Five inducted into Big Five Hall of Fame

The special memories came rushing back to Marc Jackson and Matt Maloney as they returned to the Palestra on Tuesday to join the latest class to be inducted into the Philadelphia Big Five Hall of Fame.

For Jackson, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, played at Temple, and spent two of his 13 professional seasons with the 76ers, it was as a kid sneaking into the Palestra through a number of passageways just so he could play basketball.

"When I got here today, I'm thinking, 'Do I come in the front door?' " Jackson said with a hearty laugh. "From sneaking in to play basketball and now being honored here, it's just unreal."

For Maloney, whose journey from Haddonfield High to Penn was interrupted by the year he competed for Vanderbilt, it was his very first game, against Virginia, in the house on South 33d Street.

"I remember how nervous I was," Maloney said. "I was more nervous for that than I was for my first game in the NBA just because of the whole pride factor, growing up in Philly and the Big Five. I wanted to make sure I did everything right."

Jackson and Maloney were inducted Tuesday along with Jenn Beisel of Villanova, Melissa Coursey of St. Joseph's, and Kelly Greenberg of La Salle.

After playing one season for Virginia Commonwealth, Jackson transferred to Temple and played two seasons for John Chaney, scoring 1,001 points and being named 1997 Atlantic Ten player of the year.

The 6-foot-10 Jackson honored Walter Byrd, a Temple player in the mid-1950s who first taught him the game of basketball when he was 14.

"I never touched a basketball until then," he said. "We would walk from Germantown and Lehigh to the Camden YMCA. He'd put me and his son, who was the same age as me, through drills for two or three hours and then we'd walk back home."

Jackson spoke of a number of coaching influences including John Hartnett; Dennis Seddon, his coach at Roman Catholic High; and Chaney.

"There were coaches who were father figures in my life," he said. "I'm a mold of a lot of different coaches and a lot of different coaches' styles that show you how to work and work hard for it."

Maloney was a coach's son. Jim Maloney was a highly regarded assistant coach for Chaney and his predecessor, Don Casey, at Temple for 23 years before he died of a heart attack in 1996.

"He was No. 1 in my life, in my game, everything," he said. "He took me to the court when I was little to work on drills and the skill part of the game. We'd have these long video sessions watching tape not just of my games but bits and pieces of other people's games. It was a nonstop learning process for me."

Maloney, who retired from the NBA in 2002 after six seasons and now lives in Houston, learned his lessons well. Playing in the backcourt with current Penn coach Jerome Allen, he helped lead the Quakers to a 42-0 record in the Ivy League in three seasons and was named Ivy player of the year in 1995.

"We were always challenging one another and to have somebody who was just as driven as I was helped to bring out the best in me," Allen said. "All the games we won were great. But between the games was what I appreciated the most about his friendship and his commitment to help me become the best player I could become."

Beisel, who played for Villanova between 1994 and 1998, delivered her induction speech in the form of a poem and honored her older sister, Kathie, also a Big Five Hall of Famer, for her influence on her life.

Coursey (1995-99), who called herself "a small-town kid from Jersey that had dreams and goals," enjoyed an outstanding senior season that saw her named first-team all-Big Five and the MVP of the Atlantic Ten tournament.

Greenberg (1985-89), currently the head coach at Boston University, also joined a sibling, her brother, Chip, in the Hall of Fame. She holds Explorers records for most assists in a game, season, and career.