According to NBA lore from the 1950s, a writer for the Saturday
Evening Post once described George Yardley as having to overcome the
"horrible back alleys of Balboa Island" while growing up.
Yardley sure had them fooled, just like the defenders who would try to
guard his unstoppable jump shot.
Later in his seven-year Hall of Fame NBA career, big headlines
reported Yardley as "Basketball's Unhappy Gunner." He missed his family
and could make more money as an engineer. Could you imagine a player
saying that in the game's economics today?
Cataloged among the NBA's most noble departures (a list headed by
Michael Jordan), Yardley revolutionized the NBA before retiring early,
soaring to the basket in a bird-like manner while using state-of-the-art
jump shots and slam dunks to dazzle crowds.
Known as the original "Bird," Yardley was a talented rocket engineer
from Stanford and retired from basketball at the zenith of his career to
better provide for his family. He left the NBA with a lifetime scoring
average of 19.2 points per game and 8.9 rebounds a contest -- 20.2 ppg in
his final season (1959-60 with the Syracuse Nationals).
Only 31 when he walked away, Yardley is one of only seven players in
NBA history to retire after averaging more than 20 points in their last
year.
Breaking Hank Luisetti's Stanford single-season scoring record is
Yardley's most treasured feat, but his 2,001 points in 1957-58 for the
Detroit Pistons -- the first in NBA history to reach the 2,000 milestone
-- is perhaps the creme de la creme of his career and one of the reasons
for his 1996 enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The pride of Newport Harbor High (Class of '46) and considered the
Newport-Mesa community's most accomplished athlete, George H. Yardley III
was a lanky 6-foot-5 forward and three-time All-American at Stanford who
established numerous scoring records as an amateur and pro.
Most of Yardley's NBA career was spent in Fort Wayne, Ind., before the
Pistons moved to Detroit in 1957. Prior to turning pro, Yardley led the
San Francisco Stewart Chevrolets to the AAU national title in 1951, when
Luisetti, the team's coach, proclaimed Yardley as "the greatest
basketball player in the game."
After leaving the NBA, Yardley played a season for the under-financed
Los Angeles Jets in the old American Basketball League under Coach Bill
Sharman. "I was the highest paid player in the league," Yardley once
said, "but the bad news is that the checks never cleared."
