But I've always felt a connection to Bud since he was a former student of my dad in the School of Social Welfare. My dad would see Bud over the years when I was growing up, and he'd bring home a prized autograph of him on a yellow sheet of paper. One day, my dad gave me an autograph of Bud and Aubrey Nash, a teammate of Bud's on the 1971 Final Four team. I cherished those autographs, even though I never saw Bud play a game or shoot a basket at Kansas.
My dad would tell me what a great player and student he was, and kept a paper Bud wrote for one of his classes. As I recall, Bud wrote the paper while he was with the Seattle SuperSonics his rookie season, the team which selected him No. 7 overall in the 1972 NBA Draft.
On the paper, Bud penned the instructor's name as G. Goodrich, not G. Garfield (my dad), whose first name is Goodwin ("Goody"). Bud must have been subconsciously thinking of Gail Goodrich, an NBA star at the time and future Hall of Famer who later played with Stallworth for the New Orleans Jazz during the 1976-77 season, Bud's last year in the league.
My dad and Bud, who have stayed in contact all these years, have joked and shared some laughs about the KU legend referring to him as G. Goodrich.
My dad, a distinguished professor who taught 34 years at KU and was honored with a scholarship award in his name after retirement in 2003, gave up his season tickets to Jayhawk games many years ago. However, he made sure to be in the Phog the night Bud had his jersey retired at halftime of the KU-Missouri game on Jan. 31, 2005. I was sitting on press row that game behind the goal at the south end of the fieldhouse, and reveled in seeing Bud's jersey being unfurled from the rafters. I know my dad was also overjoyed and proud to see one of his former students receive one of his greatest honors.
A few days later, my dad wrote an email to Bud congratulating him on having his No. 15 jersey retired and great halftime speech. Bud immediately wrote back, praising my dad and all his professors as being one of the reasons he was able to achieve such an honor.
What a class act.
But I already knew Bud was a true class act many years before that. In 1990, I decided to interview him for my Reporting I class at KU. I did exhaustive research on Bud's college and NBA career in preparation for our interview. I even borrowed my friend's tape recorder so his words could stay with me a lifetime.
But then my alarm never came on and I overslept for our 9 a.m. interview. Bud had called my parents' house, where I was living at the time, and I immediately got on the phone and deeply apologized. Bud was so nice and caring and asked in an uplifting voice, "Do you still want to do it?” I said, "Yes, I'll be right over."
So I arrived at his office at Hall-Kimbrell in Lawrence. The first thing I did was give Bud the paper he wrote for my dad's social welfare class in 1972. He flashed a huge smile and I think that helped break the ice, not that any ice needed to be broken with the friendly and personable Stallworth. After about 30 minutes to an hour, Bud received a few calls from his secretary, and told her he was still in an interview. Finally, after yet another call to his office, Bud told his secretary to "hold all calls."
For a naive 24-year-old who was conducting one of the first interviews of my life and didn't really know what I was doing, Bud made me feel very special by telling his secretary to hold his calls and giving me undivided attention. Looking back and hearing the tape, I asked repetitive questions, but Bud didn't seem to mind. In fact, the interview lasted three hours, and I felt Bud was enjoying his time just as much as me and could have talked for three additional hours.
It was a wonderful experience talking to Bud about such topics as his recruitment to KU, his college and NBA career, work, his time living in Los Angeles and Hawaii, his unsuccessful professional comeback with the CBA’s Kansas City Sizzlers, and also race issues, etc.
I'll always be grateful to him for giving this aspiring journalist so much time. It's been said the greatest gift you can give someone is your time and knowledge.
All these years later, whenever Bud sees me around town or at a KU basketball game, the first thing he always asks is, "How is your dad?” After I tell Bud how my dad is doing, then he'll always say, "Tell him I said hi."
Bud has special memories of my dad, has always been so gracious to me, and is simply one of the nicest people I've ever met.
So in tribute to Bud, here is a portion and update of the long article I wrote about him for my Reporting I class back in 1990. And yes, while my professor wrote on my report at the time that "no daily newspaper editor wants that many words on Bud Stallworth," I did get an A on the paper.
Thanks Bud!
…
Bud Stallworth knew his destiny at an early age growing up in Hartselle, Ala. When his first-grade teacher asked him and his classmates what they wanted to be when they grew up, Stallworth didn’t hesitate.
“I wrote that I wanted to be a professional basketball player,” KU’s former All-American said during an exclusive three-hour interview in 1990 in Lawrence at his office with Hall-Kimbrell Environmental Services, where Stallworth served as director of client relations and marketing.
“I was pretty serious about playing basketball early. I liked the game. I just had that image that at one point in my lifetime, I could actually play professional basketball. Some people I guess growing up wanting to be doctors or rocket scientists, and I wanted to be a professional basketball player.”
Stallworth began playing basketball when he was age 5, and at 10 years old, he was being chosen over high school players to play in the local pick-up games. Stallworth, who has always had a strong inner drive and ambition, took great pride in shooting the basketball.
“I grew up at one time they didn’t have any backboards, and I wasn’t shooting at straight rims sticking on a pole,” Stallworth said. “(But) I knew how to get the ball up to the basket. A lot of kids were throwing it and couldn’t touch the rim. I liked to do it. I’d go to the little basket outside and throw it up and get it in. That was a big thrill to me.”
As his game grew, so did his reputation. Stallworth began attracting national attention just before his senior year of high school. The Alabama schools had desegregated in 1967, causing high schools across the state to recruit this rising phenom.
“The athletes were considered the barrier breakers in the state of Alabama,” said Stallworth, who is currently a pre- and post-game KU basketball television analyst for Time Warner Metro Cable.
“They were being selected because of their athletic skills and if they had good academics, they were being recruited to go and be integrated into the white schools system in the state of Alabama. This brought a whole new wave of notoriety to me and other black athletes in the state of Alabama, because now there was an outlet to go to the University of Alabama, the University of Auburn, and be considered a great person, break through the race barrier, all of this. But they wanted the creme de la creme to do that. I had all the credentials for that. I had the academics and I had the athletic skills. All of a sudden, I’m getting the exposure in papers. I’m getting the interviews, I’m getting the recruitment deals all in the span of one year.”
Instead of transferring, Stallworth decided to stay in his old high school. He said he felt loyalty to the school with his dad being the principal and his mom a teacher.
Stallworth, who averaged about 45 points per game his senior year, eventually chose KU over Alabama, Auburn, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati. He’ll never forget his first trip to Lawrence for music camp during the summer after his junior year of high school.
Against his father’s wishes, Stallworth skipped lunch and headed over to Robinson Gym and scrimmaged against the Jayhawks, who included All-American Jo Jo White. For Stallworth, those games were a defining moment where he first realized he could play with the best players in the country.
The KU players immediately told Kansas head coach Ted Owens about this high school prospect, and the coaching staff began recruiting him. Stallworth had already followed KU hoops because his sister, Eunice, was a student there.
“I was probably the easiest person to recruit at KU, from having the opportunity to spend a little time out here during that camp, but then when I had came back out on my recruiting trip, it was just, ‘I’m sold,’" Stallworth said. "I had this impression of it being what it was like to be recruited and go to school and have the opportunity to play for a national championship and be recognized as one of the better players in the country. You got the exposure there. Some of the great players in history came through KU. (Wilt) Chamberlain came here. I just felt it was good for me at that time.”
All Stallworth did in his first varsity game was score 27 points against Marshall, the second-highest in KU history at the time in a debut game behind Chamberlain. The 6-5 small forward had a legendary career and improved each season, averaging 12.7 points as a sophomore in 1969-70, 16.9 points during the 1970-71 Final Four season, which went 27-3 and 14-0 in the Big Eight, and then culminated his career in 1971-72 by averaging 25.3 points and becoming an All-American.
Stallworth has special memories of his career, especially that tight-knit ‘71 Final Four team. KU won thrillers over Houston (78-77) and Drake (73-71) in the NCAA Midwest Regional in Wichita before falling to John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins in the Final Four in Houston, 68-60.
“We were awesome,” Stallworth said about that squad, which featured a starting lineup of leading scorer Dave Robisch, defensive wizard Pierre Russell, Stallworth, point guard Aubrey Nash and pivot Roger Brown. The team had size, defense, scoring punch, and balance with four players averaging in double figures.
“I thought we were the best team in the country,” Stallworth said. “We were the cockiest team that I had been around. Everybody got along. We felt we had a legitimate shot to win it all. That year we played some tough teams.”
With Stallworth and Nash the only returning starters the next season in 1971-72, KU stumbled to a dismal 11-15 record.
“We had marginal talent my senior year at best,” Stallworth said. “Our starting lineup, (the) tallest guy was 6-6, Wilson Barrow. I didn’t carry them too far.”
Stallworth, though, carried the Jayhawks quite far during his final home game against Missouri on Feb. 26, 1972 (KU won, 90-83), a contest he will never forget when the sweet shooter scored a career-high 50 points, the second-highest output on the KU single-game list behind Chamberlain.
While the Jayhawks had a losing season, senior night was a festive event. Immediately after he was introduced, Stallworth threw a frisbee into the stands as a gesture to give something back for the great fan support that season. He added that a woman later told him that she made sure she got the rights to that frisbee as part of her divorce agreement.
Stallworth was also extra hyped that game since the flamboyant Missouri coach Norm Stewart remarked before the contest that his star, John Brown, was a better player than Stallworth. Stallworth’s mother was also seeing her son play the first time in Allen Fieldhouse, while the 1952 NCAA champions were in attendance celebrating their 20-year reunion.
“I had 50 points before in high school,” Stallworth said. “You know when the hoop is big, it’s just huge. The juices were incredible. This was a frenzy type thing, and it just built and it kept going. The first half I knew I was on. I knew I could get it in whenever I wanted to. It was just scary.
“You dream of having those every night when you walk out in the arena and throw it in. Everything came together at the right time and they were the victim.”
Stallworth left Kansas as the third-leading scorer in school history, a two-time all-league selection, the 1972 Big Eight Conference Player of the Year, and remains one of only three players in KU annals to earn All-American honors on the floor (1972) and academically (1971). His No. 15 jersey was retired in Allen Fieldhouse at halftime of the Kansas-Missouri game on Jan. 31, 2005.
The scoring machine, who has a bachelor’s degree from KU in social welfare, was then drafted by the Denver Rockets in the first round of the ABA Draft before the Seattle SuperSonics selected him with the seventh overall pick in the NBA Draft, five spots ahead of future Hall of Famer Julius Erving.
Stallworth remembers his nerves sitting by the phone in his Jayhawk Towers apartment waiting for his agent to call and tell him which NBA team selected him in the draft. When he finally heard word, his agent told him to grab a flight to Seattle.
“I was just on cloud nine for a couple of weeks,” Stallworth said. “Number one, you got it done. Most people don’t ever get drafted. I was a 6-5 swing player from a little town that a lot of people said was going to get lost in the numbers and not be able to cut it at that level. That’s what it’s all about.”
With his first-grade dream now a reality, Stallworth entered his rookie year with high hopes. But coach Lenny Wilkins, who had originally drafted Stallworth to Seattle, was no longer with the team. Stallworth played two seasons with Seattle and three years with the expansion New Orleans Jazz, who selected him in the dispersal draft in 1974.
Stallworth didn’t want to play in New Orleans with superstar and scoring sensation Pete Maravich, though he made the best of the situation.
“It was nothing that I had wanted to do with my career than to go to an expansion team and play with somebody I know wanted to shoot the ball everytime he touched it,” Stallworth said. “I played against him for two years and no one on that team touched the ball.
“He shot 50 times more than anybody else a game. It was obscene. It was sick. We’d be getting blown out and he’d have three people hanging on him with his arm in a cast because he had been shooting too much, and he’s still putting it up.”
Stallworth lamented the fact he played five seasons with no winning years for seven or eight different coaches, who each had a different philosophy on how to maximize his talents. The pieces just never fit and had Stallworth feeling unsatisfied after a car accident injury ended his career.
“It just wasn’t successfully done the way I envisioned it being done,” Stallworth said. “I didn’t get the juices going every night. I had this vision of the NBA being the epitome of what it’s all about. It didn’t happen that way, and it became more of a job than a game.”
He even didn’t like playing for Bill Russell in Seattle, the Hall of Famer who had a prized career with the Boston Celtics.
“He couldn’t score,” Stallworth said with a smile. “You put him in the gym alone, and he still couldn’t score.”
Despite the adversity, Stallworth remained proud he was one of the chosen few to realize his longtime NBA dream. He enjoyed the camaraderie with his teammates and playing against the best players in the world each night, including 27 of the NBA’s 50 greatest players of all time.
“I got a chance of doing what I dreamed of doing,” Stallworth said. “I survived and that’s it. A lot of people dream about doing something all their lives and never get a chance. Not only did I do it, I did it for a couple of years,” he added with a laugh.
Stallworth posted career averages of 7.7 points (2,403 points in 313 games) and 2.8 rebounds in 17.5 minutes per game while shooting 41.4 percent from the field and 68.6 percent from the free throw line. He had his best year in 1974-75 with the Jazz when he averaged a career-high 9.9 points and 3.4 rebounds in 22.8 minutes per game.
A great long-distance bomber, Stallworth believes he was born too early, prior to the three-point shot being implemented.
“I’ve always believed that it didn’t matter how close you got to the basket as long as the ball went in,” Stallworth said. “I was taking 30-foot jump shots when coaches were jumping and screaming, ‘You’re too far from the basket!’
“Today, that’s part of their offense, and I was doing it in the early 1970s. It just took them a while to understand that. They just added another point for those shots that I was taking.”
This Jayhawk legend talked about the science of shooting the ball.
“To me, you’ve got this rim, this circle,” he said. “You got a sphere, this ball, and you have become accomplished at throwing this sphere in this circle with people on you who were moving at a high rate of speed. That’s a gift, that’s an art. That’s an accomplishment. People talk about the kind of skills you need to accomplish something, you don’t tell me that’s not hand-eye coordination, the ability to judge distance, to judge speed. ... A lot of people can’t walk and drop a piece of paper in a trash can. To me, I had mastered the whole thing of putting it in there.”
Indeed, he did.
This Jayhawk legend talked about the science of shooting the ball.
Indeed, he did.
Now, instead of shooting jump shots, Stallworth analyzes games for Metro Sports and is a frequent guest on national radio and television. He is also the co-founder of “Can We Talk,” where he uses his skills and lifetime experiences to mentor kids in Lawrence.
After all these years since leaving Kansas in 1972, Stallworth said in 1990 he loved his collegiate experience and proud of the indelible mark he left on KU hoops.
“It meant and it still does mean that it’s a measuring stick I can use to say that I went to a university that had everything I wanted and I believe I’m part of that tradition,” Stallworth said.
“That means a lot to me, because I have kids (and now grandchildren) that can come see what (my) legacy has left them.”
More From Bud Stallworth
More From Bud Stallworth
Stallworth had several basketball heroes growing up in Hartselle. He talked about some of them to me.
“My only vision of other players that were better than me were the professional players like Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor,” Stallworth said. “They were doing some of the same things I was doing. I think I saw Earl Monroe play when I was probably in junior high school or going into high school. He was doing some things I couldn’t do. He could do the twist and the shake, and I didn’t have that down pat. But just coming up, running up the floor, jumping in the air, shooting, I had all that. I’ve had that since I was in the seventh, eighth grade. I could run, jump, and shoot the basketball.
“Like Jerry West, he would come down, he’d take stutter steps and pull up and shoot a straight jump shot. I could do that. When I saw Earl Monroe take it between his legs, dribble behind his back, twist and spin, that was a new move that I hadn’t accomplished yet. I got to cut Earl out as one of my favorites because I couldn’t do his thing. His thing to me was more, he was tricking people all the time. I wanted to beat them. I didn’t want to trick them. I just wanted to take over. Elgin Baylor, I liked the way he could hang, take it to the basket. He was about my size at the time. I kind of liked to think I was Elgin Baylor. I’d go out on the playground, do the hang, take people to the hole, shoot jumpers on them, learn all the different English moves you had with the ball. Jerry West, Oscar, those were some people (I emulated).
“My size limited me,” Stallworth added. “I couldn’t be Wilt Chamberlain; I wasn’t 7-feet. I didn’t like Bill Russell. I wasn’t that kind of player. He couldn’t score,” Stallworth said with a laugh.
"When you say idolize, I kind of would have thought I had an opportunity to be as great as he (Baylor) did doing what he was doing, plus he was in Ebony magazine and doing a commercial or something.”
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