Patricia Ann Myers Has Died: Patriarch of Prolific SoCal Sports Family

Ann Myers might never have played with the boys if it hadn’t been for her mother.

The precocious basketball player who became a star at UCLA before receiving tryouts with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers when she was in fifth grade wanted to hang out with her male classmates after school.

It wasn’t as easy as showing off her many skills. Ann had to have her mother, Patricia Ann, and her father, Bob, go to the school board and get approval for what was considered a novel concept through the local parent-teacher association.

“Having parents who support their daughters and sons in competing in sports has been really great,” said Ann.

Patricia Ann has been a lot of cheerleader over the years. Her son Mark went to UC Berkeley on a football scholarship. Her son Dave won a national championship with his UCLA team, the last of his coach John Wooden before spending his five years in the NBA. Her daughter Patty, whom Anne called perhaps the best athlete in her family, won a national basketball title in Fullerton, California before playing softball professionally.

Patricia Ann, patriarch of one of Southern California’s most prolific sports families, died of natural causes on Sept. 25 at her home in Laguna Niguel, surrounded by her family. She was 96 years old.

A lifelong volunteer, Patricia Ann dedicated herself to washing and ironing linen and serving wheeled meals twice a week for our local church, Our Lady of Guadalupe. The city of La Herra Habra hosted her luncheon in 2015, recognizing her for her more than 50 years of enriching the lives of her people.

Born December 13, 1925 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, Patricia Ann Burke was the third of eight children. When she was five, she lost her mother to complications in her childbirth, forcing her to cultivate her resilience while she was young. She enlisted in the U.S. Nursing Corps at Marquette University, where she met the team’s points guard for basketball. They were married in December 1946.

The family continued to move, raising 11 children, moving from Point Loma to Wheaton, Illinois, before returning to California to live in a two-story house in La Habra.

It was there that Bob arranged a chair in the living room and had the children pivot and move around it as if they were defenders. Ann once broke his ankle when jumping off a flight of stairs trying to match his older brother Dave’s leap.

Three years after Dave’s Bruins won the national championship at the San Diego Sports Arena, Ann’s team won the 1978 Assn. intercollegiate athletics for the women’s national title. She later married Dodgers legend Don Drysdale, becoming Ann Myers Drysdale.

Widely hailed for her kindness and generosity, Patricia Ann regularly hosted bridge lunches and flew to Milwaukee for a reunion with a nursing friend.

She has seven children, Mark Myers, Katherine Myers, Anne Myers Drysdale, Jeffrey Myers, Susan Myers, Colleen Lindsay, and Robert Myers Jr., and 19 grandchildren and 13. has a great-grandchild of Her funeral will be held at 10:00 am on November 11 at Our Lady of Guadalupe in La She Habra.