Former UNC Asheville women's basketball player Sheila Ford Duncan was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.(Daily News photo by Joe Imel/joe.imel@bgdailynews.com)

Sheila Ford Duncan never expected to be rubbing shoulders with Olympic gold medal winners, former NFL stars, legendary coaches and sports broadcasters.

Duncan, a Bowling Green resident, was stunned when she got word that she was to be inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame among an 11-member class alongside three-time NFL All-Pro wide receiver Steve Smith, multiple Olympic rowing gold medalist Caroline Lind, longtime CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz and former Davidson men’s basketball coach Bob McKillop.

“When they reached out to me, I wasn’t that surprised because I was born and bred in Clarkton, North Carolina – that wasn’t the issue,” Duncan said. “But after all these years, I’d never, ever thought I would be inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame. I never dreamed this.”

Duncan spent the past weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, and took part in a loaded itinerary culminating with her induction as part of the Hall’s 60th class.

Although she might have been surprised with this latest honor, Duncan long ago built the resume worthy of induction. As a star center on UNC Asheville’s women’s basketball team from 1980-84, she was named the NAIA National Player of the Year as a senior. That same 1984 season, Duncan led UNC Asheville to the NAIA national championship – still the only national title the school has ever won.

She finished her stellar college career as the first player in women’s collegiate history to score more than 2,000 points (2,442) and grab more than 2,000 rebounds (2,200) and still holds a slew of school records.

After that came a year of playing professionally in Spain before a knee injury cut short her basketball career.

Long before her days as an All-American and then a professional in Vigo, Spain, basketball was a backyard passion for Duncan.

She had always been tall and picked up the game early when her dad cemented a 10-foot utility pole into the back yard, affixed a green-painted plywood board to the top and a rim to go with it and turned his kids – and the neighborhood – loose to play the game on that dirt surface.

Duncan idolized older brother Leon and wanted patterned her game after him. Despite not playing organized basketball until her freshman year at Clarkton High School, she was ready to excel.

“I just took to it because I had been playing the game all along, pickup games in our local gym,” Duncan said. “In the summer I would play against guys all the time. My brother Leon was instrumental in my playing basketball because the way he played, I wanted to play just like him. He was a great rebounder, great scorer – just dominant in the paint. So when I got to high school, I was already those things. I could already maneuver and do those things. I could score, I could rebound.”

Duncan drew notice despite playing for a small high school, getting recruiting letters from Old Dominion and South Carolina, then some tryouts and offers. It was one of those tryouts that changed Duncan’s life – her high school coach stopped her in the hallway one day her senior year with the news that UNC Asheville wanted her to come up for a tryout.

“I’m like, where is it? Never heard of it, never heard of the mountains – we’re down in the flatlands, right – we don’t have Google Maps or Google search,” Duncan said.

Something about it appealed to Duncan – the campus, the town, maybe the soaring blue-tinged mountains in the distance.

“Something was just in my spirit that this was my school,” Duncan said. “I just settled with UNC Asheville and it looks like it was the best decision that I’ve ever made.”

The winning didn’t start right away in Asheville – much of Duncan’s college career played out in front of mostly empty gymnasiums.

“The prominence of women’s basketball just was never really there,” Duncan said. “A lot of our games were unattended or we just had like a skeleton audience of people to come see us. I didn’t realize how many people supported women’s basketball until I got to Europe and played in Spain. I mean, they filled the gyms over there – big gyms, too. Everybody just comes out to watch the women play.”

By her senior year, the 6-foot-1 Duncan – generously listed at 6-2 1/2 by her school – had become a star for UNC Asheville.

“I didn’t play above the rim, but I was very agile around the basket – very dominant,” Duncan said. “I didn’t put the ball on the floor a lot either. If I rebounded, I kept it up and went straight back up. So I was on the free-throw line quite a bit.”

The best was still to come.

A stellar season earned the Bulldogs a spot in the NAIA national championship tournament in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – as an unseeded team.

Duncan had a premonition that her team was destined to win when UNC Asheville started raking in the door prizes during a pre-tournament banquet – she won a stuffed dog, not a bulldog but close enough.

Facing No. 8 seed Central Arkansas in the opening round, UNC Asheville quickly fell behind. That prompted coach Helen Carroll to tell her team at halftime that if they lost, their plane tickets home would be waiting for them on their seats in the locker room.

“We flew through at blizzard at Chicago O’Hare to get to Cedar Rapids,” Duncan said. “We couldn’t go home.”

UNC Asheville rallied back to win by two points, advancing to an even greater challenge against defending national champion Southwest Oklahoma State – the Bulldogs won that one 57-54.

In the semifinals, UNC Asheville faced off against Dillard University – a team that had blown them out in an earlier meeting during the regular season. With teammate Kim Duncan out with foul trouble, Sheila Ford Duncan knew she had to take over – her career-high 41-point, 19-rebound effort pushed UNC Asheville to an 81-64 win and a spot in the championship game against the University of Portland – the Bulldogs’ fourth game in four days.

Again Duncan starred with 26 points and 21 rebounds as UNC Asheville won the championship 72-70 in overtime – she set up the winning bucket after drawing three defenders in the paint, then snapping off a pass to teammate Trish Wyatt for the game-winning basket.

“It was magnificent,” Duncan said. “We couldn’t believe we’d won this thing, but we did.”

That was Duncan’s last college game, but not her last as player. Duncan landed a contract to play professionally in Vigo, Spain, but injured her knee during that first season – it required surgery and proved the end of her playing career.

Since then, Duncan spent a few years in Washington, D.C. working for then-U.S. representative Martin Lancaster before continuing her studies toward a master’s degree – that led Duncan to Bowling Green, where she worked designing sports apparel at Fruit of the Loom before eventually transitioning to teaching. Duncan currently teaches at Warren East Middle School.

Already a member of UNC Asheville’s Athletic Hall of Fame and with her number retired and jersey hanging from the rafters at Kimmel Arena, Duncan’s playing days may be a memory now but she is still very much remembered – the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame induction is just the latest proof of that.

“I never dreamed this,” Duncan said. “I never dreamed it.”