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black college Sports Review JULY 1993 EDITOR * PUBLISHER Ernest H. Pitt PRODUCTION STAFF WRITERS MmfcHoia* Brtcfwr UngMon Wtartz. A. * -* ??-? KJ**, ? uviiu Manoni Jamn Wright Jr. Kwn Hmnon Mar* CVay PHOTOGRAPHERS WadsMash drag Janaon The Greatest of All Times There should be no more doubl now. The argument should be done, for now and forever. Michael Jordan, not Wilt, not Kareem, not Bird, not Magic, not Dr. J ? Mike ? is the greatest basketball player of all time. . Greatest team player of all time. too. For the other teams in the NBA, Jordan is the bald headed menace, the guy no one can stop. Some say he doesn't make his teammates better. Well, before, Jordan, Chicago lost. After Jordan, Chicago won. It's really the bottom line. Ask his teammates if they'J be happier if they got more points and lost muir games than they won. The point of playing the game is to win. Magic made* his teammates better. Magic won. Larry Bird made his teammates bet ter. Bird won. 1? ; ??* But the} didn't win three straight. And these were teams with hall of famers Jabbar, McHale. Parish. Every time the clock wound down, Magic didn't have to do it, Bird didn't have to do it. Teams couldn't concentrate their entire defenses to cut them off. Question: Let's see, do we triple-team the Bird-man? Well, that Dennis Johnson guy can shoot; McHale is the best post-up player to ever Uve; and Parish, well, one day he'll be in the Hall of Fame. Answer: Better not double Bird loo much. So Bird had help. Magic did, too. Michael Jordan? He has Scottie Pippen. Sometimes. And still the Bulls, Mike's Bulls, have just won again. That many of you would even consider that the Bulls are one of the all-time great teams ? and they could he argued to be the best ever, but we'll come to that ? you must then concede to the greatness of Air. * If you want to call Chicago a one-man team, fine, but consid er this: In the entire history of modem spoils, only 12 teams have won three consecutive championships, and five of those were in hockey. The last time a team won three in a row was 10 years ago, when hockey's New York Islanders polished off their thinJ crown. Remember Pittsburgh's Stealers. the greatest football team of all team? They won four Super Bowls in six years in the 1970s, but Terry Bradshaw never got sized for a ring three years straight. Vince Lombardi's powerhouse Green Bay Packers couldn't win three Super Bowls in a row. The New York Yankees, perhaps sports' greatest dynasty, won three World Series titles back to back on two occasions, beginning in 1936 and 1949. They didn't have color TV then. But in basketball, yes, the Celtics won eight t:tles in a row and the Lakers won three straight. These runs came, though, when the seasons weren't as long and the teams were good. There were no back-to-back nights against David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal, heck, they just didn't come as big as the Shaq back then. But the question remains: are the Bulls one of the best teams ever? On television recently. Magic Johnson said not really. He said his Lakers championship squads probably were and that they had too many guns for Chicago, too many ways to beat Da Bulls. Maybe that's true. But the NBA's talent level is today higher than it ever was, even higher than in Magic's heyday ? certainly a considerable amount higher than in Chamberlain's or Russell's ? and the Bulls are this era's most dominant team. Based on that, you must consider the Bulls one of the best ever, and since they won three titles in a row against what is the league's besT^STSuent pool, what does that make them? Thirty-second best? Maybe without Michael Jordan. ? By LANGSTON WERTZ JR. Black College Sports Review a published by Black Sports Inc . ?17 N. Liberty St.. Winston-Salem. NC. 27101 UnsoHciled manuecnpts and photographs will not be returned. Inquiries should be addressed to Ernest H Pttt. Publisher. Black College Sports Review, P.O. Box 1636. Winston-Salem. N C 27102 PHOTO CREDITg Cover storv photo by Qreg Jenson StaH photography for the Clari on Ledger in Jackson. Mmsissvpi BCSR is e supplement to these newspapers: Artery Vok?. TTm^ButoHn, OmtHmon A tro-Armrican. Bttoo Roust Cotnmunfy Leader, Birmingham Tinw, Csfotnt P\eece ffMMT) C/ripfWW?n t/HfOnO?, c/8nWWT, WW09H vOimMr r I "wCWvnlii f rnBDUryn OOUrlOTt rPwenmni ""v" * - - *?- ? ? |A rtMwt^^ wTwncin Jino rrw fTfwon-oiWm wm Clarence "Bighouse" Gaines A Legend Put to Rest This was jt for Bighouse Gaines. This was it for the man who is a legend, though he's still with us; a man who's won more college basketball games than any other _ living, breathing, basketball coach ? more than Dean Smith; more than Bobby Knight. This was the day that the legend was put to rest. June 30, 1993. RIP. No, Clarence Gaines wasn't dead. In fact; he seems as robust and lively today as he did 10 years ago, at least according to friends that know him. But Gaines, for a moment at least, was no longer "Bighouse", no longer "Coach." Just Clarence. June 30 was Gaines' last day on the job. North Car olina state law requires that professors ? and Gaines is a phys-ed professor ? step down at age 70 or request an exemption of the rule. Gaines turned 70 on May 21. And he was forced to retire by the university after it twice denied his exemption request. But the Gaines we found on his last day on the job wasn't bitter about having his resignation announced for him at a news conference in February. He had been called into a meeting and just sat there while someone else did what the proud man probably should've had the opportunity to do himself: to tell the basketball world that this was il ' No, Gaines wasn't bitter. He instead chose to recall all of the good moments of his career ? his having seen segregation at its worst and his having seen it, for the most^art, come to a close. He talked about how it was kind of odd, really, that segregation was good for his people but bad for his basketball. Before then, Gaines" basketball team had reeled black college basketball with an iron fist. Gaines ? called "Bighouse" because he's as big as one ? intimi dated officials with his she^r size, stature and reputation, and having players like Earl "the Pearl" Monroe didn't hurt things either. But after segregation slowed and the bigger white colleges began to latch on to the black athletes that had been Gaines' lifeMood, the winning slowly began to stop ia Winston-Salem, am! the money began^dry up, Ux>. Recruiting became more difficult. Gaines' final CIAA championship came in 1977, some 16 years ago. "1 could see what was coming," Gaines said among boxes and boxes of memorabilia fh his office" "Maybe 1 should've quit earlier. But I liked what I was doing so much; I'd done it so long. But I could see. The money was drying out, the kids were drying out. Maybe I just stayed too long. "I guess ! just didn't really think that there d be a time when you couldn't get players," he said. But for Gaines, that time canlc, and the same people who'd supported him throughout the years began to turn on him. Some, he says, in the school's alumni associa tion, began to whisper in the ears of Winston -Salem State Chancellor Cleon Thompson. * - . . "I can understand the pressure he was under," Gaines said. "The alumni association saying, "Why in the hell are you keeping that old guy around? He only won six games last year." A Gaines laughs at this. He says with what he was given to work with, he couldn't have turned things around. * , * "Jesus Christ couldn't have," he said. Gaines laughs again. The "Bighousc" on the final day is the same "Big house" there's always been: full of stones, full of jokes, full of memories. "Why shouldn't I be happy,: he said. "For every bad thing that's happened to me, I've got 10 good memories," Please see page 6
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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