The pro scouts are fond of saying that most great stars show their athletic ability at an early age. Bobby Orr, for example, was an outstanding hockey prospect at the age of twelve. Mickey Lolich was pitching shutouts as a teen-ager in the Babe Ruth League. And there are many other examples. Yet sometimes a fumble-fingered youngster who moves as if he has two left feet turns out to be a superstar.
This is the story of one boy who couldn’t seem to do anything right, at least in the beginning.
As a gawky teen-ager, the boy tried out for his freshman high school football team. Opposing players had a fine time running all over him. He tried out for the basketball team, and in three games failed to score a point. Baseball produced no better results. He was the first boy dropped from the squad.
Still determined, the boy came back out for basketball as a sophomore. But the team ran out of uniforms. Rather than get one for him, the coach told him to forget about playing. The boy joined a team in a church league, but even facing other ordinary players, he couldn’t get very far. His dribbling was poor, his passing was worse and his shots never went anywhere near the basket.
Still the boy was not discouraged. His father set up a hoop in the backyard, gave him a basketball and urged him to keep practicing.
His shooting did improve. Also, by the time he was a junior, he stood 6-foot-5. Noting the change, his high school coach made sure he found a uniform to fit the boy. The improvement continued, slowly, steadily. At graduation the young man was 6-foot-7 and good enough to receive several college scholarship offers. He chose Louisiana State University.
The LSU freshman coach found him eager to learn. The following summer, he took a job as a counselor in a Wisconsin summer camp. There he met Ray Meyer, who had once coached the great George Mikan at DePaul. Meyer turned the young counselor into a fantastic shooter.
The rest of the story can be found in the NBA record book. The former clumsy oaf played eleven seasons with the St. Louis Hawks, and every sportswriter called him one of the greatest every to play basketball at any time, in any league. By the time he retired, this superstar had scored a total of 20,880 points as a pro.
The player’s name is Bob Pettit. He retired in 1965, but he is still in the record books with other all-time all-pro basketball players.
From The Giant Book of Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Pettit
Wait, I think the real story here is Ray Meyer worked at a summer camp. Did John Wooden work at a Florsheim’s shoes in the offseason?