KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The bullets flew through a wall and sailed a few feet above the heads of three-year-old Charmaine Milton and her two-year-old sister, DeLisha.
DeLisha has no memories of that night. Charmaine says, "It's a night I'll never forget."
The gunshots were the final straw for Beverly Milton. Her husband abused alcohol and drugs. He also abused her as well, often beating her in the two-room house in which they lived, where there was no running water and the only toilet they had was an outhouse.
Beverly could live without indoor plumbing. But she could no longer live with being hit by her husband, nor with putting her daughters' lives at risk.
That night, an argument in the kitchen ended with him storming out. "Dad went outside and got a gun and started shooting," Charmaine said. "He didn't know that we were on the other side of the wall
"When my mother saw that, he said, 'That's it, it's time for us to go.'"
It was far from an easy decision. She had no money and women were far less likely to leave abusive relationships in the 1970s than they are now.
"She left with nothing," Charmaine said. "She put us in the car, and he followed her and took the spark plugs out so we couldn't leave.
"One of our cousins lived close by and he came and took us out and we never looked back."
As DeLisha Milton-Jones stood Saturday night before a crowd of more than 1,000 at the century-old Tennessee Theatre during one of the proudest moments of her basketball career, she spoke to that night without explaining what happened.
Only the two dozen family members, and her closest friends, fully understood the context.
"I was raised by my beautiful mother, Beverly Milton, in a single-family home," she said. "She is a fierce, strong-willed woman who stands in the middle of adversity and never flinches nor wavers.
"My mother raised us to be God-fearing independent thinking women who are humble enough to be leaders but also know when to be led.
DeLisha's family makes its way to the induction ceremony
"Momma, every test, and every trial we have encountered, have allowed Charmaine and I to be your greatest testimonies because without your perseverance and your willpower, we wouldn't be who we are today."
Tears streamed down the face of Beverly Milton as she watched her daughter accept one of the most elite honors available in women's basketball. DeLisha was one of eight former coaches, players or contributors to the game inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
It was the culmination of a long weekend in which DeLisha, preparing to enter her third season as Old Dominion's coach, came to terms with so much of the adversity and heartache she experienced through her 47 years.
And it also began to fill an empty space inside her that had been yearning for affirmation.
Wally and Linda Haislip also came from humble beginnings. He was raised in Virginia Beach's Aragona-Pembroke neighborhood. She grew up in Norfolk's Bayview area. The neighborhoods are similar – smaller homes filled with hard-working, blue-collar families, many of them in the military.
Both are first-generation graduates, meaning the first in their families to earn college degrees. They met while attending ODU and by the time they graduated in 1971, they were a couple.
Linda and Wally Haislip with DeLisha Milton-Jones
Both went on to accomplish great things. After teaching briefly, Wally entered the business world and for nearly two decades was CFO and Vice of Operations for Scientific Atlanta, which produces cable TV and broadband equipment. If you have Cox Cable, it's virtually certain you have a Scientific Atlanta cable box.
Linda was a long-time Spanish teacher in the Fulton County public schools.
"I could not have gone to college had I not received scholarships," Wally said. Grateful to those who helped them, they have tried to help the next generation by donating millions of dollars to philanthropic organizations, including academic and athletic scholarships at ODU.
They have endowed a women's basketball scholarship and are big Milton-Jones fans. They drove from Atlanta to witness the induction.
"I remember when Jim Jarrett was athletic director and he decided the best way to put Old Dominion on the map was through women's sports," Wally said.
They've been long-time boosters of women's sports ever since.
"We love what DeLisha is doing at ODU," Linda said.
"The Haislips are so unassuming and yet so gracious and so powerful," Delisha said. "They've had a tremendous impact on ODU women's basketball, but they've also had a huge impact on the lives of so many ODU students.
"I got goosebumps when I saw them. For them, time is everything. It's priceless. For them to be here means so much."
They were part of an ODU continent that included Lisa Smith, the former rector of ODU's Board of Visitors, and her daughter, Michela Jones, a rising sophomore and basketball player at Haverford College in Philadelphia. They were joined on Saturday by Maurice Jones, Lisa's husband, who is CEO of OneTen, an organization whose goal is to create one million sustainable jobs for African Americans. Maurice is the former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot.
ODU Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director Carolyn Crutchfield, and Dex Blank, an assistant athletic development officer for the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation, also came.
"This is my ODU family," DeLisha said as she greeted us Friday night.
But we were dwarfed by the contingent of family members who drove from Riceboro, Georgia to watch Milton-Jones' induction.
When all converged Friday night at the downtown Embassy Suites, two dozen family members walked into the hotel lobby adorned in jerseys they made for the occasion. They all had number eight, which DeLisha wore in most of her 19 seasons of professional basketball. The jerseys were partially orange and blue, the color of the University of Florida, where DeLisha won a Wade Trophy.
"It takes a Village" was a phrase used by several of the speakers at Saturday's induction ceremony, and in the case of DeLisha and Charmaine, it took a village of family members and friends to help raise them.
"Our mom, she really struggled after leaving dad," said Charmaine, whose last name is now Gatlin and who heads the Jackson Health Foundation in Miami, Florida.
"All of our aunts and uncles and our grandmother, they all stepped up to make sure we were able to survive."
She stopped momentarily and pointed to her relatives: "These are the people who helped us survive."
DeLisha's cousin, Hattie Hargrove, rented them a house for $50 a month. Hargrove later introduced both DeLisha and Charmain, who also played at Florida, to basketball on a dirt court in her backyard.
Hattie had planned to attend this past weekend but died in late May.
DeLisha's father quit his job at a nearby mill shortly after Beverly left him and thus did not have to pay child support, Charmaine said. Beverly worked, but said "I often wondered while I was going home how I was going to feed my kids.
"But God, he always had that ram in the bush."
DeLisha was 11 years old when while she was goofing around at a community pool, fell and hit her head and then flopped into the water. The pool was so crowded, at first no one noticed.
She had promised her mom she wouldn't go near the pool, a promise she broke. She says she hasn't broken a promise to her mom since.
She had a seizure while she was underneath the water, doctors said, before Michelle Wiggins, the pool's lifeguard, noticed her. Wiggins dove into the water, pulled her out and immediately began CPR.
"She would not quit until she had saved my child's life," Beverly said.
ODU Coach Was Brought 'Back From the Dead'
Before being revived, DeLisha remembers seeing a bright light and says a sense of calmness overtook her. She believes she died briefly, "but that God believed I had more to do."
He surely did. Shortly thereafter, she and Charmaine began to play basketball and she quickly fell in love with the game.
She was the biggest, most talented player on her middle school team but played sparingly, she said, because of "politics." Another girl with less talent played more because her family was connected, she said.
By then, she acknowledges she had begun to develop an inferiority complex. Her father had left her. She was overlooked on the court and being overlooked would continue into her WNBA career.
She was a three-time all-star choice, but surely deserved more. She is among the WNBA career leaders in games played, points and rebounds. Yet she played in the shadows of Lisa Leslie, one of the game's all-time best players.
"She always has had a big heart," Charmaine said. "But she never felt fully appreciated in her basketball career."
ODU assistant Danielle Bell texting recruits during the induction ceremony
That changed this weekend. Not only was DeLisha feted by the elite of the women's game, she entered the hall with a star-studded class.
Becky Hammon was a six-time WNBA All-Star and was named one of pro basketball's top 15 players a decade ago. Penny Taylor won three WNBA championships and helped Australia claim two Silver medals.
Debbie Antonelli, who played at North Carolina State, has been a women's college analyst for 34 years. Alice "Cookie" Barron won all 104 games she played in the 1950s for Wayland Baptist and led the Flying Queens to three national championships.
Doug Bruno has won 758 games and taken DePaul to 24 NCAA Tournaments in his 36 years as head coach. Bob Schneider won 634 Division II games and 1,045 overall, including his time coaching Texas high schools.
Paul Sanderford won 75 percent of his games at Western Kentucky, Nebraska and Louisburg College and took the Lady Hilltoppers to three Final Fours.
"It's a major achievement, it puts you in rarefied company, when you enter this hall of fame," said longtime women's basketball journalist Mel Greenberg, a 2007 inductee.
"This is an exclusive group."
Sanderford, a native of Wilson, North Carolina, remembers watching DeLisha play in college and the WNBA.
"She was probably the best-conditioned player I ever saw," he said. "She worked at it so much. She was a dominant player, but not only did she dominate, she would set up other people for shots.
"She was so unselfish."
ODU assistant coach Shammond Williams, who played in three Final Fours while starting at North Carolina, said the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame made a great statement by including DeLisha in such an elite class.
"When you look at the way things are going in sports, people don't appreciate the role players, people who sacrifice, who are working for others," he said. "DeLisha's done that her whole life. She's always sacrificed for others.
"It's great that the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame recognized everything that she's done, but also the sacrifices she made to be a part of something bigger than herself.
"I think if that message could be given to society and the next wave of kids, we'll have a better game. I think we'll have a better society as well."
DeLisha asked Carol Callan, the director of the women's national teams for USA Basketball, to escort her into the induction ceremony along with her husband and ODU assistant coach Roland Jones.
"DeLisha has a delightful smile," Callan said. "But her smile belies the aggressiveness she always showed on the court.
USA Basketball's Carol Callan with DeLisha Milton-Jones
"She was a number four player and that position was always stocked with so many great players. Yet she rose to the top because of her competitiveness and her ability but also because of her absolutely work ethic. She would do anything she needed to do to be successful.
"And then she's just a great person. You have to be a great person as well as a great athlete to get into this Hall of Fame."
Knoxville is a university town, where even the cross walks in parts of town are Tennessee orange and white.
There's a huge memorial wall to former Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt as you drive onto campus. There may be no place in America, outside of Storrs, Connecticut, where the women's game is more appreciated.
"I have PTSD every time I come to Knoxville," DeLisha said with a smile, referring to Florida's 0-4 record against the Lady Vols in Knoxville.
After the induction ceremony, as she and her staff ate finger food and walked around the Hall of Fame, the ghosts of yesteryear beckoned.
The Hall of Fame isn't particularly large but is packed with history. You see photos of the first women's game ever played, between freshmen and sophomores at Smith College in 1893, and marvel that they played in long skirts with stockings. The game sold out, but no men were allowed in the gym.
There are jerseys from the All-American Red Heads, a team that barnstormed the mid-west from 1936 through 1986 and played against a touring men's team, and rarely lost. Former ODU greats Nancy Lieberman, Anne Donovan and Inge Nissen are enshrined in the hall, as is former head coach Marianne Stanley and former ODU coach Nikki McCray-Penson.
ODU, in fact, played a major role in the induction ceremony. Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs welcomed the crowd by remarking that he had come to love the game by watching Donovan play for the then Lady Monarchs.
"I was driving by Old Dominion's campus one day and it occurred to me that that's where Anne Donovan played," he said, adding that gave him a thrill.
When jerseys from the past and present were modeled on stage by young AAU players, one player wore a Hudson Blue ODU jersey with "Monarchs" across the front.
ODU hasn't gone dancing in more than a decade. DeLisha told her family and members of the Monarch entourage that she's going to end that streak, and if not win a national championship, begin making deep runs into the tournament.
"Old Dominion has played such a big role in the history of women's basketball," she said. "We want ODU to begin playing a big role in the present."
Although this was supposed to be a work-free weekend, it was anything but for the ODU staff. Williams, Jones and Danielle Bell spent nearly every waking minute speaking to or texting recruits. ODU needs two more players and didn't hesitate to use DeLisha's induction as a recruiting tool.
"We're telling them if you want to come and play for greatness, for a hall of fame coach, come to ODU," Bell said.
DeLisha teared up as she neared the end of her nine-minute speech, one interrupted more than a dozen times by applause.
The crowd roared its approval when she stretched her arms out, and like I said, these were true women's basketball fans.
They recalled when Robin Roberts, now on Good Morning America, said during a women's basketball broadcast that DeLisha had the wing span of a 7-footer. That inspired the SEC to put out a poster with DeLisha standing, arms outstretched, in front of LSU's Shaquille O'Neal, with his arms also outstretched.
"She was only about four inches short of Shaq's wing span," Charmaine said.
DeLisha hit all the right notes, and thanked all the right people, including Roland.
"Thank you for blessing me with the best husband ever," she said to his parents. "You played your role selflessly by being the best supporting actor in college basketball.
"You placed your career on the side for the sake of me becoming everything you knew I could come.
"Love bug, we did it."
Sunday morning, DeLisha boarded a plane for Argentina, where she will spend the week as an assistant coach on the United States 18-under FIBA team. "I have a scouting report to do on the plane," she said.
But not before shedding a few tears on the stage.
"You will never know how healing it is to stand on this stage and receive this honor," she said, before pausing to wipe away tears. "Where many people have overlooked and underappreciated my talents, you came along and spoke of my career profoundly.
"Thank you for recognizing my contributions and singing my name.
"Every person and place in my life played a distinct role in who I am today. I thank God each of you were able to play it."
Her grandmother, 95-year-old Ruth Richardson, beamed as DeLisha walked off the stage and began to be greeted by family.
"You were awesome, so awesome," she told DeLisha. "She's so sweet," she added, turning to me. "She's precious. And she loves people. She loves everybody and that makes God happy."
As Charmaine walked out of the Tennessee Theatre behind her sister, I asked her if she had reconciled with her father.
"I have forgiven him and so I talk to him," she said. "But the relationship has been hard.
"DeLisha just spoke to him for the first time in over 30 years. And she's forgiven him, but she still has a lot of hurt she's dealing with. She doesn't understand why her dad left us.
"With everything our dad did, to get this award, it validated who she is as a person. At one point, after all our dad did, it was as if we didn't matter.
"To be able to stand with her and witness this, to her it says 'we survived this and that we are great.'
"I'm so happy for DeLisha. She really deserves this."
As does her mother.
Minium: ODU's DeLisha Milton-Jones Praised Mom During Induction for Leaving Abusive Father
