Maurice Stokes

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Oh NBA championship swear Oh hello I'm Chris Fowler for sportscentury in the 1950s national point-shaving scandals raised doubts about the integrity of college basketball but one night in 1955 a burly man from an obscure college in Pennsylvania barged into Madison Square Garden and played with such force and brilliance that no one doubted his intentions the prototype of the modern power forward it was destined to star in the pros and for three years that's exactly what he did then with chilling speed his mammoth talent was snuffed out and after a long painful lingering he left us with only the memory of his greatness the Royals are fighting hard to get back in the game Stokes finally gets the rebound and Garner's his 29th point of the contest that man stalks is still haunting the Warriors you sitting under the tree of the playground a bottle of pop and bag potato chips and you hear guys said man let me tell you what I saw motive and you so you move closer he would have been certainly easily one of the 50 top players in the history of the NBA the defensive game plan at that particular time was you know we had to stop him he was clearly decades ahead of his time in terms of the total package of a basketball player Maurice Stokes as usual grabs the rebound and heads up court when you saw a play you immediately said that's Maurice Stokes Maurice would let a guard get by on the dribble and Maurice reach around from the other side steal the ball go down the other way for a layup and at that time that was unheard oh he's a bull when he started to move he was so strong that he's going to take up so much room it's going to be difficult to stop he's dominating was such a freak accident it caught everyone completely by surprise I was shocked I mean I was absolutely shocked he couldn't speak he had tricks a trach in his throat and it was very very upsetting Americans are dreamers we look at people and we say wow what could Mickey Mantle have been with good knees what could Muhammad Ali have been if they hadn't stolen the three years from him and what would Maurice Stokes have been had he been able to run the full length of his career and not been struck down so young you born June 17 1933 within smelling distance of the Pittsburgh steel mills Maurice Stokes was blessed with strong motivated parents they were both rather small in height and you could tell from visiting own that they were a nice family mr. Stokes was a quiet man too he went to work every day never missed a day and he took very good care of his family his mom was the person that seemed to be somewhat outgoing so I think Maurice took a little bit of both his dad I recall his being somewhat of a no-nonsense guy and Maurice when he got down to business he was a no-nonsense kind of guy too even though he had that nice easy way about him Rio's hustled the paper out you know put in a chokehold cut grass energetic you know trying to make a buck here a book there he often said to me he didn't know if he would have been able to go to college were it not for a basketball scholarship it was very important for him to be a good basketball player to get a good education carrying a full complement of physical abilities that fit the demands of basketball Stokes taught himself the subtleties of the game on the pittsburgh playgrounds barista through just about anything all he did was play basketball he didn't plate and try running track or anything like that but he seemed to to pick up and get better and better every year that you saw him played we we had social events where we go to to the YMCA on Fridays to dances he loved the dance loved to talk to young ladies you know his sister which was his twin Clarice as well lacked and fellows would try to date her but stuck with r a shotgun and I don't think that because of Marissa size and that anybody was going to fool around with Clarice at all in high school he was a good ballplayer but but he won the big gun on it he the six five senior elicited almost a dozen scholarship offers as westinghouse high won its second straight city championship at seventeen stokes looked toward college with a hopeful eye despite the limitations of the times it wasn't easy for a black man to get a scholarship at major colleges you look at your top colleges of kentucky in north carolina they were primarily one made up of white players if you put that into perspective in 1950 and 51 he was being recruited this was three or four years before the Brown versus Board of Topeka Kansas and in that decision that really gave impetus to the civil rights movement I know my parents especially my father did not believe that a university was going to pay for Maurice Stokes to play basketball or for myself they believed that we should prepare ourselves basically to get a job working in the mill and I think Maurice and I we both wanted something better what happened with with Stokes is that many of the the coaches who looked at him felt that there were other other players who were better but they could only have maybe three or four blacks on the team and as a result of that he kept moving down the list but coach skip Hughes of st. Francis College in Loretto Pennsylvania rated Stokes so high that he recruited Jean Phelps a black Westinghouse teammate just to make Stokes feel comfortable Phelps being here was a great advantage and I think it was a smart move on a on a part of coach used to bring Phelps in first and then get Stokes later Stokes entered st. Francis in 1951 what no one could have known man was that Stokes and the Franky's would rise from obscurity to national prominence having spent all of his 18 years in the Pittsburgh area Marie Stopes found the rural environment of st. Francis a radical change there were fewer than a thousand students here it was an all-white school mostly Catholic students attending it and he was not Catholic and it had to be a culture shock in his letters he he spoke about it he spoke about the isolation and the loneliness that he felt during the years you after bulking up to 230 pounds he averaged 17 points as a freshman in the summers he returned to Pittsburgh's Mellon Park for top-flight pickup games every summer guys that were playing college ball high school ball we gather at Mellon Park choose up sides and play all day long Reese was one of the he was a first prototype big man hit him he was mobile agile and he was Terry Austin there was a fellow named Ivan he was small in stature and I used to say Maurice give him a break he you're way above him he said he's out here yeah he has to play and Maurice took no prisoners with him he was Hiroshi's on the boards not only could he rebound he would kick it out and move and when he went up he would carry with him if you were on his shoulders you went with it I've never seen anybody come down the court as Maurice did one time in Mellon Court and hit the foul line go up here to take a jump shot and then realize that somebody might be cutting and then that person didn't cut and released did a complete 360 in the air and sunk the jump shot from the foul line he he would be there all day he just worked and worked and work Stokes upgraded the Frankie's image to such a level that the athletic director found it increasingly difficult to schedule games with the bigger schools and Stokes sophomore season the schedule shrank from 30 games to 18 teams were staying away from this we were a small school they knew it was a team if we lose - it's going to ruin our reputation his height was about 6-7 and I think we listened miss six five or something just to dissuade people from rejecting us from the schedule with ticket sales booming st. Francis moved its home games from a 500-seat gym to one that held 3,300 they used to have to bring the sheriff in to the people want from sitting in the hallways or in the steps no that's the creditor was growing up in central Pennsylvania my first memories are people talking about him with almost a reverence a mystique people say oh you've got to see Stokes Stokes is unbelievable we were playing John Carroll in Cleveland and was a referee there who was for the first half I noticed he's falling all over the court so at halftime I got hold of him and I said what's going on he said well he said I've been waiting for a couple of years to see this kid play ball and he said I'm not gonna miss anything he was the team and we knew that he was the team and we knew that when we got the ball he was to have it as soon as possible and then good things would happen from that point on as a junior he averaged 23 points and 22 rebounds dominant on the court Stokes found campus life considerably more challenging he indicates that that he was lonely that it was very difficult for him because he was a black man in a white person's world and and it really wasn't it wasn't easy from that that respect there were no black women on campus at the time there were times when we would go to dances a lot of white girls were asked to dance and and he thought he would say Tom that doesn't look good he would never dance with her the white girl he just managed to fit in and he liked everybody and that was his big power as a fact that he he was open to anybody and everybody and he mixed in well and he never sat alone he gradually developed acceptance I think because of his personality and also because of a success met many of the people here just just idolized him by the time he left he didn't scare you when you looked at my race he was a jovial guy intelligent guy and he knew he knew the ground work he knew how to say hello when he shouldn't and back out when he had to do that also you can't equate easygoing with being a quiescent he was raised in a strong family with strong values and that's what he carried through with him but he had a steel backbone and knew exactly what he had to do that backbone pushed st. Francis to a twenty two and nine record in 1954 when the team played in college basketball's biggest dance the National Invitation Tournament NCAA was nothing the NIT was your big big major major tournament because everyone wanted play at Madison Square Garden and of course that was the greatest place to be seen people were magnetized we only played two games in the NIT in 54 he was on the all-tournament he just started a big press the next season st. Francis returned to the NIT in advance of the semi-finals in a 79-73 overtime loss to the 2nd seeded Dayton Flyers Stokes scored 43 points and hauled down 19 rebounds and one of the most exciting performances in tournament history he is the only player in the history of the NIT tournament to win an MVP award playing for the 4th place team and I think his stock really clearly went up in the eyes of so many people at that point including NBA scouts his performance in the 1955 tournament was absolutely astounding he he just devastated people New York media could say nothing that wasn't glowing about the the performance of Stokes I'll never forget the New York writers characterizing us as Maurice Stokes and his unskilled but scrappy cohorts ship in 1955 Maurice Stokes was drafted number two overall by the Rochester Royals Pittsburgh native Jack Twyman was the team's second pick and Stokes Westinghouse High teammate Edie Flemming was selected third we were about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime and we were nervous we didn't know what we were getting into anybody that played basketball the epitome of what you're striving for is to play in the NBA Stokes and Fleming soon learned that NBA credentials offered little protection from racism in Rochester at that time they had a section called the black bottom was like a flying through town black people lived and we were channeled into that area neither one of us are really happy about that at that time rotated people deal with in a common-sense manner for any human being he didn't have those to take those things for granted where am I gonna eat at the end of a game the dignity that you leave a man with what did Maurice Thompson come he must have encountered an awful lot that was extremely difficult for him to be able particularly a guy who was as competitive as proud as strong as he was we went into Saint Louis and we walked into a restaurant and they wouldn't service Stokes was a highly intelligent fella he was gonna you know make an issue out of it he just got up and even say I believe he said stay in with no and the whole team cut up room worked out with him he was so different such a hackneyed phrase role-model it was more than a role model he was a person who bought out the best I never really thought her Maurice is black Maurice he was Maurice he had he wasn't black or white to me he was a heck of a basketball player on the court where talent is the measure of a man Stokes was immediately crowned king of all he surveyed probably the best opening act in NBA history was conducted by Murray Stokes in his NBA debut against the New York knickerbockers at the Rochester War Memorial Maurice Stokes had 32 points 20 rebounds and 8 assists it was only six seven but he rebounded like an 8-footer and he was tough I mean he left a lot of bodies lying on paint when he went up a rebound Maurice Stokes gathers in his 26th rebound and leads a fast-break he did physically things that we hadn't seen before he was the forerunner of the quick fast athletic power forwards of the future he strove to be a perfectionist on the basketball court we'd go through the court in the morning which allows for two lawyers and then we'd shoot jump shots you take 20 I'll take 20 and he wasn't very vocal except if you committed an error for the second or third time then he'd tell you about leading the league in rebounding average the six foot seven 240 pound Stokes was voted the 1956 Rookie of the Year and given a new car nobody knew that in Pittsburgh when he was growing up he never had a car and he never needed a car well Maurice was never really interested in driving he had his chauffeur and that was me so he won this car and somebody had to drive it to a used-car lot to sell it he traded that in got a larger automobile and then he became interested in driving but even then when we would go somewhere he would say ed you better try because I'm not really ready for the highway Maurice liked to have his quiet time he liked to have his private time he loved music he loved to read he he would you would always see him on the road curled up with a book he would joke around and be a little bit of a prankster and stuff and he liked a needle so he was always in on the fun he was always doing something he was mischievous we're in Toronto one night it was a night before an exhibition game I walked in on Moe's rumen it was like a concert studio that the music was gorgeous and it was a terrific state-of-the-art stereo set there playing the music I said Moe did that come with a room he said no he's as I take it with me wherever I go on a roadie since the only friend I have on a road and there may have been some significant sir that maybe he was a lonesome person the nose reason why things happen to you I know we talked about that one time we were looking younger and it doesn't doesn't do any good because you know you know no control after setting a league rebounding record in 1957 Stokes seemed in perfect control the following season in the Royals new home of Cincinnati averaging 18 rebounds 17 points and six assists with the Royals in the hunt for a playoff spot Stokes turned up his game to a new high and that's the best I had seen anyone play his last three or four games let's even Maurice it's like you're playing a little harder d fancy rebounding a little bit and driving and then the scrapping getting on the floor to get loose balls and he they just did it all having long since clinched a playoff spot the Royals were playing the Minneapolis Lakers in the last game of the season on March 12 1958 I can remember him coming in the outside lane on a fast break and you know somebody went for the block or whatever but it knocked him down pretty hard Maurice went over the back of one of their players hit the ground was unconscious for a bit it made a sound share a big guy like him thud I thought I've seen him anytime take wraps get knocked into baskets get knocked over squaring tables and so it was it would really it didn't dawn on us at the time the significance of the injury our trainer went out to tend alone he was stunned somewhat laid there for a minute or two and they got him up he shook it up he was a tough guy he'll regain consciousness and rejoined the the game he went back into the game the Royals beat the Lakers 96 89 Stokes did not complain of any ill effects as the team traveled to Detroit he was in the lineup for the first playoff game we lost the game I do remember that Maurice wasn't himself in that after Washington play 70 some games she knew you know what he could do and what he couldn't do even though Maurice had a double-double in that game he seemed lethargic he seemed listless after the game on the way back on the bus to the airport he was taken ill and he started to regain throw up we go to I can remember being in the airport and Maurice came in and and I think it was Richie Regan and dick Ricketts he was hungover them they were there almost dragged him and he took him in a restroom and the comment was that Maurice wasn't feeling very well he told rickets felt so bad he thought he was going to die and he picked up a bit when he was at the airport he's browsing through some magazines and that's when I saw him I said I'd pre-film any better he said he was I thought he'd get back to Cincinnati I would never going up the ramp I was right behind him he did he just collapsed I ran to gun counter to get a doctor and he told him he was all right and they called me back we boarded the plane back in those years there was the Harris Tweed sport coat it was a heavy wool sport coat and he Maurice had one on and after about 10 minutes he was so wet It was as if somebody took him by the head and dumped him in a swimming pool his whole outfit was just soaking wet the eyes are sort of rolling back in his head a little bit then he started gagging and then convulsing it was more of a convulsion type of illness at that point and then the loss of breath and gagging and Clem breathe pretty soon they were running oxygen down to it and and all of a sudden we realized that he was really sick the captain said we're 30 minutes away from Cincinnati let's wire ahead have an ambulance waiting for us we all waited on the plane while they took Murray saw in the lights red lights were flashing everything and Maurice from what I could see at the time it was pretty much out of it that scene of all the lights was what really kind of stood with me all these years I could still see those red lights and those white lights not knowing but what really had happened non of us did when we got into the hospital and then when the doctors came in they said you know this doesn't look good he might not last the night upon arriving there I've greased was packed in ice at a temperature of 104 plus and was in and out of consciousness if there was no one in the room he would be sleep unconscious so to speak when you call his name you know Ruby's harm or his feet he would open his eyes and I'll never forget when I said Maurice Maurice and he obviously recognized my voice and he opened his eyes and he started to cry I was devastated he was trying to speak but it nothing come on no words would come on I would almost draw a parallel between Christopher Reeve Superman paralyzed in a lot of ways Maurice Stokes was basketball Superman at the time and there he was totally unable to function well Stokes lay in a coma the Royals were sold for two prices for two hundred thousand dollars if Maurice remained sick 225 thousand dollars if he got well and was able to play again when Stokes emerged after weeks in a coma it was clear that his NBA career was over his body paralyzed Stokes was unable to speak his mind was perfect we would communicate by blinking his eyelids before M happens to be the mid word mid letter in the alphabet so if it was before M just try and spell out a word he would blink his eyes was ABC I'd say C like that then I could the next word I think letter I get a word you know that's how he started on diagnosed with the brain injury that affected his motor control center Stokes likely faced a future locked-in immobility the little brain tissue that's left is sort of disconnected short-circuited by scar tissue and what heaven you can want to lift your hand but there's no connection from the thinking of it to the hand to say move we've all wanted to do one thing and that was to do what was best for Maurice the parents were elderly they were not from Cincinnati at the time it was very difficult to move Maurice back to Pittsburgh and they weren't in a position economically to move from Pittsburgh when it became clear that Stokes needed someone to look after him in Cincinnati Jack Twyman stepped into the role as his legal guardian he was a man without a team everybody had left as is the case in professional basketball the bags are packed when the last game is over away they go I was in town I lived here I don't know how my parents or the family would have solved the problem of his long-term care so it was a gift actually that he did Lee did for him we talk about unions and how powerful they are now there was there was literally nothing back then in fact Jack Twyman had to get an attorney friend to battle for the workman's compensation that was do Maurice Stokes I mean now we would laugh at such a thing we proved that he was injured in a ballgame as a as a result he was qualified for state of Ohio workers comp benefits which he he got and now they didn't pay all of his expenses but it was wonderful they didn't hang out together a lot or they wasn't buddy buddies on the team but after this happened then Jack took over and then a great relationship developed between those two because of this I don't think any of the ballplayers lived in the community of the Jack and and there was no one no one at all who played with Jack oh they would have taken that sting and admired Jack for that that truly did through the summer and fall of 1958 Stokes dedicated himself to a rigorous physical therapy regimen he always thought that one of these days he would come out of it same way then he went into it you know Maurice wanted to he wanted to be able to be Maurice if not in the athletic world Ian just to be able to communicate with people to go and come to do the things that he enjoyed doing Jack Twyman would go there here his teammate at night and staying her over the bed and Maurice would just be staring you know he wouldn't be moving wouldn't be moving wouldn't be moving and now there came a moment when Twyman came back and trying to hold conversations with the wall and the the nurse said we have a surprise for you today the nurse said tell him who you are mr. Stokes and he said to me moe couldn't shut him up anyway he was so proud of himself whenever he would have a minor or major accomplishment like that he couldn't wait to share it sometimes when Jack would at a basketball game see and Maurice had watched it on television when they got together my recent L Jack what he did wrong I was very careful not to be modeling with him he demanded to be treated as an equal and everybody that came to see him he was hard at it the first couple visits because you're shocked but after a while he made you feel totally relaxed yeah a certain smile that he would do he couldn't physically grab you and hold you and shake hands but he'd give you that smile and you knew where you stood when he got to a point that he was able to move his fingers we approached IBM and they gave him an electric typewriter and we strapped his arms right over the keys and hit type out like that his first message was to his friend Jack Twyman everybody said you know isn't it wonderful what you did but I benefited a great deal from he's too had a the ability to really affect people the nurses he had a following of young ladies coming to see him all the time I somehow he do that Lisa kind of laugh at that to him at the time of his accident Stokes had a girlfriend named Dorothy Parsons she's the one who spent all her time out there when he got sick first then she could tell they sent me there for a long time and so she wouldn't ask him what she should do he was not going to put his problem on Dorothy's shoulders and and it was a very difficult thing that Maurice was the one that said we have to end this relationship because I'm not going to burden you despite his loss of movement Stokes was determined to be a positive force in the lives of others and that Maurice nice young boy tires all my life basically spent time in the hospital trying to correct some damage done by a childhood disease there's many of days when you just don't think you're gonna make it and so what's the use and I guess I sold and Amanda get far worse than myself but you know he never gave up he would come up from therapy soaking wet he was working so hard that's very unusual I think it would have been very easy for him to say all the hell would I I can't face this why me the tragedy is how great would he have been how much of basketball on this in 1960 the Royals drafted Oscar Robertson what miracles of power and grace would have been performed by a tandem of moe and the Big O they were so smart they were so good at all aspects of the game from scoring to rebounding to ball handling and passing I think it would have been an unstoppable combination I truly believe the Celtics would not have won as many titles in a row that the Royals clearly could have won some titles we would talk about that a lot and I think he would have given anything to have been able to play during that era of the Celtics dominance of the NBA it just boggles my mind to think of someone in that situation to have so much taken away from you and and not be bitter and not feel self-pity or at least not express it and to not want to withdraw from society which would have been understandable and to want to go on to really want to go on when we return confined in a Cincinnati hospital or Reese tokes makes his last stand Americans like people who don't give up they love people who don't give up because in their heart of hearts they say that ain't me I probably would quit and nobody fought harder and no athlete ever touch more people than Marie Stopes to see the way he conducted himself I just stood in awe of them I mean I got so bad when I would be having a bad day myself I would go to see Maurice selfishly to say I want to get pumped up and he never failed to pump me up doc Harmons concern bridges from in this gap and help people to become more sensitive to the fact that the white person could be concerned about a black person if he were at a disadvantage in life symbolically the difference in their races was vitally important because we're entering the heyday of the civil rights movement and it was very important for people in this country to see a partnership like that between black and white that it could actually work if the black/white symbolism was good for the country there was the practical matter of paying the mounting hospital costs while the state of Ohio covered a portion of the medical expenses the shortfall was huge forcing Stokes and Twyman to depend upon private donations in 58 the year the fall after Maurice took sick Milton cutter sought me out said I have this hotel in the Catskills my hotel is at your disposal let's have a game in the summer let's raise money a summer tradition was born the first Maurice Stokes charity game was in 1959 as top players paid their own travel expenses and the first game we probably had 60 or 70 player show up and and the total motivation was there but for the grace of God go I one day Stokes was well enough to travel and he bought up to the game and it was one of the most moving finish I saw the way the players lined up to hug him at one time before the game he was introduced I think he really tried to get up and get off out at turn stand up you could just see him flexing everywhere but just wasn't meant to be wasn't meant to be seeing those players come back and talk with him there meant so much to Maurice and I'm sure he questioned himself at times I know I would have why can't I do something like this anymore all of us are associated with Maurice are very gratified and confident that he's going to keep going and going to get out of that hospital and get back to where he can be a productive citizen again we're all looking forward to that point I think it made of us aware of a lot of things that accidents can happen no injuries are part of sport and it also collectively you know made us more aware of pitching planning in case of you know a lot of those types of things on the rare occasion when Stokes felt well enough to travel he could be found having dinner at the Twyman home it was so important to him they look forward to it very much and and that gave him the motivation to continue to improve and not laying there with nothing to look forward to one June day in 1969 the leaders of Saint Francis College gathered at Twyman 's home to discuss with Stokes the naming of their new Athletic Center I asked him would he mind if we named the building after him and no reaction the only reaction was tears in his eyes he had so much on his mind I learned very early on that he wasn't interested in just sports but he knew a lot about what was going on in the world and he wanted to express those feelings and often couldn't he was very much in support of Martin Luther King he looked up to him he had developed a collection of poetry by Langston Hughes he liked jazz very much he didn't dwell on his losses but just tried to increase his abilities nearly a decade after his injury Stokes had made small but significant physical progress and yet towards the end of his life that last year he was able to walk a couple steps and if you were with him for any length of time you were able to understand his speech good morning Mario are you this morning you don't know he was determined that he was gonna get better and he would have I swear I'd I think so on April 6th 1970 12 years after his collapse on the plane Maurice Stokes died of a heart attack he was 36 and my perception is that he just worked so hard that his heart gave out that was for the best for Maurice you know he was there a long time if she suffered a long time so you know I think it was a relief Stokes had asked to be buried on the grounds of st. Francis College at the memorial service father Vince used just one word to describe Maurice Stokes they call him a saint and it probably created a little stir because you don't confer sainthood on just an ordinary basketball player but I really think that sainthood is includes holiness and living a good life and kindness and charity and he had all of that and he had it to perfection and he suffered unbelievably and never complained about it remarkable guy in a sense he's one of those people who you meet and observe and say he's too good to be true but it is you can inspire as a basketball player you can revolutionize the game but that's fleeting what he was dealing with was life and life's severus problems and so those last 12 years and what he did and how he inspired others that was the remarkable legacy it showed the measure of the man he was a great inspiration to me and my family the 12 years that we were exposed to him and I think about that a lot and I think about how fortunate we were to have known this person on April 5th 2004 one day short the 34th anniversary of his death and after a long letter writing campaign led by Jack Twyman Maurice Stokes gained entry to the Basketball Hall of Fame to join the games great floors although his NBA career was cut short his memory remains lon among those who saw him play former pro athletes and celebrities still journey each summer the Catskill Mountains in New York to participate in a golf tournament bearing his name for sport century and Christophe you

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Length: 43min 0sec (2580 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2016

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