George Yardley

George Harry Yardley III (November 3, 1928 – August 12, 2004) was an American basketball player. Born in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, he was the son of George H. Yardley Jr., a building contractor, and Dorothy (Schoyer) Yardley. In 1942 the family moved to Balboa Island in Newport Beach, and Yardley attended Newport Harbor High School, where he starred on the basketball team. By his 1946 graduation he had reached his adult height of 6 ft 5 in, and he was named third-team All-CIF.

Yardley went on to Stanford University, where he made the basketball team as a walk-on without a scholarship. He played on the varsity from 1947 to 1950, and as a senior broke a long-standing Pacific Coast record previously held by former Stanford star Hank Luisetti, which had stood for twelve years.

In the National Basketball Association, Yardley became the first player in league history to score 2,000 points in a single season, surpassing the previous record of 1,932 points held by George Mikan. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996.