Saw him play when I was a senior in high school in Memphis versus the then San Francisco Warriors.
Bob Pettit died yesterday at 93.
He was the first Most Valuable Player in the history of the NBA, the first player to score 20,000 points, and the only man who ever beat Bill Russell in an NBA Finals.
He also got cut from his high school basketball team twice.
Freshman year in Baton Rouge, cut. Sophomore year, cut again.
His father was the county sheriff, and he told his son to keep going. So Pettit went out to the hoop in the backyard and shot until dark, for two years.
Junior year he made the team. He was 6 foot 4 by then.
As a senior he led Baton Rouge High to its first state championship in more than two decades.
And he kept growing. By his last year at LSU he was 6 foot 9, a two time All-American averaging 27.4 points a game.
The Hawks took him in 1954. He was Rookie of the Year.
Then in his second season he led the entire league in scoring at 25.7 and in rebounding at 16.2, and the NBA handed out its very first MVP award. It went to him.
Now here is the part that matters most.
Bill Russell played in twelve NBA Finals. He lost one.
April 12, 1958. Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Game 6 against Boston.
Pettit had 31 points through three quarters. Then he scored 19 of his team's last 21 points, the final two on a tip-in with 15 seconds on the clock.
50 points. Hawks win 110-109. Series over.
It is still the only title the Hawks have ever won, in St. Louis or Atlanta.
Being fair about it, Russell badly sprained his ankle in Game 3 and missed Game 4, and most people watching at the time believed Boston wins that series with him healthy. The Celtics then won the next eight titles in a row to prove the point.
But nobody has ever scored more than 50 in a game that clinched a Finals. Giannis Antetokounmpo tied it in 2021. That is the whole list.
Russell talked about Pettit for the rest of his life.
"Bob made 'second effort' a part of the sports vocabulary. He kept coming at you more than any man."
And: "Probably as fierce a competitor as has ever played."
Pettit finished with 20,880 points and 12,849 rebounds, averaging 26.4 and 16.2. He never once averaged under 20 points in a season, and in eleven years he never missed an All-Star Game.
Then he quit at 32.
Not because he was finished. Because a bank in Baton Rouge offered him a job and it paid better than basketball did. His first NBA contract was worth $11,000.
"In my day we didn't make enough money to live on the rest of our lives. We all had to work after basketball."
He went into banking and stayed there.
"I found something that I enjoyed as much as playing basketball. I enjoyed my life after basketball. Not a lot of players can say that."
Two years ago, at 91, sitting at his home in New Orleans, somebody asked the first MVP in NBA history what he thought about Nikola Jokic.
"He's great. I love to watch him."
Maurice Carkuff retweeted
Georgia State plays at Kennesaw State this weekend. About 23 miles separate the schools. There are approximately 20 Waffle House locations between the two schools.
My wife’s Uncle Pat Willy parachuted into Market Gardens but lived until his late 80’s. In fact three Willy brothers fought in Europe my father in law lived to be 91 and his brother Bob lived until his 80’s @Jtcarkuff @thekuff16
82 years ago this week, the Allied airborne dropped into the Netherlands to take the bridges to Arnhem. You know how it ended.
Saturday 19 September we're watching A Bridge Too Far together, live in the Project '44 Discord. 1 PM Eastern / 7 PM Central European. Free, open to anyone. Join the server, hit Interested on the event, and be in the movie night channel at kickoff. Stream starts 10 minutes after.
Come for the film, stay for the argument about whether XXX Corps could have moved faster.
discord.gg/sb6N5Pjh?event=15…
After the credits, our premium Patreon members stay on for a live session with the developers building the map. Questions, what's next, first looks. Details on Patreon.
This is not Monteagle Mountain been through there many times I 24 ramps are on the left. Driving a school trip, the U joint broke going down and I had brakes but no power but coasted to a safe spot with 30 kids. @thekuff16
I used to memorize the top 10 batters in both leagues, just in case one of my friends wanted to know. Not all my friends got the Nashville paper, but my parents got it a day after in the mail. I was a well informed poor kid, but thought I was rich.
201 Home Runs between the four, a great season for baseball
Maurice Carkuff retweeted
In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.
She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.
The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.
She handed out the checks herself.
In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.
When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.
You've probably heard that part.
Here's the part you haven't:
The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.
Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.
She built her county an entire hospital.
She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.
In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.
Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.
In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.
And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.
She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped anyway.
She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.
Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸
Wrong pictures for Bonanza, Have Gun will travel and the Rifleman!! You need to research your westerns.
This high school has a great name and great musical taste @Jtcarkuff
In May 1970, the senior class of Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School in Orange, Texas, booked a young, local three-piece band called ZZ Top to play their high school prom. Posing on stage with their gear for the school yearbook—which humorously printed their name as Zee Zee Top—a clean-shaven Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill were just beginning their journey as That Little Ol' Band from Texas. Rest in Peace Frank Beard.
🎸 What is your favorite ZZ Top song?👇️
Let’s go Peay! @thekuff16
We got a box here from Clarksville, Tennessee... It's the Austin Peay Governors!
You guys know I love all my schools from Tennessee and this mascot is SWEET!
Thank you to Coach Faris and @GovsFB for this great box, good luck this season!
I bought a 92 Silverado in Oneonta @jimmysmithauto now 34 years and 406,000 miles later a friend and I just replaced the original alternator. The original cost of the truck $16,500, do you think I have gotten my money’s worth. @dadpot3 @Jtcarkuff @bobnealburner
Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright of Bonanza) college football player and former high school football coach and English teacher. Fought in Korea (Pork Chop Hill) died at 42 in his prime. One of my favorites.
In the 70’s you could drive from Columbia Tn to Franklin and see 30 miles of farmland. Now you don’t know if you are in Columbia, Spring Hill, Thompson Station or Franklin.
Maurice Carkuff retweeted
Bob Gibson started 34 games in 1968.
Inning pitched in those 34 games:
7.0
7.0
9.0
9.0
12.0
11.0
8.0
9.2
8.0
8.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
11.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
9.0
10.0
8.0
9.0
8.0
9.0
9.0
Absolutely astonishing!
#STLCards
