St. Louis Post-Dispatch Date: 12/12/2020

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ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH DATE: 12/12/2020

Hochman: Touching base with Bob Pettit, the basketball great who won St. Louis its lone NBA title

By: Ben Hochman

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/benjamin-hochman/hochman-touching-base-with-bob- pettit-the-basketball-great-who-won-st-louis-its-lone/article_f07251ee-0606-5e61-9fc6- 37783ea4d0e1.html

In anticipation of his birthday Saturday, I called Bob Pettit a few days ago.

What, I wondered, does age 88 mean to this St. Louis sports great?

“Well,” he said, “it's nice to be alive.

“And nice to be able to do certain things. I'm mobile and able to get around and still think a little bit. Everything seems to be going well. I hope to make it a few more.”

Bob Pettit is a local legend. You probably knew that. But if you didn’t — if you don’t know the name — then I’m glad you’re here. Every St. Louis sports fan should know about Pettit, the Pro Basketball Hall of Famer who was not only the best player on the NBA’s St. Louis Hawks, but also one of the best players in the NBA. And he took the floor representing the fleur-de-lis.

“St. Louis was a wonderful city, and it was a tremendous basketball city in those days,” said Pettit, who came along with the Milwaukee Hawks to St. Louis in 1955, and made the All-Star team every single season until he retired in 1965. “People were very supportive. At that time, they didn’t have football or hockey. The fans were terrific. They really followed us and cheered and heckled the other people. It was a fun time.”

Pettit lives in New Orleans with his wife, Alma. Their house is right near the Longue Vue House and Gardens. He was a St. Louis star, but a Louisianan forever. Raised in Baton Rouge, he famously was cut from his high school junior varsity team and then sprouted all the way to 6-foot-9. He signed to play at nearby Louisiana State, where a statue of him stands tall today. About an hour away in New Orleans, Pettit stays active, going on walks with Alma, sometimes around the gardens, other times around a cemetery, where he said he can “see my old friends.

“And I try to work out at least five times a week. What I work on mostly is strength and my balance. And that's what bothers me the most about 88 years old — the fact that I have to be very careful that I don't fall. So that's what I work on. I play a lot of duplicate bridge. I really enjoy that. I played this afternoon online.

“I like to shoot a little, hunt a little, play golf every once in a while, not too much. But I enjoy life. We have a lot of fun. … Life has been wonderful for me. And I've enjoyed it. I hope to have another couple of good years.”

He follows the NBA today. Game’s changed a little. He watches the New Orleans Pelicans and also the Atlanta Hawks, who moved from St. Louis down south in 1968. Pettit is a franchise great, his No. 9 hanging in the Atlanta rafters, even though he never played there. He’s a star player from a team that’s no longer in St. Louis in a league that’s no longer in St. Louis. Does it frustrate him that he doesn’t have a direct NBA connection to the city he played in?

“I don't say it's frustrating, but I say it's disappointing,” Pettit said. “Because I think St. Louis was a great basketball town. And I'm sure there's a lot of interest still there, but you just have to put it together for somebody to move it there. And you have a great place to play downtown. I'd love to see St. Louis get a team. I think they'd be a terrific city for somebody, I really do.”

While some of the greatest St. Louisans in the NBA — Jo Jo White and Jayson Tatum — are famous Celtics, the greatest St. Louis NBA player famously beat the Celtics.

Naturally, Pettit said his greatest St. Louis memory was 1958, the year the Hawks won the NBA championship. The season before, St. Louis made its first NBA Finals against Boston. Pettit actually sent Game 7 to overtime with two clutch free throws, but Boston won the game in double overtime. It was the first of the Celtics’ titles. But 1958! What history. In Game 6, Pettit scored 50 points and the Hawks defeated Boston for our city’s only NBA title — and it was the only time the 1950s-60s Celtics lost an NBA Finals. They went on to win the next eight, missed the Finals for a year, then came back and won two more times.

“Boston made you play at your best,” said Pettit, who twice won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award. “With (center) Bill Russell, they were spectacular. So it was fun playing against him. I enjoyed it. You always had to get up and be ready to play him.”

Four different times, Pettit was named the MVP of the NBA All-Star Game.

Twice, that happened in St. Louis.

On the phone, you could hear in Pettit’s voice — this thick and proud Luuusana accent — how much the All-Star awards meant to him.

“I was playing with and against the best players in the world, and I wanted to prove that I belonged in there,” Pettit said. “It isn't like the All-Star Game today. I think the players enjoy it, they go out and have a good time and run up a big score. It wasn't like that when I played. It was for blood.

"The East, which had a lot of great players in (Bob) Cousy and (Wilt) Chamberlain and Russell and all of them — you know, we really wanted to win. And we went out and played very hard. I mean, it was no time off for me. It was no rest. I went out to play just like everybody else — we all went out for blood.

“I think the games were much better in those days.”

Another year for Bob Pettit also means another year that distances Bob Pettit from St. Louis. But to those who know of him, he’s forever remembered. And those learning about Bob Pettit will hopefully cherish these old memories, which are new to them.