA assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings.

She has been inducted into the Naismith, Women's Basketball and Virginia Sports halls of fame.

In 2022, she returned to ODU for the unveiling of a statue of her placed in front of the Mitchum Basketball Performance Facility, where both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are headquartered.

“I would not be the person I am, I would not have the life I have now, if I had not come to Old Dominion University,” she said during the ceremony.

Dr. Wood Selig ODU’s director of athletics, said he is delighted that Lieberman will speak on ODU’s campus.

“Few names in the sports world resonate around the globe such as Nancy Lieberman,” he said.

“Nancy was a pioneering figure for women’s athletics, nationally and internationally, and we are proud to call her an ODU Monarch. Nancy continues to be a thought leader and inspires future generations of athletes and business leaders.

“What a tremendous get by the Norfolk Sports Club to bring in someone with the credentials and credibility as Nancy Lieberman. I suspect this could be a massive ODU Homecoming event in April.”