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By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
Former UGA basketball star Teresa Edwards, one of the world’s premier female basketball players, will exchange her jersey and sneakers for a cap and gown when she steps onto her old  home court to speak at UGA’s fall semester Commencement Dec. 16.
Edwards, the only American basketball player, male or female, to compete in five Olympics, will address graduates in a 9:30 a.m. ceremony in Stegeman Coliseum. The exercises will be a combined ceremony for graduate and undergraduate students who complete degree requirements at the end of fall semester.
Registrar Gary Moore estimates that about 2,000 undergraduates and 700 graduate students will be eligible to participate. Final numbers will not be available until final exams are complete at the end of the semester. Typically, about half those eligible actually participate in a commencement ceremony.
Five undergraduates who have maintained perfect 4.0 grade point averages during their years at UGA will be recognized as First Honor Graduates. Those students and their majors are Cory R. Kampfer of Toledo, Ohio, international business; Mary E. Miles of Hiawassee, mathematics; Misty R. Pearce of Swainsboro, risk management and insurance; John E. Price Jr. of Gainesville, English; and Sharon M. Sonnenfeldt of Lilburn, anthropology.
The ceremony will be a departure from past fall semester commencements when separate exercises were held for undergraduate and graduate students. University officials decided to merge the exercises following a successful combined ceremony at summer commencement in August.
Every graduating student will receive individual recognition. Candidates for doctoral degrees will come to the stage to receive the traditional hood. Master’s degree candidates will have their names called and walk across the stage. Candidates for bachelor’s degrees will stand in the audience as their names are called.
Edwards will speak three months after helping the USA women’s basketball team win the gold medal in the Sydney Olympics. She retired following the Olympics, ending 19 years of international competition in which she helped USA teams win 13 medals, including four gold and one bronze in the Olympics and gold medals in the World Championships, Pan American Games, Junior Pan American Games and Goodwill Games.
She will speak from the same floor where, from 1982 to 1986, she helped lead the women’s basketball team to a 116-17 record, three Southeastern Conference titles and four NCAA tournaments, including two Final Four appearances. She was an All-American in 1985 and 1986 and on the All-SEC first team in 1984, 1985 and 1986.
She is UGA’s all-time leader in assists and steals and ranks third in scoring. Her number--5--has been retired, and in 1996 she was the first female athlete inducted into the Athletic Association’s Circle of Honor.
After the 1986 season, Edwards began playing professional basketball in Italy, Japan, Spain and France. She helped start the American Basketball League and played for two years. In her second year, she became the first player-coach in women’s basketball history. Between seasons, she returned to UGA to complete course work for a degree and in 1989 received a bachelor’s degree in education with a concentration in recreation and leisure studies.
This will be the first of three commencements UGA will hold in the current academic year. Ceremonies will be held next May for spring semester graduates and in August for summer semester graduates.
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