NAME:
Wallace (Wally) Aliifua Rank
BIRTHPLACE:
Fort Ord, California, USA
KNOWN FOR:
Former professional NBA Basketball player and CEO of Top Rank Properties. He was the founder of Youth Outreach United (Y.O.U), which sponsored the South Pacific Games in Carson, California for many years.
SHORT BIO / CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:
A 6’6″ guard-forward, Rank played college basketball for San Jose State University from 1977 to 1980. He scored 1,432 points in his college career. He is only the third player in school history to lead the team in scoring in three consecutive seasons. He was named the 1980 PCAA Tournament Most Valuable Player, and helped San Jose State earn its second NCAA Tournament berth in school history.
Rank was drafted by the San Diego Clippers in the 5th Round and 99th overall of the 1980 NBA Draft. He played 25 games for the San Diego (now known as Los Angeles) Clippers during the 1980-1981 NBA season, scoring 55 points. In that year, he played alongside Joe ‘Jelly-Bean’ Bryant (L.A Laker – Kobe Bryant’s father), before spending a short period with the L.A Lakers, and then to Sacramora Rimini in Italy.
In 1993, Rank played for the Western Samoa National Basketball team at the Oceania Championships.
Rank worked for the Los Angeles County Office of Education from 1991-2006, and is currently the CEO of Top Rank Properties, Seal Beach, California. He is associated with groups such as – Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles, National Pacific Islander Education Network and California Association of Realtors.
In 2012, Rank was part of the 2012 Hall of Fame class that included 7 other athletes and 2 football teams to be inducted into the San Jose State University Hall of Fame on October 26th. He joins more than 350 Spartans from 100-plus years of athletics competition who have excelled in their sports at the collegiate and/or professional levels.
- First Samoan and and Pacific Islander to play in the NBA
- Still maintains several records for college basketball at San José State University