Gary Franks: NBA great Willis Reed — a gentle giant and friend
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NBA legend Willis Reed attends the unveiling of a special edition Wheaties box Feb. 4, 2009, at the NBA Store in New York.
An NBA great has passed away — Willis Reed. His 10-year basketball career with the New York Knicks was outstanding and will be remembered by all who followed the game during those years.
Reed, a Hall of Famer, was a class act, team player, captain, MVP, All-Star, two-time NBA champion and role model for how to play the game. He was also a humble winner.
Reed’s record should show at least one more “assist,” an assist to me in the all-important game of life.
As a 16-year-old getting ready for my junior year in high school, I attended the first Willis Reed Basketball Camp in New York. It proved to be a turning point in my basketball development.
The camp’s director was Bobby Knight; the assistant director was Mike Krzyzewski. The former was the head coach and the latter the assistant coach of Army’s college basketball team at the time. Imagine that — being trained by two men who would go on to become the two winningest coaches in NCAA Division 1 basketball history.
But it gets better. Because it was Reed’s camp, we had many New York Knicks players come as daily visitors and instructors. I played pick-up games with some of them at night when the formal training had ended.
I first met my grade school basketball idol — Bill Bradley, who was a guest instructor at the camp for a session. Decades later we would serve in Congress together, with Bradley in the Senate and me in the House of Representatives.
It was an amazing experience, a godsend.
I learned a lot about basketball while sharpening my skills. I also learned their training habits and saw how hard those guys worked to become professional players.
The results were dramatic the following year in high school. I was an occasional starter in my sophomore year, averaging a modest five points a game. Following Reed’s camp I would average between 20 and 30 points per game for the next three years, including a 25 points per game average during my freshman year at Yale.
In my three last collegiate basketball games against Harvard, nationally ranked Penn and NIT champion Princeton, I averaged about 25 points per game. This allowed me to become a free agent with the New Orleans Jazz in 1975.
My friendship with Reed continued beyond my being a “camper.” It spanned decades. He invited me back as a camp counselor. He used me as an example of someone who was at his first basketball camp and who had “made good.”
Willis was proud of my political achievements. When I served in Congress, he invited me to join him at a New Jersey Nets game when he was running the team as its senior vice president.
Early in his career, after winning the Rookie of the Year award, Willis spent a night at our house as a guest and friend of my sister and joined us at our church for Mass. All eyes were on this gentle giant of a man, not known by many at the time.
I remember him telling my mother over dinner that he hoped the reporters would start getting his name right — newspaper stories and headlines often referred to him as “William Reed.” We all laughed.
Rest in peace, Number 19 for the New York Knicks — Willis Reed.
They don’t make basketball players like you anymore.
