The LA Times Catches up with 1960 Olympian Bob Boozer

On Sunday, the New York Times featured an article written by The Big O, Oscar Robertson while the Los Angeles Times ran a feature on former Lakers great, Bob Boozer.  Jerry Crowe of the Times wrote:

CROWE'S NEST

Bob Boozer put his NBA dreams on hold to play for a dream team

Boozer, the No. 1 pick in the 1959 NBA draft, didn't sign immediately so he could play for the 1960 U.S. Olympic team. On Friday, that team will be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

by Jerry Crowe
August 8, 2010

Knee injuries delayed the professional basketball debuts of No. 1 NBA draft picks Greg Oden and Blake Griffin.

For Bob Boozer, it was national pride.

The top pick in 1959, he kept the Cincinnati Royals at arm's length for more than a year to maintain his amateur status in hopes of playing for Team USA in the 1960 Olympics.

"I always had this deep desire to represent this country on its Olympic basketball squad," Boozer says, "and at that time, you only had one go-round at it. Everyone told me, 'Your chances are remote,' et cetera, et cetera. Each person that tried to get me to sign on the dotted line expressed that, but I said, 'Hey, this is something I've got to go for.'

"I knew I only had once chance."

The 6-foot-8 former forward made the most of it, taking his place on a team coached by Pete Newell that tore through its Olympic competition in Rome by an average of 42.4 points a game.

Considered the greatest amateur basketball team ever assembled, it featured future Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Jerry Lucas and Walt Bellamy.

"We," Boozer says, "were the first Dream Team."

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will pay homage Friday, enshrining the team en masse along with the 1992 Dream Team ( Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, et al) and eight individuals, among them Jerry Buss, Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, Cynthia Cooper and the late Dennis Johnson.

Boozer, 73, is delighted to be in their company.

A member of the Nebraska State Board of Parole and a former Laker, he never regretted his decision to postpone the start of his NBA career to chase his Olympic dream.

He'd been a two-time All-American under Tex Winter at Kansas State, where the Wildcats utilized the triangle offense in reaching the Final Four in 1958, but was in no hurry to go pro.

"I had tunnel vision," says the gold medalist, who is no relation to Carlos Boozer of the Chicago Bulls. "I was going to stay out that year and try out for the Olympic basketball squad. No ifs, ands or buts about it, that's what I was going to do."

Still, he notes in a phone interview, "I couldn't possibly do it now, with the kind of money they're giving away."

But 50 years ago, while working for Peoria Caterpillar and playing for the company's team in the National Industrial Basketball League during the 1959-60 season, Boozer says he earned only slightly less than he would have made playing for the Royals.

At the AAU national tournament, the Cats won the championship, and Boozer was the tournament's most valuable player.

After the Olympics, Boozer rejoined Robertson in Cincinnati and launched an 11-season NBA career in which he played for six teams, averaging 15 points and eight rebounds a game.

In 1966, he helped the Lakers reach the NBA Finals and in 1971 he won a championship with the Milwaukee Bucks.

"That season with the Lakers was the most enjoyable season I ever had in the NBA because it was Hollywood, Los Angeles," Boozer says. "Jack Kent Cooke had parties at his place and you got a chance to meet movie stars. It was a fun time.

"I hated to leave, I know that."

But after the Boston Celtics broke the Lakers' hearts in Game 7, Boozer was left unprotected in the expansion draft and picked up by the Bulls. In Chicago, he enjoyed his most productive NBA seasons, making his only All-Star appearance in 1968.

"If good players get minutes," he says, "they're going to score."

In Milwaukee, Boozer rejoined Robertson and capped his career playing alongside a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

All the while, he was preparing for life after basketball, having spent several summers before his retirement working in a management-training program at the Bell System.

"You can tell when your career is over," Boozer says. "The training camps were harder, your body didn't bounce back as readily as it used to. It was more of a job, rather than fun.

"If we won the championship, I definitely was going."

They did and he bolted, spending the next 27 years working for Ma Bell, the last 10 as a federal lobbyist in Washington. In 1997, after a fitful month of retirement, Boozer was appointed by then-Nebraska Gov. Ben Nelson to the State Board of Parole, "and I've been there ever since."

He and Ella, his wife of 42 years, are grandparents.

In Springfield, Mass., this week, Boozer will be reunited with teammates who might be unaware of the path he took to the Olympics.

"I didn't realize he'd waited a year to make the team," Lucas said last week. "I think that's fantastic. I mean, he had the dream and he accomplished it. It's a tremendous story."

Boozer couldn't have done it any other way. Maybe it was a gamble, he says, but the reward was worth the risk.

"Winning that gold medal and standing on that podium with 'The Star Spangled Banner' being played — that's a feeling you can't understand unless you've experienced it," he says. "It's very moving, something I don't think you can duplicate."

Oscar Robertson on the 1960 US Olympic Team

This from Sunday's New York Times sports section:


Collegians Were the Olympic Basketball Show in 1960

By OSCAR ROBERTSON
Let me tell you about the original Dream Team, the 1960 United States Olympic gold medalist basketball team coached by Pete Newell, with Jerry West and me as the co-captains.

Fifty years after our triumph in Rome, that team will assemble again on Friday in Springfield, Mass., for enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame — along with the 1992 gold medalists, who had the Dream Team name bestowed upon them when they competed.

Our team represented a changing of the guard for the United States in Olympic competition, just as the 1992 team did when N.B.A. players represented this country for the first time. Instead of Amateur Athletic Union players, our team came primarily from the college ranks.

As young as we were, with no professional experience and only three of us having previously played together, we represented the United States as well as any other team in history.

In Newell, we had one of the greatest teachers and coaches ever. He would generally figure out a way to beat you, regardless of the talent on his teams.

We had speed, quickness and stamina, played stifling defense, and rebounded at both ends of the court. We averaged 102 points and held our opponents to fewer than 60. We played textbook basketball, blocking out under the boards, setting picks for each other, moving without the ball to get open for good shots. Everyone played his role. (The importance of a strong bench with unselfish role players is lost on many teams today.)

I didn’t need to score 33 points a game, as I had at the University of Cincinnati, and I preferred looking to pass first, anyway, and get everyone involved in the offense. Terry Dischinger, Jerry Lucas and West were particularly adept at getting open. Five players averaged in double figures (17 for Lucas and me, West at 13.8, Dischinger at 11.8, Adrian Smith at 10.9).

Our nightly “clinics” in Rome accelerated the development of basketball programs in other countries. Newell later taught the game around the world, generally without pay.

We were seriously challenged only once, in our sixth Olympic game, when the Soviet Union drew as close as 7 at halftime. (This was at the height of the cold war, with huge pressure on both teams to win.) Newell did not trust the officiating in a close game, so we opened the second half by smothering the Soviets with a full-court press and simultaneously went on a 25-1 tear. We won, 81-57. Then we beat Italy, 112-81, and then Brazil by 90-63 for the gold.

How this team got to Rome was a story in itself. In 1960, USA Basketball did not exist to coordinate the selection process. A.A.U. officials had made the selections since 1936, when basketball became an Olympic sport. The A.A.U. players were amateurs in name only. They worked for companies — like Goodyear, Vickers Aviation, Caterpillar or Phillips 66 — that had National Industrial Basketball League teams. The N.B.A. did not pay well and offered no benefits. For many college graduates, A.A.U. basketball was the better option.

In the Olympic tryouts, Newell’s team of N.C.A.A. all-stars ended A.A.U. domination. We routed their strongest teams — Goodyear, Phillips and Caterpillar — but even then, Newell was not permitted to choose all the collegians he wanted. There was no room for John Havlicek, Tom Sanders, Lenny Wilkens or others who went on to N.B.A. stardom.

Besides me, our team’s collegians were the seniors West (West Virginia) and Jay Arnette (Texas), all of whom could play guard or forward; the sophomores Dischinger (Purdue), at 19 our youngest player, and Lucas (from Ohio State’s 1960 national championship team) at forward; and the junior Walt Bellamy (Indiana) and the senior Darrall Imhoff (the anchor of Newell’s 1959 California champions) at center. Lucas also periodically played center.

Smith, a speedy guard from Kentucky’s 1958 championship team who could score from 30 feet, represented the Armed Forces all-stars. He, West and I played on the 1959 Pan American Games team. Smith was most valuable player of the 1966 N.B.A. All-Star Game, and he still has the car he won for that honor.

From the A.A.U. came forwards Bob Boozer (Peoria Caterpillars), an all-American at Kansas State who delayed his N.B.A. career for Olympic eligibility, and Burdette Haldorson (Phillips Oilers, University of Colorado), who had also played for the 1956 gold medalists; the starting guard Les Lane (Wichita Vickers), also a former defensive back for Bud Wilkinson at Oklahoma; and Allen Kelley (Peoria), a guard from Kansas’ 1952 national champions.

The 1960 Olympic team sent nine players to the N.B.A. Boozer, Smith, Arnette and Lucas were my teammates on the 1964 Cincinnati Royals, the only franchise ever with five Olympic gold medalists. Boozer later joined me on the 1971 N.B.A. champion Milwaukee Bucks. West won an N.B.A. title with the 1972 Los Angeles Lakers and Lucas with the 1973 Knicks. I was N.B.A. rookie of the year in 1961, Bellamy in 1962, Dischinger in 1963 and Lucas in 1964. Imhoff played 12 seasons in the N.B.A. Lucas, Bellamy, West and I are in the Hall of Fame as individual players, as is Newell as a contributor.

Unfortunately, Newell will not be with us Friday; he died in 2008 at age 93. Neither will Lane, the assistant Warren Womble, the team manager Dutch Lonborg and the trainer Dean Nesmith, who are also deceased. We honor their memory as we celebrate that unforgettable September at the Rome Games.

Oscar Robertson, a 12-time N.B.A. All-Star, was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2009.