Most of us were there once.
Sitting in school, and the PA comes on.
“Attention, students. Jeff Nelson, would you please come to the principal’s office.”
Yep, throat tightens just a bit. You check your conscience to see just what you are going to have to answer for.
And sometimes it was for a good reason (at least it was usually for me ...).
I had a moment like that a couple weeks ago when we were discussing some basketball trivia here.
It was an email instead of a PA announcement.
It was from Coach Petty.
And the topic was “your article.”
Oh oh.
Mac Petty was on the NCAA Rules Committee for a long time. He was the first person I sought out before a new basketball season to find out if there were any new rules.
He is a very reliable source, and it’s an honor to talk to him. We all wish him a continued speedy recovery from some surgery.
That first moment was the fear moment — what did I add or miss?
It turned out well — he enjoyed it.
Then, he shared a story about how on two occasions, basketball rules were changed for all practical purposes because of one player.
I knew about the first one.
Back in the mid-1960’s, Lew Alcindor was the best high school player in America. He played for Power High School in New York City and his recruitment was the story. Even a 10-year-old farm kid in South Dakota knew who Lew Alcindor was.
Coach John Wooden won the recruiting battle and Alcindor ended up at UCLA.
You can read about all that success on your own. Three NCAA titles, an 88-2 record in his three seasons of eligibility, etc.
Well, Alcindor was so dominating in the middle that they outlawed the dunk shot.
Yes, after his sophomore year, and after the first of the three national titles, they took away his dunk.
The rules-makers said “it was not a skilled shot.”
So, at the start of the ‘67-’68 season, the dunk was outlawed in college basketball. The high school rules folks went along and banned it as well.
It was (and still is) called “The Alcindor Rule.” It lasted for 10 seasons, and the dunk was reinstated in the fall of 1976.
Alcindor simply developed his Skyhook shot, won two more college titles and went on to become the all-time leading scorer in the NBA.
The second rule attached to one player also has a dunk in it, and I was not aware of it until Coach Petty shared it with me.
In the spring of 1956, the best high school player in the nation was a guy named Wilt Chamberlain.
Playing at Overbrook High in Philadelphia, Wilt picked Kansas as his college stop.
Before he ever laced up a sneaker in Lawrence and Phog Allen Fieldhouse though, the rules folks made a change, all based on him.
They actually made two, but first things first.
Wilt (The Stilt) as he was always known, had the typical big-man challenge of shooting free throws. Large hands, tough shooting angle, etc.
Wilt greatly improved his free throw skills (and percentage) with an unusual twist.
He got the ball three steps past the free throw line. He then took those three big steps, left the floor without touching the free throw line, and flew through the air at the rim finishing his “free throw” with a dunk.
From a story in the “Toledo Blade” from November of 1956, the other six coaches of the Big Seven Conference were not looking forward to three years of that, so they got the rules people to ban that particular style of shooting free throws. They made it that the shot had to start inside the semicircle and behind the line.
No running start.
They said it was “to prevent freak activity.”
So, before he played one college game, Chamberlain changed the game.
And his free throw percentage dropped.
The second rule change directly linked to him, and put in effect before he started at Kansas, concerned out of bounds plays.
It seems that Wilt’s high school guards got pretty good on out of bounds plays at throwing the ball over the back of the backboard, and Wilt simply jumped up and helped the ball into the net. If you think about it, that rule still is in play. An out of bounds play is never administered directly under the basket, and you can’t throw it in over the board.
The dunk goes back to 1936.
Joe Fortenberry of Texas, and the captain of the Olympic Team, is credited with the first dunk in international competition. The 6-8 Fortenberry had displayed the dunk earlier that season, playing with the McPherson Globe Refiners of the AAU League, one of the forerunners to the NBA.
The first college game dunk is credited to Bob Kurkland, a 7-footer playing with Oklahoma A&M in the fall of 1944.
So, there is the dunk, and some of the changes that the big guys have made to the game. It was not a popular shot early on - purists didn’t like it at all, and stories I read talk about players getting undercut if they went up for a dunk. My how that has changed.
I hit the road next week as my USFL duties start, so it will be back to travel woes in two weeks.
I finished Pacers duties last night, and have a three-plus hour high school baseball game under my belt already, so away we go.
Safe travels.
Jeff Nelson is a frequent contributor to the Journal Review and works professionally for Fox Sports assisting with NFL broadcasts and the Indiana Pacers.
