Bob Pettit, one of the original gentleman superstars of professional sports, is gone, and it would behoove modern-day players to aspire to be like him. Despite his outsized sports fame, he was a paragon of modesty, humility and sportsmanship through all 93 years of his life.
If he had a flaw, it might be that he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at LSU, where he was a two-time All-American basketball player. The Dekes are the infamous, notorious, rabble-rousing fraternity where bands of brothers through the years (including me) “marched 2 by 2 with arms locked firm and tight” while “merrily singing.” Truth is, they (we) weren’t exactly marching and singing but staggering and cheerfully slurring off-key to conclude Saturday night postgame parties. Out of this fraternity mold have emerged such luminaries as Pettit, former Governor Mike Foster, world record shot putter Jack Torrance, former Senator Russell Long, actor John Mese and Louisiana political writer, syndicated columnist and author John Maginnis.
In addition to my Deke connection, we like to boast in Central Louisiana of Pettit’s Alexandria connection, since he married Carole Crowell of Alexandria after he retired from professional basketball in 1965. They were a team until Carole died of cancer in 2010. Carole’s sister, Nancy Crowell Owens said Bob “died like he lived – peacefully, and a gentleman to the end. He was a great father, a great grandfather.” Since his family was one of his priorities, coupled with his enduring love of sports, he’d try to catch the games his grandchildren would play in. Late in his life, when he couldn’t drive from New Orleans to Baton Rouge for a game, he’d find a driver to take him to the game, she said.
I had a nice phone interview with Pettit in 1998, on the 40th anniversary of his heroics in the final game of the 1958 NBA Championship series between the St. Louis Hawks and the Boston Celtics. He scored 50 points in the contest, then an NBA record for a regulation-time playoff game, to help St. Louis eliminate the Celtics in the sixth game of the series. When I interviewed him, he was in the banking business in New Orleans at the time, and he couldn’t have been more humble about his contribution to clinching the victory. He took charge in the late stages of the contest, scoring 19 of his team’s last 21 points in a 110-109 victory.
“I had a very, very good night,” he said. “By far and away, as an athlete of any kind, it was the most memorable game I ever played, with everything it meant. I remember I just kept getting the ball and kept shooting it.” He did so with mid-range jump shots, drives to the basket, putbacks after offensive rebounds and a dozen free throws.
“It was one of those nights when you can’t do anything wrong,” he said, “and I happened to have it at a very opportune moment.”
His “opportune moment” helped avenge a 125-123 loss in double overtime to the Celtics in Boston the previous year in the seventh game of the NBA finals.
“Losing in the seventh game in Boston in double overtime,” Pettit said, “we felt very confident playing them the next year.”
His NBA stardom came in an era when televised games were rare – usually one game per week on a Saturday afternoon. As an aside, I can remember watching a few Hawks games when Pettit was playing while my mother was in the room. She loved Pettit, who followed a brilliant LSU career by being named an All-Star and All-NBA selection in each of his 11 seasons. Inevitably while we watched one of his games, he would key a rally for the Hawks, and my mom would call out, “Dem birds are getting’ hot!”
Baseball and boxing were the two most popular sports at the time, but Pettit set the bar for a sport that would finally come of age a few decades later with the Lakers-Celtics (Magic Johnson-Larry Bird) rivalry. In 1956, he was the first recipient of the league’s Most Valuable Player award. He won it a second time in 1959. He was also the first player in NBA history to reach the 20,000-point milestone. Standing at 6-foot-9, he revolutionized basketball by becoming one of the first agile big men to play facing the basket with smoothness and balance, rather than just relying on raw bruiser tactics.
The other superstar big man in the NBA early years, Bill Russell, once noted that Pettit popularized the phrase “second effort” because he just kept coming at you without ever complaining, flopping, or whining.
He was the first LSU athlete to have his jersey number (50) retired and he was the first basketball player to have a statue built in his honor on campus, followed by Pete Maravich, Shaquille O’Neal and Seimone Augustis, and one is to be built soon for Sylvia Fowles.
Finally, Pettit was a basketball prophet of sorts as well. LSU basketball, when we spoke, was just coming off a 9-18 season under first-year head coach John Brady. Yet, Pettit spoke highly of Brady.
“I think he did a super job with what he had,” Pettit said, citing the Tigers’ aggressive defense, discipline and great mental attitude. “I think if he’ll stay, he’ll do an excellent job and, in a few years, LSU will be right back at the top of the conference.”
Two years later, Brady guided LSU to a 28-6 record and SEC co-championship. Later, in 2005-06, Brady took the Tigers to a 27-9 record and the NCAA Final Four. This past summer, Brady joined Pettit in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.