Future Hall of Fame basketball player Julius Erving, on April 7, 1976, was 18-of-23 from the field and had a game-high 38 points as the New York Nets defeated the Virginia Squires, 127-123.
The game was played at the Norfolk Scope before 6,696 fans, according to basketballreference.com.
It would be the last game in the nomadic history of the ABA franchise, which moved from Oakland to Washington, D.C., in 1969, and then to Virginia the following season.
“Probably had the most talent in ABA history. But the team had struggled financially for years, even before they moved to Virginia,” according to a 2025 You Tube video, “The Complicated History of the Virginia Squires.”
The Squires were 15-68 in 1975-1976 and were seventh in the ABA. That was a far cry from a record of 55-29 in their first season in 1970-1971.
The last team went through five different coaches: Al Bianchi (1-6), Mack Calvin (0-6), Bill Musselman (4-22), Jack Ankerson (1-1) and Zelmo Beaty (9-33), who played in 889 pro games and passed in 2013 at the age of 73.
Musselman, who passed in 2000, was the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves after his ABA days.
During the six-year run the team played home games, due in part to sparse attendance at times, at the Hampton Coliseum, Norfolk Scope, Richmond Coliseum, ODU Fieldhouse, Richmond Arena and the civic centers in the Roanoke Valley for part of two seasons in the early 1970s.
Shannon Abell told Roanoke TV station WDBJ – noting the 50th anniversary of the last season – that he went to all eight games in the Roanoke Valley, plus one in Richmond. The late Jim Granger did regular reports on Squires for his Richmond TV station in the 1970s.
“To have a regular season game in Roanoke and to be able to see these stars, that ended up becoming superstars, NBA Hall of Famers, it was just wonderful,” Abell said on the Roanoke station website this year. “And it was so fan friendly. You could walk right down to the floor. You could take pictures right on the floor.”
Even the uniforms changed regularly, like the players and coaches.
They were red, white and blue from 1970-1974, orange, seal brown and red in 1974-1975 and blue and orange for the 1975-1976 campaign.
ODU connections
Most of the former players and coaches with the Squires wound up spread throughout the country. But two people connected with the Virginia team have deep roots in the state and ODU.
Dave Twardzik was a point guard drafted out of ODU by the Portland Trailblazers of the NBA in the second round in 1972.
The native of Middletown, Pa., near Harrisburg, played 80 games for Virginia in 1972-1973, 57 the following year, 76 as an ABA all-star in 1974-1975 and then in 43 contests the following year in the last season for the franchise.
Twardzik, now 76, played for Portland in the NBA from 1976-1980 and was part of the title team in 1977. He is in the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and was part of ODU Basketball radio broadcasts for about a decade before stepping down in 2023.
Ankerson, 84 and a former general manager of the Squires, was drafted as a quarterback in 1964 by the St. Louis Cardinals out of a small college in his native Wisconsin.
He was the Sporting News ABA executive of the year in 1974 with the San Antonio Spurs and soon after that took on the same role with Virginia.
At the age of 53 in 1995, he joined the Norfolk Tides as the team’s director of broadcasting and sales and five years later became the executive director of the Hampton Roads Sports Commission.
Ankerson has also been the “Voice of the Monarchs” for several years as the public address announcer at ODU home games for football and basketball. He no longer does PA for the Tides so he can keep up with his grandchildren, according to former ODU sports information director Carol Hudson.
Ankerson is in the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame.
Hall of Famers in Virginia
It is fitting that Erving excelled for the Nets in the last game for the Virginia team.
He was drafted out of UMass-Amherst in 1971 by the Squires and averaged 27.3 points per contest in his first season. (He was basketball teammates at UMass with Mike Flanagan, the 1979 Cy Young winner with the Baltimore Orioles).
In 1972-1973, Erving paired up with George Gervin, “The Iceman,” to give Virginia a one-two punch.
Gervin played in 30 games that year with 10 starts and averaged 23.0 minutes per contest while averaging 14.1 points per outing.
The next season he played in 49 games (scoring 25.4 points per contest) with Virginia before moving to the Spurs – and the impetus for an All-Star career that led to the Hall of Fame in 1996.
Erving made his ABA debut with Virginia on Oct. 15, 1971, in a win at the Carolina Cougars, as he had 21 points while teammate and former University of North Carolina star Charlie Scott had 36.
Dr. J was the MVP of the ABA in 1972-1973 as he averaged 31.9 points per outing. He went into the Hall of Fame in 1993 after a long NBA run with the Philadelphia 76ers through 1987.
“I developed my own style – a playground style,” Erving said in a 2024 documentary “Dr. J’s Electrifying Virginia Squires Era, 1971-73.”
There was a third Hall of Fame connection to the Squires.
The team began in 1967 as the Oakland Oaks, a charter member of the ABA, and were owned by pop singer Pat Boone.
Rick Barry played for Oakland in 1968-1969 and then for Washington in the ABA the following season.
Barry appeared on the cover of a Sports Illustrated issue in the spring of 1970 wearing a uniform of the Squires. The New Jersey native didn’t want to play in Virginia and said so in the magazine, noting he didn’t want his young son to pick up a Southern accent. That did not go well, so he ended up with New York of the ABA for the 1970-1971 campaign before a long run in the NBA, mostly with Golden State, that led to the Hall of Fame in 1987.
Barry wore No. 24 at times in his career in tribute to Willie Mays, his favorite player while growing up near New York City. His second wife, Florida native Lynn (Norenberg) Barry, was a basketball standout at William & Mary from 1977-1981. Her hoop jersey was retired, and she is in the school’s Hall of Fame.
The ABA merged with the NBA in 1976, just weeks after the Virginia franchise folded.
Spirit of 1976
- Among the top Virginia athletes born in 1976 include Norfolk native Aaron Brooks, who would go on to star in football at the University of Virginia and in the NFL, notably with the New Orleans Saints.
- Former JMU and Tampa Bay pitcher Travis Harper was born in Harrisonburg on May 21, 1976.
- Virginia won the 1976 ACC Tournament, beating North Carolina State, Maryland and North Carolina in the “Miracle at Landover.”
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David Driver
