George Yardley

George Harry Yardley III (November 3, 1928 – August 12, 2004) was an American basketball player. He was the first player in National Basketball Association (NBA) history to score 2,000 points in one season, breaking the 1,932-point record held by George Mikan. Yardley was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996.

Yardley was born on November 3, 1928, in Hollywood, California to George H. Jr., a building contractor, and Dorothy (Schoyer) Yardley. The family moved to Balboa Island in 1942. He attended Newport Harbor High School, starring on the basketball team. When he graduated in 1946, Yardley had reached his adult height of 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m), or reached that height between high school and college. He was third-team All-CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) in high school.

Yardley attended Stanford University, where he made the basketball team as a walk-on, with no scholarship. He played on the varsity from 1947-50. As a senior, he broke former Stanford star and future Hall of famer Hank Luisetti's 12-year old Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) scoring record (which new record was in turn broken shortly thereafter by future Hall of fame guard Bill Sharman). Hall of Fame coach John Wooden observed Yardley's ability to score in a variety of ways. Yardley was one of the few players dunking at the time. Both Yardley and Sharmin were selected to the PCC Southern Division All-Star team in 1950. He was a Helms Foundation second-team All-American in 1950, and two-time All-American.^{[citation needed]}

Yardley graduated in 1950 with a degree in civil engineering, earning both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Stanford. He was also at excellent volleyball player at Stanford. Yardley was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and earned the nickname "Yardbird" due to the chores he was required to complete by his fraternity brothers as the youngest man in the fraternity. The nickname was later shortened to "Bird".

In addition to basketball, Yardley was an All-American volleyball player, and five-time tennis champion in his age-bracket.

After his three-year career at Stanford, Yardley played one year of AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) basketball with Stewart Chevrolet, coached by Luisetti. He later enlisted in the United States Navy and served for two years, playing another two years of AAU basketball at Los Alamitos Naval Air Base. He was an AAU All-American in 1953. Yardley's San Francisco Stewart Chevrolet amateur team won the national AAU championship in 1951, with Yardley being selected the national amateur player-of-the-year. Yardley considered that AAU championship, along with his 2,000 point season, the highlights of his basketball career. Los Alamitos won the all-Navy championship in 1953, with Yardley scoring 38 points in the championship game.

Yardley turned down offers to play professionally, instead playing AAU basketball, so he could maintain his amateur status and be eligible for the 1952 Olympics. However, a broken wrist or hand playing for Los Alamitos in 1952 removed any possibility of that happening, the low point of his basketball career.

After leaving the Navy in 1953, Yardley toured South America with an amateur U.S. basketball team.