The Legendarium: A Pearl in Florence County
Pearl Moore felt like a deer in the headlights.
After decades of calm and quiet in Florence, South Carolina, the phone suddenly wouldn’t stop ringing. It had been nearly 45 years since her playing career ended at Francis Marion University but now, in 2023, newspapers and TV stations were lining up to get in touch with her.
They wanted to ask her about all the points she scored. All the games she won. The myriad ways in which she impacted the game, big and small. And they wanted to ask about Caitlin Clark.
But what did they want to talk to Pearl for? She wondered that often. Her Francis Marion scoring record stood at 4,061 points. Clark, even with her all her prowess, probably wasn’t going to catch it during the 2023 season. But those around Pearl compelled her to continue picking up the phone for those that would call.
What she did was historic, they’d tell her. It mattered. Her legacy was built, maintained and celebrated because of the simplest action, the one that basketball’s very foundation was predicated upon: putting the ball in the hoop. So, in spite of everything in her body telling her to let the phone go to voicemail, she’d pick it up and do something harder than anything she ever had to do on the floor: she’d have to talk about herself.
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