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After
that, the scholarship offers started coming in. All told,
there must have been a hundred or so from various colleges
and universities throughout the country. I finally settled
on HardinSimmons, a Baptist-affiliated college in Abilene
that was known primarily for turning out teachers and coaches.
At the time, I felt my life's work would be in one of these
areas.
In my junior year at Hardin-Simmons, I was voted the most
valuable player in the Border Conference, and the pro teams
were beginning to show an interest. The Minneapolis Lakers,
now the Los Angeles Lakers, were making overtures, and I
began to set my sights on a career as a professional basketball
player. Dell Basketball magazine picked me as one of the
top ten college players in the country. I was riding high.
In addition to the basketball honors, I had run the mile
in 4:18.6, which put me in contention for a spot on the
national team. I often wonder what would have happened if
I had trained as hard for track as I did for basketball.
Thinking about it now, I'm sorry I didn't. I think I missed
my true calling in sports. There's no doubt in my mind that
a four-minute mile was possible.
The future looked bright indeed. In the summer, I got a
job at the U.S. Gypsum plant. It wasn't any great shakes
as jobs go, but I planned on saving enough to last me through
my senior year. One day, I was unloading some sheetrock,
and as I was hauling the sheets off and stacking them, suddenly,
the pile began to shift.
I tried to stop it with my body, jamming my knee into the
lower half of the pile to keep it in place. What a dummy
I was. I couldn't stop it. Two thousand pounds of sheetrock
crashed on my right leg. It snapped in two places. I remember
my first thought was, "My God, I'll never play basketball
again." My leg was in a cast for two years due to complications.
The fractures finally healed, but when the cast came off,
my speed and coordination were gone. So were my hopes for
the pros.
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