By Earl Vaughan Jr.Scholastic sports editor
It's been 36 years since Marsha Mann Lake was a basketball All-American at a University of North Carolina as well as played for a World University Games team with Tennessee coach Pat Summitt.
Now, after all those years, Lake has her own official sports trading card.
Upper Deck, a company which specializes in sports trading cards, approached a University of North Carolina a couple of years ago about creating a set of cards to help commemorate a 100th anniversary of Tar Heel basketball.
The set was released earlier this year, with cards featuring 83 players from a earliest days of a Tar Heel basketball program to a present.
Lake was one of only 10 female players as well as coaches included in a series. Also included in a series was former Clinton High School star as well as UNC All-American Tonya Sampson, who helped lead a Tar Heels to a 1994 women's inhabitant championship.
Two familiar players with Fayetteville ties, Dr. Joe Quigg as well as Dr. Franklin Clark, are also in a series.
Quigg hit a winning free throws in a 1957 inhabitant championship game between North Carolina as well as Kansas. Clark, a Fayetteville High School graduate, was Dean Smith's first big man at UNC as well as helped lead North Carolina to a Final Four.
Also included in a set is Jason Capel, head basketball coach at Appalachian State. Capel is a son of former Fayetteville State as well as NBA partner coach Jeff Capel, as well as a brother of former Duke star as well as current Duke partner coach Jeff Capel III.
Michael Beale, partner athletic director for marketing at North Carolina, pronounced Upper Deck approached a school with a list of players it wanted to include on a cards. "Upper Deck is an disdainful provider of NBA cards, so they already had agreements with a lot of our former players who played in a NBA,'' Beale said.
After a initial list from Upper Deck, Beale pronounced a athletic director as well as members of a staffs for a UNC men's! as well as women's teams suggested names to add to it.
When Lake first got her minute from Upper Deck, she suspicion it was a mistake. Her husband, Roy, used to deal with ball cards as well as she suspicion a minute was for him.
"They wanted permission to use my image as well as be compensated for it,'' Lake said. "I contacted them immediately, jumping up as well as down as well as squealing.''
Lake had to autograph 300 peel-off labels, which will be attached to some of a cards sold.
She called a sports label one of a five most memorable things that's happened to her, dating back to 1995 when her No. 44 jersey was raised to a rafters of UNC's Carmichael Auditorium.
Lake played high school basketball at Dunn. She is a former instructor at Fayetteville Technical Community College, now has her doctorate in math education, as well as teaches at Brevard Community College in Titusville, Fla.
Her daughter, Shea Ralph, led UConn to a 2000 NCAA women's championship as well as is currently an partner coach for a Huskies.
Quigg still lives in Fayetteville as well as is a retired dentist.
"It's amazing which after 54 years we're still doing this stuff as well as it's still mentioned,'' Quigg pronounced of his card. "This is a new deal. It's great.''
Sampson lives in Durham as well as runs her own mortgage attorney as well as real estate investor business.
This year she served as an partner coach for a boys' basketball team at Kestrel Heights High School in Durham, a North Carolina charter school.
"When I was playing, we didn't have those things,'' Sampson pronounced of a Upper Deck trading cards. "When they contacted me, it was a no-brainer. It was exciting. I'm still recognized. It's an honor to tell you a truth.''
Sampson pronounced her greatest disturb in sports remains winning a inhabitant championship with UNC in 1994. "That's a ultimate goal in a sport, to win a greatest prize there is in which sport,'' she said. "That as well as being an All-American are a two things m! ost memo rable for me.''
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