Jerry
West
Jerry Alan
West (born May 28, 1938, in Chelyan, West Virginia) has had
one of the most successful careers ever in professional basketball,
first as a player, then as a coach, and finally as an executive.
He was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980,
and his dribbling silhouette has long been used in the National
Basketball Association's official logo.
Like most
NBA players, West was a standout in high school and at college,
attending West Virginia University and leading it to the
1959 NCAA championship game (of which he was named Most Valuable
Player) before embarking on a 14-year career with the Los
Angeles Lakers. He also played for, and co-captained with
Oscar Robertson, the 1960 U.S. Olympic gold medal team in
Rome.
His nicknames
included "Mr. Clutch," for his skill and ability
to make a shot in a clutch situation, and "Zeke from
Cabin Creek," given to him by teammate Elgin Baylor,
and one West was not particularly fond of. The latter name
is somewhat of a misnomer, but not completely; Cabin Creek
is the name of both a stream and a community near West's
hometown of Chelyan. The community of Cabin Creek is on the
opposite side of the stream from Chelyan as it enters the
Kanawha River.
For a period
of time in certain parts of West Virginia, West's home state,
pee-wee basketball was known as Jerry West basketball. It
was used in the same context that youth baseball leagues
use with Babe Ruth baseball.
In the
summer of 2000, the city of Morgantown, West Virginia, and
West Virginia Governor Cecil Underwood, dedicated the road
outside of the West Virginia University Basketball Coliseum, "Jerry
West Boulevard." The same road is shared on the south
end of Morgantown with Don Knotts Boulevard, in honor of
another WVU alumnus.
On November
26, 2005, his number 44 became the first basketball number
to be retired by West Virginia University.
Early
life and sports
Jerry West attended East Bank, West Virginia, High School from 1952-1956. He
was named an All-State from 1953-56, and an All-American in 1956, when he was
also named West Virginia Player of the Year after becoming the state's first
high-school player to score more than 900 points in a season (32.2 ppg, 1956).
He also led East Bank to a state championship that same year. Due to West's tremendous
play in the state championship, the school of East Bank changes its name every
year on that same day to West Bank.
He played for the West
Virginia University Mountaineers, in Morgantown, West Virginia,
from 1956-1960. Among his college highlights, he was named to the
All-Southern Conference (1958-60), All-American Second Team (1958),
and The Sporting News All-America First Team (1959-60). In his
WVU career, he averaged 24.8 points and 13.3 rebounds per game.
In addition to the Olympic
Games, he was a member of the U.S. Pan American Games gold medal-winning
team (1959).
NBA
career
Drafted in the NBA, West spent his entire professional career (1960-74) with
the Los Angeles Lakers franchise. Although he was teamed with Hall-of-Fame
scorer Elgin Baylor for most of his career, West still averaged more than 30
points per game in four different seasons and led the league in scoring during
the 1969-70 season. An excellent playmaker, West also led the league in assists
per game during the 1971-72 season. Although steals weren't recorded by the
NBA until West's final season, at age 35 West became the first player in the
league to ever record 10 steals in a single game — still the Lakers franchise
record.
Heralded as one of the
most legendary clutch shooters in the NBA's history, West averaged
29.1 points per game in 153 playoff games, including 40.6 in 11
playoff games in 1965, and sank one of the most famous shots in
NBA history: a 60-footer with no time remaining to send a 1970
championship game against the New York Knicks into overtime, a
game the Lakers ultimately lost.
West played in nine NBA
Finals, but finished his career with only one championship, won
in the 1971-72 season, the year the Lakers established a modern
North American professional sports record of 33 straight wins.
He retired two years later, after leading the Lakers to yet another
Pacific Division title in the 1973-74 season — this, in spite
of the loss of legendary center Wilt Chamberlain to retirement.
As a testimony to West's on-court leadership and presence, the
Lakers fell to the Pacific Division cellar the year after he retired,
posting a 30-52 record. West later became a coach who carried the
Lakers into the playoffs in his three seasons 1976-1979, after
which he was hired as an executive for the club in various positions.
When he retired, West
had scored 25,192 points, averaged 27.0 points per game, and made
7,160 free throws and 6,238 assists. During his career, West was
named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team four times (the NBA All-Defensive
Team did not exist until West's ninth season), to the All-NBA First
Team 10 times, and played in the All-Star Game 13 times. West was
named the All-Star Game MVP in 1972. West is still the only player
ever to be named NBA Finals MVP when on a losing team. He accomplished
this in the 1969 NBA Finals against Boston, the first year the
award was given. In 1980 he was named to the NBA's 35th Anniversary
All-Time Team and in 1996 was selected as one of the 50 Greatest
Players in NBA History.
Management
In 1982, Jerry West was named general manager of the Lakers, and through shrewd
trades and draft picks, maintained the Lakers' status in the NBA elite
for the rest of the decade. These teams were built around the core of Magic
Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy, and would go on to win four
more championships in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988, becoming the first team
to win back-to-back championships since the great Boston Celtics dynasty
did so in 1968 and 1969.
Following a slump in the
early 1990s, West received the NBA Executive of the Year Award
in 1995 after his Lakers reached the playoffs. West is credited
for bringing Kobe Bryant onto the team and signing free agent Shaquille
O'Neal to the team, which would later go on to win three consecutive
NBA titles.
In 2002 he was hired as
president of basketball operations by the Memphis Grizzlies. Although
it was the worst team in the NBA at that time, West quietly rebuilt
the squad. In 2004, the Grizzlies won 50 games for the first time
in their history, and West was named NBA Executive of the Year
for the second time.
He currently lives in
Memphis with his wife. His son, Jonnie, is a freshman on the West
Virginia University basketball team.
Jerry West. (2007, January 7). In Wikipedia, The
Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 05:32, January 12, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerry_West&oldid=99166916
Copyright (c) Wikipedia.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU
Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. |
