Last year in June, I went down memory lane and wrote about the recruitment of Rick Suttle and Paul Pierce to Kansas. Well, here we go again with a recruiting flashback in examining Paul Mokeski and what factors brought him to Kansas.
I was a fan of Mokeski's during his KU career, although I thought he could have dominated more often as a 7-footer. He was also hounded by the injury bug. Still, I cheered for him with my heart and soul. My fandom, though, reached new heights once Mokeski entered the NBA as a second-round pick by the Houston Rockets in 1979.
After playing in just 12 games as a rookie with future Hall of Famer Moses Malone manning the post, “Big Mo” was traded to Detroit, where he played in 80 games (it would be a career high in 12 seasons) and averaged 7.2 points (another career high), a career-high tying 5.2 rebounds and career-best 1.7 assists.
As I did with many Jayhawks who played in the NBA, I followed Mokeski's pro career religiously and rejoiced when he joined the Milwaukee Bucks. He was a perfect fit for the blue-collar town, a hard-working player who maximized his abilities and became a cult hero. Mokeski had some fine years for the Bucks for seven seasons and was a pivotal part of their rotation playing for head coach Don Nelson, especially during the 1984-85 season when he had his second-best year in the NBA, averaging 6.2 points and 5.2 rebounds in 20.1 minutes per game.
Mokeski only made one three-pointer during his playoff career, but I remember it vividly. It happened in 1989, and I jumped up from my couch and screamed with passion when the ball swished through the net. It was his only three-point attempt during that playoff year and he nailed it. Rack up three points for the former Jayhawk standout, who had a knack of coming up big in the postseason. For me, there wasn’t much greater feeling than seeing Mokeski drill a three-ball, swish his patented 15-foot baseline jumper, grab a rebound in traffic, or lumber up the floor for a two-handed monster dunk in the playoffs.
Cheering for Mokeski all these years, I thought it was only fitting that I saw him play live during his last season in the NBA in 1991 with the Golden State Warriors. It was on a Sunday (March 31) in Indianapolis against the Pacers, the day before the national championship game between KU and Duke. My friend Pat and I were in Indianapolis for the Final Four, and we drove about an hour from our hotel to see the Pacers and Warriors battle in Market Square Arena. It was especially interesting to me since former KU center Greg Dreiling played for Indiana, so he guarded "Big Mo" during the start of the game. Mokeski, though, suffered an injury I think the first or second quarter and was out for the contest.
As I reflect now on what Mokeski meant to me as a kid growing up watching him play at Kansas and then as a young adult in the NBA, I felt very grateful to be in Indianapolis to see him play a game (even if it was for only a few minutes) during his final season.
I also have another connection with Mokeski. After I covered KU’s loss to Bradley in the first round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament at The Palace in Auburn Hills on March 17, the next day my brother (he lived in Ann Arbor) and I had dinner at the Hoop City Grille. The restaurant, a hotbed for Detroit Pistons' fans, had a menu with the various dishes honoring Piston legends like Joe Dumars, Dave DeBusschere, Dennis Rodman and Larry Brown, the former KU head man who coached Detroit to the NBA title in 2004.
You can imagine the monumental surprise I felt after perusing the menu for about 30 seconds when I found a dish named for Mokeski. He must have made a legendary impact during his lone season in Detroit in 1980-81 that 24 years later, the restaurant honored him with the "Tall Paul’s Triple Decker Club." For just $7.95, you could get a mouthwatering "Mokeski triple decker of turkey breast, bacon, lettuce and tomato served on toasted white bread with mayonnaise."
While that sounded very enticing, I couldn't resist another item on the menu called the "Coach Brown's Top Sirloin." For $16.95, I opted for the "USDA center cut steak marinated and grilled to perfection, served with baked potato and vegetables. Done 'the right way.'"
The steak was mediocre at best. I should have taken the “Tall Paul's Triple Decker Club.”
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PAUL MOKESKI (1975-79)
Mokeski became a premier player at Kansas, despite battling injuries during his career. He had his best season as a senior in 1978-79, when he averaged 14.1 points and 8.3 rebounds while shooting 49.9 percent from the field and 72.5 percent at the free throw line.
"Big Mo" scored 945 career points, grabbed 680 rebounds (No. 16 all time at Kansas), and blocked 136 shots (No. 13 all time) in 89 games.
A basketball lifer, Mokeski completed his first season in 2014-15 as associate head coach of the Brampton A’s in the National Basketball League of Canada.
On an intriguing side note, noted author and columnist Bill Simmons regards Mokeski as a basketball cult hero of sorts.
“I wrote about the “power of Mokeski” so many times for ESPN.com that I’m now prominently featured on his Wikipedia page,” Simmons wrote in his 2009 book, “The Book of Basketball.”
“A backup center who somehow lasted for twelve seasons, poor Mokeski was extraordinary unathletic and ran like he had two prosthetic legs; if that weren’t enough, he tried to bring back the curly-perm/wispy-mustache combo that should have died in the early eighties. Throw in male pattern baldness and a disappearing chin and Mokeski looked like a Jersey cop who should have been standing in the donut line. So you can only imagine how bizarre it was that he had a semieffective game--physical defender, decent banger, reliable 18-footer, never did anything he couldn’t do--and averaged 20 minutes for a 59-win Bucks team in 1985. I loved Mokeski to the degree that I spent three solid years searching for his game-worn jersey on eBay before finally giving up.”
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Roy Williams was fortunate to recruit the California pipeline to KU during his tenure as head coach from 1988-2003, including stars like Adonis Jordan, Paul Pierce, Drew Gooden and Jerod Haase.
But years before Williams created his recruiting magic in sunny California, KU head coach Ted Owens and assistant Duncan Reid landed a hot prospect from Encino High School in the San Fernando Valley, just outside Los Angeles. He was a 7-foot center named Paul Mokeski, and just about every big-time program wanted his services.
Mokeski told Mark Stallard in his 2005 book, “Tales From the Jayhawks Hardwood” that he grew up a big UCLA Bruins’ fan idolizing heroes like Bill Walton and Lew Alcindor. He used to religiously watch the Thursday tape delayed games on Friday at midnight, where he’d cheer madly for the great John Wooden’s teams.
“When I was getting to be a pretty good ballplayer in high school, a lot of people assumed that I was going to UCLA because of the big man connection there, and I grew up a UCLA fan. I kind of went against that for a couple of reasons,” Mokeski said.
Mokeski decided he wanted to get away from home and “didn’t want to do what people expected me to do.” He took six visits to N.C. State, Washington State, Arizona State, USC, Gonzaga and Kansas.
Mokeski, who had never traveled in a plane before, admitted he was a little confused going on these recruiting trips. But all that changed when visited KU.
“It felt natural,” he said. “It felt like the place I needed to be. And the way people treated me, not just the coaches and the guys on the team -- at one point I just told the coach, ‘I’m going to walk around campus.’ I think it was in the springtime and there wasn’t any snow and that didn’t throw me off. I just kind of walked around campus and people were very friendly and said, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’
“Really, in the Los Angeles area, it’s not like that at all. I loved the campus, loved the tradition, loved the fieldhouse. Back then the Jayhawker Towers were new, so that was pretty neat. ... I really enjoyed the coaching staff.”
Reid served as Mokeski’s recruiter in a time where the NCAA recruiting rules were much more lax than today.
“Now, I think, you can only be out for three weeks in July. Couple weeks here and there,” Mokeski said. “Well, shoot, those guys were out all the time as much as they could be. Duncan Reid, literally, lived at the Holiday Inn in the San Fernando Valley for a month. And he was either talking on the phone or at my house almost every day. And I’d tell people I just wanted him to quit bugging me so I signed the papers to come to KU.”
It was the place where Paul Keen Mokeski believed he should be all along.
“Actually, it just felt right,” Mokeski said.
