Felton & Lawson - Two of a kind?

[TheBeagle]

+1 Beagle. That was an awesome historical perspective and analysis. I would have had to research all weekend for that material.

Beagle: I just had a brain lapse. It's 5:45 am so give me a little break. Cannot remember if I hit the button to bump the Rep up +1. If I did not, say so and I will do it right this time. If I did, great, as it was well deserved with that post.

Thanks, ohara. It looks like you did it right. I'm enough of a sports dork that I really get a kick out of talking about players from my childhood, like Kenny Smith, for example. Here's a quick story about how cool a guy he is, or at least was:

After the '87 season, I was either 6 of 7, and the ACC had a senior All Star game at the Winston Salem coliseum, before the Lawerence Joel VM coliseum, where all the seniors from the ACC schools, plus a few other ex-ACC players like Phil Ford and Tom Burleson played in a fun exhibition game. After the game, everybody went down on the floor to get autographs from the players, and I really wanted Kenny Smith's auto, but he was absolutely getting mobbed by other people. So I just sort of moped around and happened on Horace Grant of all people, who I didn't even know at the time. So I got his auto and was ready to leave, but I couldn't find my uncle or cousins who I rode with, so I start yelling out for them, and get panicky and start whining and crying thinking they've left me, so I'm wiping away tears, and thinking I'm never going to get home again (melodramatic, huh?) when all of a sudden Kenny comes running down the court towards me, puts his arm around me, and takes me aside, away from the mob, and asks me what's wrong, what he can do to help, and the only thing I can think to do is put the basketball that I brought to get autographs in his face. I can't remeber what he said while he was signing the ball, but he got me laughing and I forgot all about being lost. I mean I'm sitting there hanging out with a frickin' All American!!!; my favorite player!!!! When we go back out, he put his arm back around me to try to protect me from the mob, but I'm jostled around, and spit out, and right back to my uncle and cousins waiting on me. It was one of the coolest moments in my life.

While I'm on a role I'll drop this one real quick: the year before in '86, we went to the same ACC all star game. My older cousin was a huge Len Bias fan, plus he was battling leukemia at the time. Thanks to some nice people, like Len, we were able to meet him after the game. I was too young to know that much about him; I just knew my cousin worshipped him, and so he must be good, since I looked up to my older cousin. He gave us his auto, shook our hands, and told my cousin he was going to beat leukemia and end up playing in the NBA with him (I was told this is what he said, but I was just too young to remember that much). Good news: my cousin kicked leukemia's ass; Bad news: you know what happened to Lenny. Even though I was 5 or 6, I'll never forget the shock of when I found out he died after being drafted by the Celtics (my couisn's favorite NBA team). I thought my mom was joking with me, but she showed me the news article and the words "Bias" and "dead" in bold. I'm not ashamed to say I cried for a while over that one. Such a good guy, just so damn careless at the wrong time...Man, that one's going to always stick with me....

[ohara831]

Beagle:

When I get in conversations with people about college players of the past, often we start talking about the best players we ever saw in College. Being an ACC man, I have a lot from which to choose. But I swear to God above, I don't believe I can say enough times, I believe that Len Bias was the most dominant and gifted player I ever saw in the ACC - bar none. I cried like a baby when I heard of his death, and I was abut to turn 21 in a couple weeks. Such a tragedy. I believe he would have accomplished wonders in the NBA. And his death set the Boston Celtics back for years. He ws just what that team needed in the late 80's, and they could not find a replacement for a long long time.

Len did it all year long. But the greatest memory is from the Tourney. The ACC Tourney makes legends. And I will never remember one any more vividly than watching him absolutely take on a magnificient UNC team and basically take them on 1 vs 5, and beat them. Anyone who saw that game can probably remember it like yesterday. That UNC team had how many players that went on to really good Pro careers?Well, actually just 2 - Brad D and The Jet. I thought there was a 3rd, but I was mistaken. But that UNC team was great. And he just whipped them. Greatest performance I can remember, not just because of his stats, but because of the level of competition he did it against. And when you hear some of those ex-UNC players now talking about College days, and they start talking about Len Bias, you can see the level of respect they have for his ability. They just shake their heads and say "he was unbelievable, he was just a force we could not stop". And then you can see the sadness in their eyes as they follow it up with "and then he died, and it was one of the greatest tragedies in college sports."

I know many will say there were others better, and they have good arguments. David Thompson was one of the greatest, no doubt about it. Some Va fans still think if you speak only of College careers, you have to say Ralph Sampson. I know there were greats over the years. But for my money, I say Len Bias was the greatest player to have played ACC basketball - ever.

God Rest His Soul.

[TheBeagle]

But the greatest memory is from the Tourney. The ACC Tourney makes legends. And I will never remember one any more vividly than watching him absolutely take on a magnificient UNC team and basically take them on 1 vs 5, and beat them. Anyone who saw that game can probably remember it like yesterday. That UNC team had how many players that went on to really good Pro careers?Well, actually just 2 - Brad D and The Jet. I thought there was a 3rd, but I was mistaken. But that UNC team was great. And he just whipped them. Greatest performance I can remember, not just because of his stats, but because of the level of competition he did it against.

Yeah. My dad was fortunate, or maybe unfortunate since we're a Tar Heel family, enough to go that first round game, as he's told me about it a handful of times. From what he told me, he absolutely owned the Heels, Daugherty in particular, whom he out-fought, out-hustled, out-everthing. Bring up Daugherty anytime and you'll see this look come over my dad's face. Didn't Bias throw and inbounds pass of Daugherty's ass and dunk it once? Or was it someone else? I'm pretty sure it was against Maryland though. Anyway, yeah, Lefty was never happier going up against Dean than when he had Len.

[ReesieNCPantherCatfan1]

Beagle,
Since we are taking a look back, I have a similar story of those ACC all star games. A friend of the family was a manager at Belk in Hickory, and they were a sponsor for the ACC all star challenge. Belk was supposed to have a contest to choose the ballboys for the game, but he knew I was a big hoops fan (yes UNC, o'hara if you couldn't tell), and he let me be the ballboy for the games at Lenoir Ryhne college in Hickory from 1990-1993. As the ballboy I got to meet many ACC studs like Fire and Ice (Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe from State), Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Elden Campbell, etc. I think it was the graduating seniors of the ACC, but with the exception of UNC seniors which killed me (i think maybe they had exams that week, though I did get to meet George Lynch, King Rice and Rick Fox)

Intersting story from the 1992 (I think) all star event. In addition to the game they had a dunk contest (Grant Hill was ridiculous) and 3 point contest as well. Christian Laettner and some guy from the NAIA (or whatever conference LR plays in) were in the final for the 3 point contest. Brian Davis was helping rebound for Laettner (they didn't have enough racks for the balls like the NBA contest) Anyway the other guy in the finals went first, and had a good round, and then Laettner was up. He was having almost as good of a round as the NAIA guy and the final round is almost up. Laettner is one shot from tying the contest, and he fumbles the pass from Brian Davis and the buzzer sounds with Laettner not getting a shot off. Laettner then curses, fires the ball at Davis, hits him in the back, and basically just came off as a real prick. I still got their autographs, but that image always stuck with me. A few years later it gave me a smile when I heard Stackhouse punched Laettner on the team plane when they were with teammates with the Pistons.

Even if I didn't get to meet some of my idols like Hubert Davis, Donald Williams, and Eric Montross, it was still fun to see all these guys I watched on Raycom. All in all it was definately a highlight of my young sports life (I think I was 13 at the first game) and pretty cool to meet many of the ACC's best during this period.

[TheBeagle]

That's right, Reesie, it was called the ACC AllStar Challenge! I was wondering if they did away with those completely because I don't remember one after '87, so it's nice to see they kept it up at least a few more years. I swear that was fun, wasn't it? And how cool were the players to agree to do that? That sucks that you didn't get to meet Hubert, Donald, and Eric, though. I'm trying to think: my list of favorite players went first, Kenny Smith, then Ranzino Smith, then Scott Williams, then Hubert, and so on. Hubes absolutely carried that '92 team, which was kind of like a transition team between the Rice, Fox, Chilcutt class of '91, and the Lynch-led Heels of '93 with more experienced play from the juniors: Montross, Phelps, and Reese....and of course Donald's magic year.