LI's Sue Bird, Knicks' Carmelo Anthony enshrined in Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
Sue Bird, right, speaks during her enshrinement at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as Swin Cash, left, and Geno Auriemma, center, listen on Saturday in Springfield, Mass. Credit: AP/Jessica Hill
SPRINGFIELD, Mass — If there were a Mount Rushmore for women’s basketball, Sue Bird of Syosset would surely be on it. Few in basketball have won championships the way she has.
Former Knick Carmelo Anthony never won an NBA championship but still became one of New York’s most beloved sports figures despite playing during a stretch of little success.
They were anchors, Anthony and then Bird, of Saturday night’s Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement festivities, and both captivated the audience with their words.
Bird left Syosset High for Christ the King in Queens after a sophomore season in which she was a Newsday all-Long Island selection and the championships kept coming after that: one state crown in high school, two national championships with UConn, four WNBA titles with the Seattle Storm and five Olympic gold medals.
She said that even though there was no WNBA and no professional path when she was young, people made her feel there was a place for her, a future.
“Support even came from people I didn’t even really know, people who made me feel that I belonged,” she said. “I didn’t even realize I needed to hear it. The neighborhood boys who learned I should always be the first pick at the park, the security guard at a St. John’s University game who asked for my autograph when I was 11 years old after watching my team play at halftime and told me, ‘This is going to be worth something someday.’ ”
Anthony, a 10-time All-Star and the 10th-leading scorer in NBA history, acknowledged that the only championship he won — leading Syracuse to the 2003 national crown as a freshman — was a jumping-off point even though he was critiqued for not winning another.
“Legacy isn’t always made in championships,” Anthony said. “Sometimes it’s made in consistency and in refusal to quit and showing up over and over again when no one’s clapping.
“I’ve been cheered, criticized. They called me a scorer who couldn’t win. They said I was too loyal and they said I wasn’t loyal enough. But they didn’t know what it feels like to carry the weight of a whole city while the world is dissecting the soul they never saw.
“Tonight, I don’t just step into the Hall of Fame,” he said. “I carry with me the echoes of every voice that ever told me I couldn’t . . . I stand for the dreamers, the doubted, the dismissed . . . My story is your story. So when they ask you ‘where did greatness come from?’ tell them it starts in the dirt. It starts in the dark. It starts with a whisper that says ‘I will not be denied.’ ”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
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