1977-79 Sportscaster #102-12 Flo Hyman

Most Cougar fans can name the first African American athletes to get a scholarship to the University of Houston, but can you name the first woman? It's Flo Hyman. I knew Flo was a great volleyball player, but I didn't know how influential and important she was.

In addition to being the first woman to receive an athletic scholarship to UH, she was a three time All American. In 1977, she was named the top female collegiate volleyball player. She was also the first female Coog to be inducted into UH's Hall of Honor. She left UH after her junior year to pursue the Olympic dream.

Unfortunately for her, the US boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and Flo would have to wait four more years to play in the LA Olympics. In LA, Flo led the US voleyball team to a silver medal.

Hyman also played professional volleyball in Japan. In 1986 during a professional match, she collapsed. She passed away later that night. It was originally thought that she was killed by a heart attack, but it was later announced that it was due to complications from Marfan syndrome.

She was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 1988 and named by USA Volleyball as the MVP for the years 1978-2002. In 1987, the Women’s Sports Foundation established an annual Flo Hyman Award to the female athlete who best exemplified over the course of her career Hyman’s “dignity, spirit, and commitment to excellence.”

Most consider her the greatest American volleyball player of her generation. Some even consider her greatest American volleyball player of all time. All I know is she was a great Cougar and someone we should be very proud to say that she went to UH.

Today's collectible is the 1977-79 Sportscast #102-12. These cards were not your typical standard sized trading card. They measured 4.75 x 6.5 inches and had stats on the back. The stats were later updated so there are multiple variations of the card.

The front contains a border at the top and an indication of the sport. Below the border, there is a picture of Flo in the USA volleyball uniform. Since the card was produced long before the 1984 Olympics, this was probably a picture from one of the many international tournaments that she played in trying to lead USA women's volleyball to respectability.

1991-93 5 Majeur #38 Clyde Drexler

Clyde Drexler was a late addition to the 1992 USA Basketball "Dream Team." He was added along with Christian Laettner after the original ten members were named. Despite not being named with the original team, he excelled in the Olympic games.

He played in all eight of the games and started three. Drexler averaged 10.5 points per game (fifth best on the team), 3.0 rebounds (sixth best), 3.6 assists (fourth), and 2.4 steals (fourth). As he did his entire career, Clyde showed his all around basketball talents.

Of course the team went 8-0 and won by an average of 43.8 points.

Today's collectible is the 1991-93 5 Majeur #38. These cards were inserted in the French magazine 5 Majeur from 1991 to 1993 with no number on the back. The card features Drexler in his Team USA uniform in a posed shot. The back features stats, player information, and player profile in French.

The layout and look is fairly bland, but the rarity of this exotic French collectible makes it an Olympic card worthy of interest.

Sports Illustrated - Carl Lewis

The Olympics have begun so for the next couple of weeks, let's feature University of Houston Olympians.

When you talk about the Olympics, to me one athlete stands out above the rest, Carl Lewis. 10 Olympic medals including 9 gold in 4 Olympic Games from 1984 to 1996.

Sports Illustrated included Carl Lewis on six covers with five rlated to the Olympics of the Olympic trials. Today let's look at each SI issue.

August 23rd, 1983

The only non-Olympic cover, this issue features Lewis at the World Championships in Helsinki where he won the long jump and 100 meter.

June 25th, 1984

Lewis wins at the Olympic trials.

August 20th, 1984

Lewis is pictured with the USA relay team. He wins four gold medals, 100 meter, 200 meter, 4x100 meter relay, and long jump.

No SI cover for the 1988 games despite gold medals in the 100 meter and long jump and silver medal in the 200 meter (behind another Cougar Joe DeLoach). Featured instead was Ben Johnson who had won the 100 meter race, but he was disqualified for steroid use. Other Olympians featured in 1988 were Florence Griffith Joyner and Jackie Joyner Kersee.

August 17th, 1992

Two more Olympic gold medals in Barcelona in the 4x100 meter relay and long jump. Lewis is again pictured with the relay team.

December 28th, 1992

The images of 1992 issue features Lewis enjoying the 4x100 victory.

August 5th, 1996

The cover proclaims Lewis as "The Best Ever" with an amazing photograph of him landing a long jump. He wins the long jump for his ninth gold medal.

1975 Carvel Discs #4 Don Chaney

I'm currently reading the book Cougars of Any Color about the integration of University of Houston athletics. I'll be posting a review on this blog soon, but today let's look at one of the players discussed in the book, Don Chaney.

Don Chaney, along with Elvin Hayes and Warren McVea, was in the first group of African American athletes recruited to play at UH. While overshadowed by Hayes, Chaney is one of the greatest basketball players in Cougar history. He scored over 1,000 points and was an All-American Honorable Mention in 1967 and Second Team All-American in 1968. He played every minute of the Game of the Century against UCLA and helped the Coogs go to their first two Final Fours in 1967 & 1968.

His outstanding college career led him to being selected 12th overall in the NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. He played 11 seasons in the NBA, winning two championships, and earning All Defensive Second Team honors five times. After his playing career was over, he went on to a long career as an NBA coach, winning Coach of the Year honors in 1992.

Today's collectible is the 1975 Carvel Disc #4. This is an oddball collectible. I don't have concrete information on this item, but it appears that it was a giveaway at Carvel Ice Cream.

The front of the disc has a black and white picture of Chaney with a facsimile autograph. Around the border, there is player information like date of birth, school, and some statistics.

There are multiple variations of this card. I can confirm the existence of green, orange, pink, and yellow bordered discs. I believe there is also a blue variation and possibly even white. I have seen other players in this set with blue and white, but I have not been able confirm that Chaney has these variations.

2008 Allen & Ginter #310 Michael Bourn

The talk of the hobby recently has been the release of the 2008 Allen & Ginter baseball product. The design of this card matches the earliest tobacco cards released in the late 1800s.

Like the original tobacco cards, the set wasn't restricted to just baseball players. Included in the 2008 Allen & Ginter set are world leaders, state flags, ancient icons, historical figures, and world champions. The historical figures includes some unique cards like Abe Lincoln and JFK "DNA Relic" cards which contains a hair from famous figures.

World Champions includes not only mainstream champions like boxing champion Archie Moore, swimming champion Mark Spitz, and Olympic champion Bruce Jenner, but it also includes more obscure champions. Some of those include the World Air Guitar Champion, Rock Paper Scissors champion, and my personal favorite Billy Mitchell, the video game champion who was the first person to complete a perfect game of Pacman. If you don't know who Bill Mitchell is, I highly recommend watching the movie The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It's a documentary on setting the world Donkey Kong record. Surprisingly it's a very good movie.

I highly recommend checking out the press release for this product. I don't buy boxes or packs of cards, but if I stumble across these at a store, I might just have to pick up a few packs. I'm not even a huge baseball fan, but this product just looks too fun to ignore.

Included in this product is Michael Bourn on card #310. The picture is an artistically modified photo with a white background that resembles the style of the original Allen & Ginter cards. The font used is almost identical to the old style. Most of the cards have a vertical orientation, but Bourn's card has a more artistic horizontal layout.

Variations on this card include several mini cards which are much smaller than the base version. Mini variations include Allen & Ginter backs, Bazooka backs, black framed, wood, and silk versions. Yes, the last two are really made of wood or silk.

This is just a beautiful card from a fun set.

2007-08 Upper Deck Premier Franchise Faces Autographs #FFHO Hakeem Olajuwon

Let's look at a high end product today, Upper Deck Premier basketball. Many people collected cards at one point in their life and don't realize the massive changes in the hobby. For those unaware, there are several tiers and price ranges for products. Upper Deck Premier is on the very high end of the hobby.

Check out Upper Deck's press release for this product. First of all, look at the suggested retail price: $300 per seven card pack. That's right. Not $300 per case or even $300 per box. $300 for seven cards. Luckily I don't open boxes or even packs usually because I only collect Houston Cougars, but even if I did, I'd never pay $300 for a pack of cards unless I win the lottery. The good news is that people open these packs, keep what they want, and sell the rest of eBay, frequently at a decent price. That's the only way I'd collect a product like this

So what do you get for $300? One, you get a very limited print run. Second, you are guaranteed to get autographs and relics which is pretty cool. But what if you get a player you don't like or not worth much if you want to sell it?

The seven cards break down like this:
1 - Regular base card or non-autographed rookie card
2 - Rookie card with autograph and relic
3 - Patch card, possibly with autograph
4 - Autographed card
5 - Jersey card
6 - Patch/jersey card or autograph/relic card
7 - Another card from group 4-6

That's really exciting to get very cool cards like that in every pack, but again, what if you don't like the players in the pack?

This week's Olajuwon card is 2007-08 Upper Deck Premier Franchise Faces Autographs #FFHO. This is a gorgeous card with Olajuwon as the face of the Rockets franchise. I don't think there's any question that if you could only pick one player to represent the Rockets' history, it would be Hakeem. The card is very limited with only 34 made.

There is also an autograph directly on the card, not on an attached sticker. There is a problem with the autograph since it is on a very busy background. The autograph should be the highlight of the card so the card could have been designed to make the autograph stand out more.

1995-96 Collector's Choice #196 Hakeem Olajuwon

Collector's Choice was a brand from Upper Deck that was produced basketball cards from 1994-95 to 1997-98. It was designed to keep kids in the trading card hobby as the business was becoming geared towards premium cards. Collector's Choice was very inexpensive with more cards per pack, and it had cards designed for the kid market. Unfortunately most kids wanted the same things as most adults, to open the pack that would have the expensive, rare insert card or the card with the over the top special effects. Collector's Choice didn't have many special effects and insert cards were limited

Today's card is the 1995-96 Collector's Choice #196 of Hakeem Olajuwon. This is not the regular base card for Olajuwon. It is a Professor Dunk card. I guess the Professor is supposed to teach us how Hakeem plays basketball and dunks.

The front of the card shows Hakeem post-dunk against the Miami Heat. The card has a special treat for UH fans since it also features Coog Carl Herrera in the background. It also has a graphic of Professor Dunk on a very clunky red banner.

The back has the Professor again with a small picture of Olajuwon attempting another dunk. The Professor's analysis of Hakeem's game is included. The funniest thing on the card is a quote from the Professor: "Don't even try blocking the Dream's shot. In da Face!!!" That's quite an analysis... in da face.