Sorry, Celtics. Basketball Star Goes on to Distinguished Medical Career

When Clyde Lord graduated from UVM in 1959, the then men’s basketball all-time scoring leader found himself at a crossroads. He could go to the tryout the Boston Celtics had invited him to. Or he could head to medical school.

It was an easy decision, said his wife of 63 years, Barbara Lord.

“His thinking was that, as a six-feetone center, you’re not going to get that far as a professional,” she said.

His realism about a pro basketball career was only part of the reason Lord opted for med school. From an early age he dreamed of being a doctor. He came to UVM on a full scholarship from Boys High in Brooklyn, at his coach’s advice, because the university had a medical school. Once at the university, he worked as hard at academics as basketball, earning the Wasson Athletic Prize for excellence in the classroom and on the basketball court.

“What sports taught me was discipline,” Lord said in a Vermont Quarterly tribute.

That discipline served him well during his 50-plus-year career.

Lord, who died Jan. 2, made the right call. After choosing historically black Meharry Medical College in Nashville among several schools that accepted him, including UVM, and graduating second in his class, Lord had a long and distinguished medical career.

But not before lighting up Patrick Gym.

Lord might have been small for a center, but he employed “a wide variety of moves, a great deal of speed and unusual rebounding ability,” the Cynic wrote. Those skills enabled him to score 1,308 points over his career, a record that stood for decades. He was elected most valuable player by the student body twice and to the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame in 1974.

After practicing in Okinawa (as a physician with the U.S. Army) and New York, Lord and his family moved to Atlanta, where he started the first anesthesiology group for Southwest Hospital and Medical Center and co-founded the state’s first pain management clinic. He was beloved by his patients, many of whom he called at home after surgery.

Lord never forgot the joy sports gave him. A talented golfer in adulthood, he passed on his love of athletic competition to generations of young people—including his three sons—by coaching youth sports and stressing the importance of academics to all of them. Many of those young people went on to successful professional careers. Three became anesthesiologists.

“They looked up to him and admired him,” Barbara Lord said. “He just prided himself on being a good physician and a caring person.”