Former Jayhawk standout Booty Neal was a long-range bomber

                                                     KU Libraries Digital Collection

Booty Neal was one of the most popular Jayhawks of his era. With his lethal long-range jump shots off the bench, he even had a fan club called the “Booty Bombers.” When Booty was lighting up the nets from distance, Allen Fieldhouse was rocking as loud as ever.

I had a wonderful Where Are They Now? interview with Booty in 2001 for Jayhawk Insider, where he talked to me about developing his deep shot in Boys Club and how he idolized sharpshooters Pete Maravich and Rick Mount. He also talked so fondly of his KU sponsor family Kurt and Sue Watson and what they meant to him.

Booty, who worked in special education after leaving KU, averaged a career-high 7.4 points his senior year as KU’s sixth man in 1980-81, helping lead KU to the Sweet 16. In limited playing time (12.0 minutes per game), Booty posted career averages of 5.8 points and 1.3 rebounds, while shooting 44 percent from the field and 67.9 percent at the charity stripe. He scored 582 career points, which would have been much higher had there been a three-point line back then.

A die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan growing up, Booty was sold on KU once assistant Lafayette Norwood began recruiting him after his performance in the preliminary game of the Capital Classic in Washington, D.C., his senior year.

And Booty and all Jayhawk fans have great memories of his time at Mount Oread.

Here, Booty talks about his recruitment to KU and playing hoops in Boys Club, junior high and high school. I also included that memorable Where Are They Now? story I wrote on him for Jayhawk Insider in 2001. Booty was so fun to talk with, very personable and upbeat.

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“Back then, what happened is I had an opportunity to play in the Capital Classic (All-Star game in Washington, D.C.)  I played in the prelim game of the Capital Classic, and that’s the game before the big game. I had a pretty good game. Somehow or another, I had gotten a call from the University of Kansas. Coach (Lafayette, assistant) Norwood flew down, and they started the recruiting process. The next thing I know, I went out to visit Kansas, and I liked it. I was ready to go. I signed in the summertime and I was in Kansas. I looked at University of West Virginia, Georgetown University, Howard University in Washington, DC., Roanoke College in Virginia, University of Arkansas.

“You won’t even believe this. Check this out. Ever since I was a little boy, I loved the Kansas City Chiefs. When I heard Kansas, I didn’t even know anything about the tradition. I just wanted to go there because I thought maybe I’d get a chance to see the Chiefs a little bit. So when the University of Kansas came knocking on the door, I just though it was an opportunity for me to go. Then when I got to Lawrence and visited, I found out that Jo Jo White and all these people had graduated from there. I was like, Holy Cow. Bud Stallworth and all these famous people. Wow. I felt honored. To have people tell you about tradition and everything,  I just thought it was incredible. I was like, How did I get myself into this. That sold me even more. Being one of the top academic schools in the nation, I felt good about it. I was sort of sold on going to Kansas anyway. Coach (Ted) Owens sent coach Norwood down to do the recruiting. Jo Jo White was very instrumental, and then all the current players  that were there. I had a chance to meet all of them. They made me feel at home. Donnie Von Moore, John Douglas, (they were) very instrumental. I was All-Metropolitan second team. I was averaging 28 per game. I was second-leading scorer in Washington, D.C.-Virginia area behind only Tracy Jackson, who played at Notre Dame.

“...I remember playing on my junior high team when I was in eighth grade. I went out for the team.  Should have went out my seventh grade year, but I played Boys Cub. We were very successful Boys Club, so the basketball coach said, ‘I got to have you.  You got to play this year.’ I started trying out with the eighth graders. It was like a perfect fit from day one. It was sort of  like, if you got it, you got it. Coach was happy to have me on the junior high team, after successful stint with Boys Club team. I had the deep shot in Boys Club at 12 (years old). I just kept shooting. You just keep putting it up. I don’t know if it was how many shots a day, it was just that constantly in practice, you just do do the same things. You take the same shot. You take your favorite shot.  My favorite shot was shooting from the outside.”

“I loved the wings, but when I was in Boys Club, I was able to kind of shoot in from anywhere-top of the key, off the side, deep corner. Then when I got to  junior high school, it got ridiculous. Then when I got to high school, it got totally ridiculous. I had 50 points in one game game, I had  0 at halftime.  The freedom to know you’re going out to play and you’re that team leader, that puts a lot to sit on your shoulders. Michael Sweetney, who plays for Georgetown, graduated from my high school. He came along and broke a lot of my scoring records. He came in and broke a lot of records. Whatever was standing just about fell now. They still in the neighborhood, they still talk about who was the best player. They tend to get my name out there sometimes.”

And then there were his childhood heroes.

“You wouldn’t believe it. Rick Mount, Pete Maravich, were sort of the two guys I’d sit at home and watch when I was in junior high school. I used to love watching them. They shot the jump shot. They said I needed to work on my ball handling. I think along with everything else, you have to use your players for what they do best. My ball-handling skills were adequate.”

By David Garfield (Jayhawk Insider)

Booty Neal grew up in Oxon Hill, Md., idolizing the likes of Pistol Pete Maravich and Rick Mount on television. When he wasn’t watching them swish jump shots at home, Neal would be at the local Boys Club pretending to be his heroes and practicing his craft. At age 12, he already found his niche on the playground.

“I had the deep shot in Boys Club,” Neal said. “You just keep putting it up. I don’t know if it was how many shots a day, it was just that constantly in practice, you do the same thing. You take your favorite shot. My favorite shot was shooting from the outside.”

And few Kansas basketball players have ever shot the deep ball better than the man they called Booty. Neal brought his jump shot to KU in 1977 and soon established himself as a lethal long range shooting artist off the bench. He had unlimited range, with many of his shots coming from 25 feet. Neal, who became a folk hero of sorts in Allen Fieldhouse, even had a fan club called the “Booty Bombers.”

“They got the crowd roaring when I got up and then the whole place just started yelling my name: ‘Booty, Booty,’” Neal said. “Of course, everyone was under the implication that I was coming in to to put some up. They were right.”

A 6-5 shooting guard, Neal never really saw a shot he didn’t like. He credits the fan support for helping him gradually accept his role off the bench.

“It sort of cleared the fact that I didn’t have to be a starter to be appreciated,” Neal said. “I sort of get teary-eyed when I think about those times because there was so many memorable and special times.”

While he loved his teammates and has no regrets, Neal can’t help but envision what his career would have been like had there been a 3-point line back in his day.

“Of course, I was born way too soon,” Neal said. “A lot of these kids are experiencing this shot in junior high school. I’ve never had the opportunity to do it until I left college and got old. ... If I had the opportunity to play with that mess, I don’t know what I would have done. I probably would have given my coach a heart attack. If I had to wish upon something, it just would have been the opportunity to experience that. See the man (official) throw his hands up, hear the crowd go crazy, and then do it about four or five times in a row. The place would have shut down.”

And how did Neal’s coach at Kansas (Ted Owens) react to Neal’s affinity for shooting the “bomb?”

“It got to one point, ‘Well, Booty, whatever. If you catch fire, you got about five minutes to do it,’” Neal said.

And when Neal caught fire, there was nothing hotter in Allen Fieldhouse. In four years at KU, Neal’s teams went 81-38. After his freshman season (KU finished 24-5), Kansas struggled the next two years going 18-11 and 15-14. The pieces finally fit together Neal’s senior year in 1980-81, as the Darnell Valentine-led Jayhawks went 24-8 and advanced to the Sweet 16. Neal was primarily the sixth man that season and averaged a career-best 7.4 points in 15 minutes per game.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Neal said. “We had to fight our way out of the old doldrums of not living up to expectations, and finally, we caught another gear and we were on our way  We were one shot away from getting to the final eight. ...It was a fantastic team. We may have only went seven deep, but all 15 of those players played a very important role that year. Without them, I don’t know where we could have been.”

After KU lost to Wichita State in the Sweet 16, Neal’s collegiate career officially ended. He received a bachelor’s degree the summer of 1981, and then spent the following season as a graduate assistant at Kansas. Next, Neal returned home to native Maryland and embarked on a new profession helping others less fortunate. He’s been teaching special education at various levels (elementary, middle school, and high school) ever since in Maryland and nearby Washington, D.C. Neal, who became recertified as a special education teacher in 1994, has also served as basketball coach at Shaw Junior High in D.C. for the past nine years. He’s currently the boys and girls coach.

Neal, 42, said he became interested in teaching special education because his brother, Ortiz, has an intellectual disability. For the past year, Neal’s taught at Edison Friendship charter school in D.C.

“I thought that would be an interesting field, and I also wanted to know just how my brother functions,” Neal said. “I love it. It’s not that I think about my brother when I’m teaching, it’s just the mere fact that once I came across with those kids, I found out how special it was for me to be able to help them and for them to share their love with me. Their love is so much different than you would get from a normal person. It’s more sincere.”

When he’s not teaching and coaching, Neal still finds time to lace up the sneakers and play basketball once a week. He realizes how far he’s come as a person since breaking records at Oxon Hill High School and finishing his career as the second-leading scorer in the Washington, D.C.-Virginia area. 

Neal, who averaged 28 points his senior season, once erupted for 50 points in a game.

“In the neighborhood, they still talk about who was the best player,” Neal said. “They tend to get my name out there sometimes.”

A Closer Look at Booty Neal:

Years at KU: 1977-81

Career Notables: Member of 1980-81 Sweet 16 team...averaged 7.4 points in 15 minutes per game in ‘81...Career-high 22 points in 22 minutes against Oklahoma on Jan. 17, 1981.

Family: Wife, Tamara. “She’s probably by far one of my dear supporters. I don’t know what my life would be without her.”

Education: 1981, B.G.S. College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Since Leaving KU: Neal served as a graduate assistant coach at KU before returning home to native Maryland and working in the helping profession. He’s taught special education at various school levels in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Neal has also served as basketball coach at Shaw Junior High in D.C. since 1992.

Currently: Neal lives in Clinton, Md., and teaches special education at Edison Friendship charter school in Washington, D.C. He’s also boys and girls basketball coach at Shaw Junior High.

Hobbies: Watching sports and KU basketball.

Favorite Memories: Neal’s lifetime friendship with his sponsor family at KU, Kurt and Sue Watson, and their children, Brett and Kelly. “I don’t think anyone will ever know the importance they played in my life at Kansas through the days when I didn’t get a chance to play when I thought I should have played, and the days I played and they were there to support me when my parents couldn’t be there. They are very special people. I just want to tell them that I love them and that I think about them all the time.”...Game-winning layup at K-State on Feb. 16, 1980. “The thing that was so amazing about that is you just never know that you’re going to be the one to do it, and to be able to do it is like a landmark. You place a landmark in that gymnasium. I don’t think those folks will forget me for a while. I don’t think I’m one of their favorites.”

On the Jayhawks Today: “It’s a wonderful team. ...A lot of people think you got to win championships to represent Kansas. We all would like to see that, but there’s a lot of other things they do as far as character is concerned that the University of Kansas should be proud of.  Coach Williams offers a lot of class and he’s a special person.” 

Bud Stallworth's childhood hoop dreams and his recruitment to KU

I first wrote about Bud Stallworth on Oct. 31, 2016. Now, I revisit this all-time KU great with another blog post. Stallworth, whose No. 15 jersey was officially retired in the hallowed Allen Fieldhouse rafters on Jan. 31, 2005, is one of only three players in school history to earn All-American honors on the floor and academically. One of the finest people I’ve ever met and a former great student of my dad’s in the KU School of Social Welfare, Stallworth was named the 1972 Big Eight Conference Player of the Year, when he averaged an eye-popping 25.3 points per game.

The Alabama native was a two-time all-league selection and named Academic All-American in 1971 and All-American in 1972.

Stallworth concluded his magical career as the No. 3 all-time leading scorer in school history with 1,495 points (now No. 23). He’s No. 1 all time at KU for most points scored in conference games with 389 (27.8 ppg in 1972) and owns the fifth highest scoring average in a season with 25.3 ppg in 1972.

His 50 points against Missouri on Feb. 26, 1972 during his final home game ranks second behind Wilt Chamberlain on the KU single-game scoring list.

In my three-hour interview with Stallworth in 1990, here’s his recollection of how his childhood hoop dreams all began and his recruitment to Kansas. In his own words:

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“I first started playing probably before I was 5 years old. My first grade teacher asked all the students what they wanted to be when they grew up. I wrote on that piece of paper that I wanted to be a professional basketball player. I was in the first grade when I was 6 years old. I was serious about playing basketball early, and I’m still petty serious about the game. It was an opportunity for me growing up. I grew up in a real small town (Hartselle, Ala.). All the kids were about the same age that lived on my street and came to the school. I was involved with it by the time I was in the first grade. At that time, my school went from one to 12. It was that small. All the students were in one little schoolhouse. Athletics was our outlet. We didn’t have videos or Nintendo games. We played seasonal sports. In the summer, it was baseball. In the fall, football. In the winter, it was basketball. Basketball to me was year round. I could do that by myself. I could do it with somebody else. It didn’t matter. I had an opportunity. I was serious about it as long as I can remember.  

“At that time, growing up in Alabama, basically the only contact that I had with the level of basketball were the high school and small colleges in the area. My parents would take me to games sometimes. It was something that I saw on television that I felt was fun. It was something I wanted to do. I liked the game, just had that image that in my lifetime, that I could do that, that I could actually play professional basketball. Some people I guess want to grow up and be doctors. Some people want to be rocket scientists, and I wanted to be a professional basketball player. The good thing about my parents, and especially my father, he wouldn’t let that be my singular achievement. For me to even think about playing basketball, I had to first of all be involved in music, be involved in school —things I had to accomplish in those areas before I could even think about playing basketball. When I look back on that now, I’m thankful that he did that. 

“I played every day that it was possible for me to sneak and get a ball in my hands. Also at that time, the first gym that we had in my community was built in ‘63. So I was 13 years old before I had an indoor court to be playing on in a regular basis. It was kind of any time the weather was OK, which is basically summer to fall. And some of the winter was OK, we would go out if it was kind of cold and wasn’t that dreary out and play in the inclement weather. It was the only way to do it at that time. When you say when did I play, I guess it was every time I had a chance to get my hands on that ball. (Laughs.)

“We’re talking about a kid that was average size, a little above average size, 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, but I could get it up and in the basket. And I liked to do that. There were some baskets outside, I’d take my little ball out there and throw it up there and get it in. That was a thrill for me. When other kids were struggling just to get the ball up in the air, I was throwing it in. Whenever my parents looked for me, I was out there doing just that. They didn’t have to worry about me going anywhere, running around town. I was out there throwing that ball into the basket. When I wasn’t in school, I probably played for a couple of hours (a day). If I could get back out and play before it got too dark, I’d play a couple of hours again. The darker it got, the more difficult your shots got. Some people couldn’t see the rim. I got so good, I could always see the vision of the rim being there. We had to entertain ourselves that way. My parents wouldn’t allow that (playing in the middle of the night). I think that would have gotten me grounded from playing doing that.

 

“I played varsity basketball when I was in the seventh grade, so I knew I could play, but I didn’t have a measuring stick to say what level I could play on. I knew that I could put the ball in the hole since I was old enough to remember because that’s what I knew I could do. I just had that inner confidence that I could do that. The finer points of the game like playing defense and rebounding just didn’t interest me. I liked to score. (Laughs.) Actually in my community, I started playing in pickup games with older guys when I was probably 10, 11 years old. When I say older guys, I’m talking about guys who were either in high school or graduates of high school. We would meet in our little park and get chosen on teams to play. When other kids that were in high school were getting picked over, I was getting picked to play.

“My only vision of other players that were better than me were the professional players like Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor. 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. 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. (Laughs.) Years later, he was my coach in Seattle (SuperSonics), and I still didn’t like him. I still had this thought, ‘This guy couldn’t score.’ (Laughs.)  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.

“... After that summer (in 1967) going into my senior year in (high) school, was the beginning of desegregation in the state of Alabama. In most cases, the first thing that people look out is how it can better their program. The athletes were considered the barrier breakers in the state of Alabama.  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. That brought in a new wave of notoriety for me. 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. I said, ‘All of this stuff was building up on me. If everybody thinks I’m this good of a player, I must not be too bad. Hey, I got a real shot now because I got people offering me money and cars and all this to make a decision just for college.’ They’re offering my parents things. High schools in the northeast section of Alabama were starting to call and saying, ‘We would move your family if you came to school here.’ That was a big change for just two years before when we were playing in our own little crackerbox gyms with only our fans there and no press. Now, we got the press. We got radio, TV, packed houses, integrated crowds, college recruiters. That was a big deal in 1967.  

“I had made the decision to stay at the school I was at, but the notoriety level there —the press, which makes or breaks anybody—the press that was coming was seeing a kid that nobody ever heard of throwing 40-plus points a game and doing it in a fashion that they hadn’t seen. I was 6-foot-5, but I was playing outside running up and down the court handling the ball. And that was different from basically high school players, who if they were 6-5 or over, they were playing in the middle. I was a little different kind of breed there. Even when I came out here to the Big Eight, KU never had anyone under 6-8 or 6-9 lead them in scoring. Most of their players were big centers that they walked the ball up and dumped it into the post, which was boring as far as I was concerned. Our freshman team, we’d come up and jack up anytime and anywhere. I think I had some impact on the philosophy on how this school has played their basketball in my career. We had big people on the court, but I had a little freedom to put it up when I wanted to, and that was unheard of I was told until my time.

“... My recruiting trip to the University of Alabama was the night they played LSU and they had Pete Maravich. All the assistant coaches were telling me, ‘If you come to school out here, you get a chance to play against Pete.’ I’m sitting here and I’m looking at Pete, whose throwing up every kind of shot you can think about. I said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen me play, but that’s nothing. I can do that. He’s going to have a chance to play against me.’ (Laughs.) That’s just the way it was back then. My senior year in high school, I was averaging probably 45 points per game. I was the first black player to play in the consolidated all-star game at the University of Alabama, won the MVP. We lost the game, but I put on a show down there that they hadn’t seen. I wasn’t living in kind of a bubble. I had played against the best that I knew about, and just from that standpoint, I was there. This guy (Maravich) was out there just throwing up a lot of shots, and I figured if I throw up as many shots as he did, I could get 40 points a game. That’s just the way it was. You’re young and you believe in yourself that much, you just have to go with what you feel, and that’s how I felt.

“Between my junior and senior year, I came to music camp out here (KU). The varsity for KU had just gotten beat and Texas Western had won the national championship. Most of the varsity was in summer school and living in Lawrence during the summer. Against my father’s wishes and just because I guess I had to have the ball in my hands at sometime during the day, instead of taking lunch when we’d have break during rehearsals, I was over at Robinson (Gym). That’s when all the guys would come over and play —Jo Jo (White), Vernon Vanoy, (Rich) Bradshaw, everybody that had been on the team. Jo Jo at that time was an All-American. A couple of other guys were All-American high school players on KU’s team. They had the status of being a major college player, and KU’s tradition is second to none, so that summer, I said, ‘Im out here playing with these guys. I’m just a junior in high school and I’m as good as they are. I was just as good as (White) was. He couldn’t do anything that I couldn’t do, which was score, run up and down the floor and win games. That summer, I said to myself, ‘If this is the best of all players in the country and I can compete with them, then I got a chance. I got a real legitimate chance to get to that level.’ Well, I guess some of the players felt the same way about me. Toward the end of music camp, coach (Ted) Owens called my counselor and asked for me to call. He said ‘some of these players that you’ve  been playing against said you’re a tremendous basketball player and we’ve never heard of you.’ I said, ‘Well, I went to a segregated school.’ It was small. In the 60s, Alabama was known as basically a football state. They didn’t care about nothing about basketball. 

“... To me, you got to be comfortable wherever you go. If I was going to spend four years anywhere and make this sacrifice to be competitive for an institution, I felt at least I owed it to myself to go where I felt comfortable. I just felt that (KU) was the place. I had met players on the team. My older sister had attended school out here. She liked it. They’re a nationally renowned basketball school and academic school. They had all he plusses. I felt that I could come here and make a mark for myself and probably win a national championship, which is all you can ask for. That’s the reason people go to college, they want to be the best they can be and win a national championship. I felt I could do all that at this school. I don’t know whether I would have come out here if I had not come out here on the music camp. They probably wouldn’t have recruited me. At that time, there were the recruiting wars going on per say in the south. The only visits I made were to the four schools —Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn and KU.  Cincinnati was recruiting me, but I was there and that was a big city. I didn’t really feel that comfortable. The most intense recruiting was done in the south and KU. I was probably the easiest person to recruit at KU, but 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.’ I had this impression of it being what it was like to be recruited and go to school and have the opportunity again to play for a national championship, to be recognized as being 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. Alabama’s program was just starting. It was basically (legendary football coach) Bear Bryant was there. Auburn had some minor success, but nothing on the scale at what I was looking at. The powerhouse in the SEC at that time was Kentucky.

“...The reason I had heard about (KU) before, my sister had come out there. But I followed college athletics and basketball because that‘s what I wanted to do. They were among the traditionally top teams in the country. Other than UCLA, who was winning everything at that time, KU was considered a good school in basketball. They were winning the Big 8 a couple of times. When you look at what I was looking at, I was looking at some really small options. Either going to a school in the south, which were only recruiting me, or going to a school which had the opportunity to win a national championship. That kind of eliminated some things right there, other than the cars, the money, and clothes, the money, that I would have probably got at other places. I just didn’t have the comfort level to go somewhere else.”

More from Bud Stallworth on the art of shooting the basketball:

“To me, you’ve got this rim, this circle. 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 is 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. That is something that’s an accomplishment. 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.”

Recalling Jayhawk legend Bud Stallworth's college and NBA career

My first memories of KU basketball growing up in Lawrence center around the 1972-73 team and the 1973-74 Final Four squad. So unfortunately, I was too young and just missed remembering Bud Stallworth's senior season in 1971-72, when he scored 50 points against Missouri in his final home game in Allen Fieldhouse en route to averaging a whopping 25.3 points per game and becoming an All-American.

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.

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

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.”