Johnny Kerr from the U. of Illinois and Tilden High School was there for the local connection, and so was Chicago Heights' Jerry Colangelo. They even paraded around a real Bull. But perhaps the enduring symbol of the inaugural Chicago Bulls in 1966 was one of the original starting five, Don Kojis.
Because he was all about a flying start and shooting for the stars.
Kojis, a Marquette graduate who played 12 seasons in the NBA and made two All-Star teams, died late last week at his home in San Diego. He was 82. The cause was cancer. He was a star and starter for the original Baby Bulls, the 1966-67 expansion team that remains the only expansion team in NBA history to make the playoffs.
Kojis was one of the original starting five along with Jerry Sloan, Bob Boozer, Len Chappell and Guy Rodgers. It was with Rodgers that Kojis introduced the back door baseline lob slam dunk to the NBA. It became the most popular play for the modest number but but excited fans in the South Side International Amphitheatre near the old Stockyards where the expansion Bulls played their games. They moved to the Chicago Stadium the following season.
Kojis, who was originally drafted by the Chicago Zephrys, who went on to move to Baltimore and now are the Washington Wizards, played one season for the Bulls and then was left unprotected in the expansion draft for San Diego, which is now Houston. He also played for the Supersonics and Kings before retiring in 1975. Though his life's work became Whispering Winds, a Catholic retreat camp primarily for special needs youth. He was co-founder and received a humanitarian award in 2013 for his work with the camp and the San Diego community.
Though long before that Kojis was reaching for the stars in another way.
The 6-foot-5 forward was, as Wilt Chamberlain once said, "the jumpingest white boy I've ever seen."
Kojis was Marquette's all-time rebounding leader and their best NBA player before Dwyane Wade.
Back in that era, NBA money wasn't so much. So Kojis started his professional career playing for what was then AAU ball for Phillips Petroleum. It was not uncommon in that 1950s and early 1960s era for many top players to eschew the NBA for a business career with a major company in those high-level industrial leagues. Playing in international tournaments with Phillips, Kojis with a teammate developed what he came to call the Kangaroo Kram, the lob dunk play so familiar in the NBA these days.
But in that era, dunking was often viewed negatively and even banned for awhile in college. Even Chamberlain mostly would lay in the ball rather than dunk because of the unwritten rules of the day. But Kojis' play, especially with clever point guard Rodgers, became a fan favorite and basically the start of that style of play for the NBA.
Kojis, the player representative with San Diego, was one of the plaintiffs of the Robertson suit that led to NBA free agency and the merger with the ABA. In writing my book Hard Labor about the case and the league in that era, I went to San Diego and spent a day with Kojis.
His wife had kept scrapbooks of his days in the NBA and with those Bulls as he delighted in going through many that included stories of his San Diego playing pals Pat Riley and Rick Adelman and how they often triple dated and stood up for one another at their weddings. But mostly those playing days that included so many bizarre adventures with those 1966-67 expansion Bulls.
Kojis had dozens of stories from that wild first season with the Bulls. Like Chappell getting the starting job opening night over Nate Bowman, who was supposed to start. But then owner Dick Klein decided to hire a hypnotist in training camp to improve performance and presumably make the castoffs believe they were stars. Bowman broke his ankle falling down when he was hypnotized. Kojis also said he was mistakenly put on the Bulls expansion list after his one season with the team when one of the owners got drunk on the flight to New York for the next expansion draft and mistakenly included Kojis on the list.
And so Kojis was headed west to his destiny. After his time with the expansion Bulls when he became one of the modern game's pioneers. Fly, Don, fly.
"original" - Google News
November 27, 2021 at 03:26AM
https://ift.tt/32rvJUC
Rest In Peace To Don Kojis, The Original Bull - Bulls.com
"original" - Google News
https://ift.tt/32ik0C4
https://ift.tt/35ryK4M
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Rest In Peace To Don Kojis, The Original Bull - Bulls.com"
Post a Comment