Bob Pettit

Right before the 1947-48 basketball season, Baton Rouge High School held tryouts. Among the players who didn't make the cut was a rather unathletic, uncoordinated, but very determined sophomore named Bob Pettit. Twenty-three years later, Pettit would be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Despite his lack of natural athletic ability, Pettit's drive and determination carried him to a stellar pro career, and earned him the respect of his peers.

Pettit was born in 1932, in Baton Rouge Louisiana. He was cut from his high school basketball team both his freshman and sophomore years, but never stopped working to improve his game. In fact, Pettit claims that if he had been good enough to make the team, he wouldn't have been as good a player. "Basically, getting cut made me more determined," he would later state. "Probably it was a good thing that I was not good to start with. If you walk out and you're naturally good at something, you don't work hard to develop it like you do if you're struggling. I had to work very hard. I'd go home and practice two, three hours an afternoon just shooting around at a goal in the backyard trying to get better. When I did start getting coordinated, started getting size, I was a lot further advanced than a lot of those guys who picked it up and found it easy to start." Pettit accepted a scholarship to play at Louisiana State University, where he was an All-American as a junior, and as a senior. Over his career there, he averaged 27.4 points per game. In 1954, the Milwaukee Hawks, later to become the St. Louis Hawks, drafted him with the second overall pick.

Often rookies in the NBA struggle some their first year. However, that was not the case with Pettit. As a rookie, he would average 20.4 points per game and 13.8 rebounds en route to the Rookie of the Year award. The next year, Pettit won his first of two scoring titles with a 25.7 average, and earned his first of two MVP awards. While no one could claim that Pettit was artistic, no one could doubt his talent and heart. Just ask the coach of the Lakers at that time, Fred Schaus, about playing Pettit. "The only way to stop him is not to let him have the ball. But he ruins that strategy by going and getting it himself!" In 1958, Pettit led the Hawks to their only NBA title, upsetting the great Boston Celtics. In the sixth and deciding game of that series, Pettit scored 50 points, including 19 of his team's last 21, to lead the Hawks to a 110-109 victory.

Pettit would go on to enjoy a successful career as a pro. Over the course of his career, Pettit won two regular season MVP's, four All-Star game MVP's, attended 11 All-Star games, and never averaged less than 20 points and 12 rebounds in a season. He would retire in 1965 as the first NBA player to score 20,000 career points, and with career marks of 26.4 points and 16.2 rebounds per game. In 1970, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1996, he was voted one of the top 50 players of all time.

So what made this "athletically challenged" young man enjoy such a successful career? His heart. "There may have been greater players," proclaimed Hawks owner Ben Kerner, "but none with greater desire and dedication."

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