University of North Carolina Athletics
Sylvia Crawley won the 1998 ABL Slam Dunk Contest with this blindfolded dunk. (ABL Photo)
Celebrate Carolina: Crawley's Memorable Dunk
July 2, 2020 | Women's Basketball
This week's Celebrate Carolina feature puts the spotlight on a storied player who achieved a unique title following her Tar Heel career. Sylvia Crawley played center for UNC from 1991-94 and helped Carolina to an NCAA Championship as a senior. After graduation, she played professionally for 12 years, competing in 16 countries overseas and for both U.S. pro leagues active at that time, the then-fledgling WNBA and the now-defunct ABL.
It was with the ABL that Crawley won the first professional women's basketball slam dunk contest. In the preliminary round, Crawley, then playing for the Colorado Xplosion, had the top score to advance to the final, which was on Jan. 18, 1998. She won the title with a dramatic blind-folded dunk.
After her playing career, Crawley went on to coach at several schools, including at UNC. She was honored in 2012 as an ACC Tournament Legend.
Crawley now lives in Durham, N.C., where she is the CEO of a fashion and interior design company called Crawley's Creation LLC. (During the COVID crisis, her company has started making masks. Check her out on Etsy!)
GoHeels spoke with Crawley about her memories of the 1998 ABL event:
GoHeels: Had you practiced that blindfolded dunk a lot?
Crawley: I practiced a lot and missed a lot. My teammates and some of my buddies from the Denver Broncos who lived in my neighborhood helped me practice. Ironically, this happened to be the year that the NBA decided not to have a dunk contest, so the ABL's first ever Women's Dunk contest drew a lot of media attention. I was favored to win and prior to the dunk contest many reporters were interviewing me about what kind of dunk I would do. All six contestants only knew how to do the same one-handed dunk, so I felt like I needed to do something special, especially since the media kept asking me about it. I started feeling an enormous amount of pressure. Now meanwhile, I'm practicing with my team every morning and afterwards I'm having dunk practices. So my friends and teammates convinced me to do a blindfold dunk. It was a disaster when I first started. I decided that I wasn't going to announce it to the media in case it didn't work out and I wanted to change my mind the day of the contest.
GH: What do you remember about the winning dunk?
Crawley: My plan was that I was supposed to have my eyes open behind the mask that I was wearing. But on the day of the contest, I counted my steps from the rim and closed my eyes while my sister, Helen, tied the blindfold on me. Well, she tied it so tight that I wasn't able to open my eyes to see the basket. So I'm expressing to her that it's too tight and I can't see, and she's terrified and offers to retie it. Fortunately, I could open my eyes just enough to see straight down my nose to the floor. So as my sister prayed and my heart was pounding 100 beats per second, I took off for the basket. As I ran towards the basket, I saw the mark that I put on the floor earlier that day. I knew to start my two steps to the rim from my mark. Suspended in the air, I prayed, "Lord, please don't let me make a fool of myself on national TV!" And the next thing I knew I had successfully found the rim. The sound of the rim bending sounded like a sweet, sweet melody! I pulled off my mask, and my sister and I cheered harder than everyone witnessing it at the Walt Disney Sport Complex. We couldn't believe that I had actually pulled it off! That one moment in time changed my life forever – it taught me to walk by faith, not by sight!
GH: Can you still dunk?
Crawley: I can still touch the rim but have not tried to dunk in at least five years.
It was with the ABL that Crawley won the first professional women's basketball slam dunk contest. In the preliminary round, Crawley, then playing for the Colorado Xplosion, had the top score to advance to the final, which was on Jan. 18, 1998. She won the title with a dramatic blind-folded dunk.
Celebrate Carolina! 🎉
This week we're flashing back to that time Sylvia Crawley won the ABL Slam Dunk Contest with a blindfolded jam😱🤩🏀👀#TBT | #InPursuit pic.twitter.com/YE7LXgSVgr
— Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) July 2, 2020
After her playing career, Crawley went on to coach at several schools, including at UNC. She was honored in 2012 as an ACC Tournament Legend.
Crawley now lives in Durham, N.C., where she is the CEO of a fashion and interior design company called Crawley's Creation LLC. (During the COVID crisis, her company has started making masks. Check her out on Etsy!)
GoHeels spoke with Crawley about her memories of the 1998 ABL event:
GoHeels: Had you practiced that blindfolded dunk a lot?
Crawley: I practiced a lot and missed a lot. My teammates and some of my buddies from the Denver Broncos who lived in my neighborhood helped me practice. Ironically, this happened to be the year that the NBA decided not to have a dunk contest, so the ABL's first ever Women's Dunk contest drew a lot of media attention. I was favored to win and prior to the dunk contest many reporters were interviewing me about what kind of dunk I would do. All six contestants only knew how to do the same one-handed dunk, so I felt like I needed to do something special, especially since the media kept asking me about it. I started feeling an enormous amount of pressure. Now meanwhile, I'm practicing with my team every morning and afterwards I'm having dunk practices. So my friends and teammates convinced me to do a blindfold dunk. It was a disaster when I first started. I decided that I wasn't going to announce it to the media in case it didn't work out and I wanted to change my mind the day of the contest.
GH: What do you remember about the winning dunk?
Crawley: My plan was that I was supposed to have my eyes open behind the mask that I was wearing. But on the day of the contest, I counted my steps from the rim and closed my eyes while my sister, Helen, tied the blindfold on me. Well, she tied it so tight that I wasn't able to open my eyes to see the basket. So I'm expressing to her that it's too tight and I can't see, and she's terrified and offers to retie it. Fortunately, I could open my eyes just enough to see straight down my nose to the floor. So as my sister prayed and my heart was pounding 100 beats per second, I took off for the basket. As I ran towards the basket, I saw the mark that I put on the floor earlier that day. I knew to start my two steps to the rim from my mark. Suspended in the air, I prayed, "Lord, please don't let me make a fool of myself on national TV!" And the next thing I knew I had successfully found the rim. The sound of the rim bending sounded like a sweet, sweet melody! I pulled off my mask, and my sister and I cheered harder than everyone witnessing it at the Walt Disney Sport Complex. We couldn't believe that I had actually pulled it off! That one moment in time changed my life forever – it taught me to walk by faith, not by sight!
GH: Can you still dunk?
Crawley: I can still touch the rim but have not tried to dunk in at least five years.
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