In an era of no Internet, very limited television and no recruiting services to turn teenage athletes into national celebrities, how does a kid from small-town Middle America become the most famous high school basketball player in the nation? By being as talented and as well-rounded as Jerry Lucas. Before there was Bill Bradley, before […]
Sinatra had his voice, Hendrix had his guitar, and Rick Mount had his jump shot. Sinatra?s smooth-as-velvet singing and Hendrix?s pyrotechnic playing likely generated more worldwide fame and fortune, but it?s doubtful either man had more mastery of his instrument than Mount did any time he had a basketball in his hands, anywhere in a […]
Isiah Thomas was one of the most heavily recruited basketball players the Chicago area has ever produced. Bob Knight landed him by winning over the person who exerted the strongest influence in Thomas? life: his mother. Mary Thomas was an incredibly strong-willed woman who raised her own nine children and helped with scores of neighborhood […]
Mark Spitz swam as if something was chasing him. In a sense, something was, even and perhaps most notably during a four-year period of world domination. Just 18 when he qualified for the Mexico City Olympics in 1968, Spitz was already one of swimming?s most accomplished performers, his resume packed with age-group world records, AAU […]
John Wooden cast such a giant shadow as a college basketball coach that his comparably impressive achievements as a player are easily overlooked. Indeed, when Wooden died at age 99 earlier this year, his incomparable run of 10 national championships over a 12-year stretch at UCLA led the tributes. Seven of those titles came in […]
An opponent once said playing defense against Ron Dayne was ?like trying to tackle a Coke machine.? Or maybe like trying to interrupt a landslide. At 5-foot-10 and 260 pounds, Dayne left a trail of bodies in his wake whenever he carried the football for the Wisconsin Badgers, which was often: a Big Ten-record 1,220 times […]