''But it was really tackle,'' she says. ''I was the only girl. I liked to play when my dad wasn't there, because we played in our back yard. And if he saw it was tackle, he'd come out and stop the game. He thought I was gonna get hurt.''
It was the boys her dad should have been concerned about, Shana says. ''I put a lickin' on some of them.''
Then there were the neighborhood boys who would knock on the Robertsons' door and ask if Oscar would shoot baskets.
Surely he was smiling inside. His girls were good.
If Oscar wanted a boy, he never let on, Yvonne and friends say. When he's asked about it, he says, ''I never really thought about it. You're just hoping your kid is healthy.''
Oscar flew out to take her to a doctor. Before the appointment, from his hotel, he and Tia called Yvonne. The uncertainty scared them.
''Tia started crying,'' Yvonne says. ''And Oscar started crying. She said, 'Am I really sick?' ''
Tia eventually was diagnosed as having lupus, a disease that causes the body's immune system to attack tissues and vital organs.
She moved back to Cincinnati and went to work at Orpack, one of her father's companies. Gradually, the disease took its toll. She tired easily, and her joints ached. She had to cut back on physical activity.
In 1994, doctors determined the disease was causing her kidneys to fail. By November 1996, her kidneys were functioning so poorly she began dialysis at her parents' home, where she was now living. Seven to eight hours a night, a machine cleansed her blood.
For Tia to have any semblance of a normal life, she would need a transplant. The family - Oscar, Yvonne, Shana, Mari and Tia - met to consider the options. They decided Tia would go on a waiting list for a kidney from a cadaver; in the meantime, tests would determine if one of them was a compatible donor.
Both Oscar and Shana were good candidates; he was a slightly better match.
''Oscar said he wanted to do it,'' Yvonne says. ''He didn't even want Shana to have to make that decision.''
Says Oscar: ''When you see a family member suffer, and you know there's a way out, you'd do almost anything to help.''
After the six-hour procedure April 10, ''The first thing he said was, 'How's Tia?' '' Yvonne says. ''The second thing was, 'We were right; I was the best one to do this.' ''
''She's beginning to get on with her life,'' her mother says.
The Robertsons had hoped to keep the whole episode quiet. ''I didn't want a lot of publicity because my daughter didn't want it,'' Oscar says.
She still doesn't. Tia declined to be interviewed for this story.
After the story got out, Oscar says, he was shocked by the resulting media blitz - and by the public's response.
Hundreds of cards and letters from around the country poured into the Robertson home. A basket of them sits on the floor next to a display case with a basketball from the 1960 Olympics, where Oscar won a gold medal.
''I think sometimes in life you're put here for a certain reason,'' he says. ''Why are you living and breathing and someone else isn't? I don't think you're here just to mark time, even though you might not think that what you're doing is important.''
Maybe, he says, it was important that people learned about lupus and organ donation through his family's experience.
At 58, Oscar has gray hair, but his face retains a youthful look, dominated by those big eyes that could see all over a basketball court.
He can come across as somewhat brusque. But get to know him, those close to him say, and you see a different Oscar.
''Oscar is the most tender, most sensitive human being I ever met in my life,'' says Milt Kantor, chairman of the board of Victory Wholesale Foods in Springboro and a friend since the '60s.
''He's a public figure,'' his lawyer and friend, Robert S.Brown, says in his Carew Tower office, ''but at the same time I think he much prefers to be a private person.''
''He's satisfied being at home,'' Yvonne says. ''He likes people, but . . . he doesn't have to go out and reaffirm his maleness and his ego with the guys all the time. He's never been that kind of person.''
His oldest brother, Bailey, was the outgoing, flamboyant one. With a third brother, Henry, they grew up in Indianapolis.
When Oscar began playing basketball, he was merely following Bailey's lead. Bailey would go on to star at Indiana Central University (now the University of Indianapolis), and play with the Harlem Globetrotters.
Bailey, who lived in Indianapolis, died of lung cancer three years ago. He was 59.
''My brother didn't take care of himself,'' says Oscar, who turns 59 next month. ''He smoked all the time. He was heavy.''
''I'm glad I took care of myself so I was able to donate the kidney to my daughter. That would have been the worst thing in my life for that kidney not to work for her.''
Oscar didn't approve of Bailey's lifestyle and let his brother know it. Yvonne says that's not unusual. ''Most of the time, he really tells you what he thinks.''
''I don't try to hurt anybody,'' Oscar says of his candor. ''But everyone says how my tongue is sharp.''
He will say, for instance, that he believes corporate Cincinnati often gives only lip service to African-American businesses, his own included.
''We've gotten some business here, but it's not what I thought it should be.''
Racial issues concern him. His views have been molded in part by an ugly past.
Forty years ago, he became the first African-American to play on UC's basketball team. On road trips, curses and taunts weren't the worst of it. In Houston, he had to leave his team's ''white'' hotel and stay in a dorm 14 miles away - by himself. In North Carolina, the Ku Klux Klan sent a death threat.
Today, he still sees much room for improvement, both nationally and in the city he calls home.
''To me, this is an anti-black sports town,'' he says of Cincinnati. ''I look directly at the Reds and their history.
''Even now, they have not retired Frank Robinson's jersey. (The Hall of Famer spent the bulk of his career with the Reds.) You can't overlook that.''
Other former Reds are worthy of tributes, he says, but have gone unrecognized: Joe Morgan, Ken Griffey Sr., George Foster.
''I love Cincinnati,'' he says. ''Wonderful people here, white and black. But this is still the situation that exists.''
The issue goes beyond sports. ''I don't think the white establishment here really depicts blacks as being a force, whether it's politically or as consumers.
''To me, in Cincinnati, African-Americans don't have a voice. When things happen, there's no one out championing your cause.''
A history professor at Purdue University has begun writing a book about Oscar.
''I told this guy, my life is dull,'' Oscar says. ''Been married to the same woman for a long time. I said, man, people don't want to hear that . . . they like bizarre things.''
Oscar will be making no claims to have bedded 20,000 women, as did Wilt Chamberlain, another basketball legend. Oscar has not been seen wearing dresses, as has current star Dennis Rodman.
Oscar Robertson will, however, lay claim to this:
Born into a poor family in rural Tennessee. Moved to Indianapolis when he was 4. Lived in a Christian family. Did well in school. Learned about hard work from his mother, a beautician, and his father, a sanitation worker. Weathered the divorce of his parents, and stayed close to both.
When he was in college, he met the love of his life and married her. They had three children, and when one needed a kidney, Oscar provided it. Since then, he's helped raise money for kidney and lupus research.
''I think one of the things that has concerned him is that nobody ever thought his story was important,'' Yvonne says.
''But especially for African-American children, I think they should know . . . you can live a normal life, even though you are a famous person. And still live an important life.''
''He made us realize what's important,'' says his youngest daughter, Mari, who is pursuing a doctorate in economics at Northwestern University.
''It's not the money. It's not the fame. It's your family. Your character. Your word. Simple things that anybody can have no matter what they do in their life.''
BIG O's ASSIST OF A LIFETIME April 16, 1997
