George “Iceman” Gervin

George Gervin was born on April 27, 1952 in Detroit. His father left the family when Gervin was 2 years old, and his mother was forced to raise six children by herself. When Gervin reached high school he was only 5 foot 6 inches and had been nearly cut by the basketball team. The school janitor would let him shoot in the gymnasium every night, but only if he would sweep up after he was done. The hard work paid off and during his senior year the now 6 foot 6 inch Gervin was named to the All-State team. He also earned a basketball scholarship to play for Long Beach University (Porter, 1995).

After experiencing homesickness at Long Beach University, he transferred back to Eastern Michigan University as a sophomore. He played well for Eastern Michigan, and had the team on an 18-game winning streak while averaging around 29 points per game. All looked well for Gervin until a brawl with opponent Jay Piccolla during a semifinal game in the NCAA small college tournament. He was suspended from the team and eventually expelled from the school totally (Hickok, 1995). He had earlier received an invitation to try out for the 1972 U.S. Olympic basketball team, but this was also revoked following the expulsion from Eastern Michigan (Porter, 1995). After his expulsion he would continue his basketball career playing in the Continental Basketball League. He would continue to peak interest while playing for the CBL and would eventually be drafted by the Virginia Squires of the American Basketball Association during the first round of their 1972-73 draft (Hickok, 1995).

The Squires signed Gervin to a contract that would pay him around $100,000 per season, and he would also room with another well-known player, Julius “Dr. J” Erving. Although Gervin would play in only 30 games that season he would be named to the ABA All-Rookie team while averaging 14.1 points per game. A teammate of his on the Squires named Fatty Taylor would be the first to give him the nickname “Iceman” due to his constant calm demeanor while playing (Porter, 1995). In 1974 Gervin would be traded to the San Antonio Spurs because the Squires were having financial problems. He would continue to star for the Spurs and average nearly 23 points per game (Dawson, 2002). The Spurs would merge into the NBA in 1976 and he would continue to dominate competition, proven by his winning of four scoring titles in his first five years in the NBA (Porter, 1995). Gervin would also lead his team into the playoffs in every one of his nine years in the league, including eight straight years with the Spurs and one year with the Chicago Bulls. He would also be named to the All-Star team in every one of his nine seasons, and even winning the All-Star game MVP in 1980 while scoring 34 points (Dawson, 2002). Gervin would be traded in 1985 to the Chicago Bulls and would play only one season for them before retiring from the NBA in 1986. He would continue to play basketball in Italy during the 1986-87 season and also for the Quad City Thunder of the CBL for the 1989-90 season before retiring for good (Porter, 2002). Overall, during his combined ABA-NBA career, Gervin would score 26,595 points in 1,060 regular season games, which is an average of 25.1 points per game. He would also tally 5,602 rebounds and 2,789 assists during this time (Hickok, 1995). He would set the record for points in a single quarter with 33 points against the New Orleans Jazz, and his NBA career scoring average of 26.2 points per game in 791 games is good enough to be ranked eighth best all-time in NBA history. He would also be named to five All-NBA First Teams, two All-NBA Second Teams and two All-ABA Second teams as well (Porter, 1995). He would finish up his San Antonio Spur career as the holder or tied with sixty club records (Dawson, 2002).

From 1986 till 1992, beside playing basketball semi-professionally, Gervin served as the community relations director for the Spurs. Than, in 1992, Gervin was named one of the assistant coaches of the Spurs by than head coach John Lucas. Gervin would only coach for two years before returning to community relations and in 1995 he would found the George Gervin Youth Center for troubled young people. In 1996 Gervin would be named to the NBA’s Fifty Greatest Players of All-Time team, as well as be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1999 he would also be named as one of the twenty best NBA players of all time, along with getting his jersey number 44 retired by the San Antonio Spurs. In 2000, his youth center would form together with St. Phillips College to form a program called San Antonio New Enterprise and Job Creation Project designed to help create career and self-employment opportunities for poor minorities (Dawson, 2002).

References:

Dawson, D. Ed. (2002). Great Athletes. Volume 3. Pasedena: Salem Press, Inc.

Hickok, R. (1995). A Who’s Who of Sports Champions: Their Stories and Records. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Porter, D. (1995). African American Sports Great: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Links:

NBA Hall of Fame

Remember the ABA