After 17 years of waiting, Jacksonville's Artis Gilmore is finally entering the Basketball Hall of Fame

Jacksonville (FL) Times-Union
August 11, 2011

After 17 years of waiting, Jacksonville's Artis Gilmore is finally entering the Basketball Hall of Fame
After 17 years of being eligible for the Basketball Hall of Fame and not being welcomed into that elite club, Artis Gilmore tried to do what he did best on the court during most of his playing career. He blocked it out.

If Jacksonville University's 7-foot-2 legend wasn't deemed worthy of admission, despite his dominance as a scorer, rebounder and shot-blocker at every level, then Gilmore refused to let the snub embitter him. Just as he rarely showed anger on the court, Gilmore didn't want his friends or family to see signs of him feeling hurt over being continually passed over.

Year after year, though it gnawed at him to not be selected, Gilmore learned to move on.

"Artis never dwelled on it," said Tom Wasdin, JU's assistant and head coach during Gilmore's two years with the Dolphins. "He always said, 'When the time is right, I'll get in.' He just didn't worry about it."

Since Hall of Fame president John L. Doleva informed Gil- more in April that he was voted in, Gilmore has long thought of what he might say upon his induction Friday night at the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. One of the few things he's certain of is, in hindsight, being forced to watch as friends joined the exclusive club without him turned out to be a good thing.

Now, with his wife of 39 years, Enola Gay, and their five children and two grandkids at his side, Gilmore, 61, feels more appreciative of the honor than if it had happened a decade ago. Back then, his youngest son, 14-year-old Artis II, would have been too young to understand the enormity of the impending moment.

"One of the things that's been emphasized is I'm long overdue [to be in the Hall of Fame]," Gilmore said. "But at this particular time in my life, it's priceless. I can't put it any other perspective. This is truly a wonderful blessing."

For many of those players/coaches that competed with and against him, Gilmore's selection is also a catharsis. Many had campaigned long and hard for his selection, yet were frustrated over him being left out. The Hall of Fame ceremony, where Gilmore and nine others are to be enshrined, will finally be a celebration instead of trying to unravel the mystery of his omission.

"[Gilmore] is still on this side of the dirt. I think that's more fulfilling than why it took so long," said former NBA star and Hall of Fame member George Gervin, a Gilmore teammate for three years with the San Antonio Spurs in the mid-1980s. "They recognize a lot of guys after they're gone. I'm just proud they finally did put him in the Hall. He gets to come into my house."

Rex Morgan, Gilmore's JU teammate on the 1970 NCAA runner-up team, is among several Jacksonville friends and family making the trip to the induction. He's just glad the wait is over, saying: "It's here, let's not dwell on the past."

Humbling roots

To understand the basketball immortality Gil- more is about to enter, it's also important to recognize the road a man known as the "A-Train" has traveled over six decades.

His early years were not so pretty. Gilmore, the second oldest of 10 children (one died at birth) of Otis and Mattie Gilmore, gets a little squeamish when the conversation steers toward his time growing up in Chipley, a small town in the Florida panhandle. During two separate interviews at his JU office, where he serves as special assistant to school president Kerry Romesburg, he was reticent about reliving his childhood.

It's not so much that his family struggled financially. A good dinner often depended on how well the fish were biting for his father. As Gilmore grew to 6-foot-5 at age 14, he often played basketball on sandy courts with no shoes.

But during the 1960s, when racial unrest was at its apex in the deep South, a shy Gilmore found it hard to escape the turmoil of a segregated America. To this day, it pains him to recall a chapter in his life where people were too often defined by color instead of their character.

"There's no question it was a hard, difficult, negative time," said Gilmore. "The relationships [between blacks and whites] were not the best. Even the best of times in Chipley were the worst of times.

"A black individual couldn't look a white man in the eye and talk to him straight up. That was almost like slavery, and that's the way it was back then. Things happened in my hometown that you're not totally proud of. I don't want to go into everything."

He doesn't explain why, after leaving all-black Roulhac High for predominantly white Chipley High, he stayed just one week. Or what was behind him moving to Dothan, Ala., 35 miles away, to live with non-family so he could attend Carver High in his senior year.

However, Gilmore also recognizes that the tough times he experienced before going off to college also provided him with a quiet strength. Some painful memories taught Gilmore the importance of having a gentle, non-judgmental spirit that his friends believe might be his most redeeming quality.

When he went back to Chipley in 2004 for his mother's funeral, Gilmore vividly remembers driving through town and seeing a torn-down service station. He looked at the side of the station, his eye catching sight of three bathroom doors, and it took Gilmore back 40 years in time.

"I remember that one door, the one that said, 'Colored only' on it," said Gilmore. "That was pretty painful. I ended up getting out of the car and taking a picture of it."

He took pride in the fact that any references to color were now gone. "It was an indication there was an awful lot of growth there," he said. Chipley, like its future basketball legend, had come a long way.

By the time Gilmore went to junior college at Gardner-Webb, where he met Enola, and later transferred to JU, it was a different world. Not only did he stand taller, become a force in basketball, and feel more confident in himself, but college represented a different environment.

Life wasn't so much about a racial divide, but a team of black and white players uniting for a common cause - winning.

JU's magic ride

It was pure luck that a 7-foot-2 center came to JU's campus on a recruiting visit in the spring of 1969, verbally committing along with Ernie Fleming, who was Gilmore's teammate at Gardner-Webb.

One year earlier, Fleming, who had been recruited by Wasdin as a high school kid in Massachusetts, was looking to transfer after one year of junior college. He wrote a letter to JU to see if the Dolphins were interested.

"In the letter, he said he'd like to bring a friend with him [to JU]," Wasdin said. "I thought he meant a girlfriend. The P.S. to the letter said, 'My friend is Artis Gilmore.' I remembered the name [in recruiting circles], but didn't know what happened to him."

A year later, Gilmore didn't qualify academically to get into Wake Forest and his roommate, Fleming, was still looking for his next hoops destination. That's how the most dominant center in college basketball landed in Jacksonville.

With Morgan, a scoring machine, returning for his senior year, and 6-10 recruit Pembrook Burrows also on board, the Dolphins had the ingredients for a special team. It also helped that head coach Joe Williams, a free spirited personality who liked up-tempo basketball, ruled his team with more of a soft touch than an iron fist. Gilmore liked Williams from the start because he responded to coaches with an even-tempered demeanor.

"The way Joe Williams interjected his personality on the team, never raising his voice, it was just a totally pleasant atmosphere," Gilmore said. "I don't remember any harsh, angry experiences."

Of course, it helped that the Dolphins won every regular-season game except at Florida State, a loss they avenged at home later in the season. With Gilmore such a force in the low post, blocking shots and intercepting passes, JU became the first and only team in NCAA history to average 100 points a game.

"There was no black or white, no color, no petty jealousies, it was just everybody having fun," Morgan said. "And with that, came winning."

Despite no shot clock or three-point line, JU eclipsed the 100-point barrier 18 times during that magical run to the NCAA title game, where the Dolphins lost 80-69 to UCLA. But with Gilmore putting up monster numbers of 26.5 points and 22.2 rebounds per game (one of only seven players in history to average 20-20 for his career), he put JU on the national college basketball map.

Williams, who recently moved from Cocoa Beach to a town just south of Meridian, Miss., admits he did a lot to cater to Gilmore's needs. JU raised the door of his dorm room so it wouldn't hit his head, altered the legs of the cafeteria tables to accommodate him, and often checked with the big man on what time the team should practice.

But the way Williams figured, it was a fair trade- off because Gilmore was a yes-sir, no-sir type that didn't act with a sense of entitlement just because he was the star.

"When Artis came to us, he was very much a gentleman, but introverted," said Wasdin, now retired and living in Cocoa Beach. "But you could gradually see a change in him by the time he graduated from JU. He was much more comfortable around people, one of the nicest guys you want to meet. We were a team that got along great. Everybody like Artis.

"When people ask me what I owe being a success in life to, I say, 'Good luck, hard work and Artis Gilmore.'"

His impact on the game

There's a photo hanging in Gilmore's JU office that shows him blocking the shot of Hall of Famer Rick Barry on a drive to the basket. It's one of his favorite pictures because it depicts him doing what he loved best on a basketball court.

"I was never really selfish with the ball," said Gilmore. "My most exciting phase of the game was playing defense. I had fun blocking shots."

What basketball purists say is most impressive about Gilmore's body of work in basketball is that he impacted the game in so many ways. It's hard to imagine that someone who was a dominant center, for extended periods in both the ABA and NBA, had to wait so long to be enshrined.

Like many players, Gilmore bypassed the NBA out of college to sign with the ABA's Kentucky Colonels purely for financial reasons. They gave him a 10-year, $2.5 million contract, a whopping sum at the time.

For five seasons, he routinely led the ABA in field goal percentage, rebounds and blocked shots. Gilmore was named MVP and Rookie of the Year in his first season. Along with future Hall of Fame member Dan Issel, he led the Colonels to an ABA championship in 1975.

NBA television analyst Hubie Brown, who coached Kentucky to that ABA title, has long been perplexed by Gilmore's prior exclusion from the Hall. Not so much because he and Gilmore won a championship together, but for his remarkable consistency over most of his pro career.

Gilmore never missed an ABA regular-season or playoff game in five seasons. Had a knee injury not forced Gilmore out of the lineup for 34 games with the Chicago Bulls in the 1979-80 season, he would have played in every game for his first 12 years as a pro.

"Back then, the strongest guy who ever played in the league was Wilt Chamberlain, and the second-strongest guy was Artis," Brown said. "To play at his level of production and to be there every night, that's incredible and a statistic people don't emphasize about his career.

"Look, I coached both Issel and Gilmore. Issel is in the Hall of Fame [since 1993]. Please don't tell me that Dan Issel was better than Artis."

Unfortunately, while Gilmore's numbers (15,579 points, 9,161) in the NBA remained pretty high until his last two or three seasons, he went through the prime of his career playing for some awful Bulls teams. Chicago had only two winning seasons during his six years there and just one playoff series victory.

"You had to give special consideration to Artis' presence if you attacked the basket," said ABA/NBA legend Julius Erving, who will be Gilmore's presenter in the Hall of Fame ceremony. "He guarded the paint. Offensively, he was more than adequate. If his [NBA] teams didn't measure up, it certainly wasn't his fault."

While not a colorful, boisterous personality, Gilmore was a quiet force for 17 pro seasons. His combined ABA/NBA totals of 24,941 points rank him as the 20th leading scorer in pro basketball history. Of the top 30 scorers, 22 are in the Hall of Fame and the other seven (includes Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki and Ray Allen) are considered shoo-ins for enshrinement.

"The Hall of Fame should be a guy's total career," said Brown. "Why Artis didn't get the votes until now is baffling."

Opening the door

The change in Gilmore's Hall of Fame status was the result of a new voting process initiated by former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo. He was put in charge of the Hall's new ABA sub-committee, which is committed to recognizing ABA players that were previously overlooked for the honor.

That opened the door for Gilmore, who hadn't come close to induction since narrowly missing out in 2004, to finally get his Hall pass.

"Without that [ABA committee], I'm not sure Artis  would have gotten in," Morgan said. "But there's no doubt in anyone's mind that he's deserving."

Nobody is more elated about the Hall of Fame festivities this week than Erving. Not only is he presenting Gilmore for induction, but another good friend, former Chicago Bears defensive end Richard Dent, went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last Saturday.

"Artis and Richard parallel one another a great deal in terms of impact," Erving said. "They were never guys to self-promote. They took care of business. They led by example, as opposed to running their mouths. They're both gentlemen.

"Excellence was their standard. I've always had great respect and admiration for them because they maintained composure in the face of a storm."

Nobody has a greater understanding of Gilmore's basketball journey than his wife, Enola Gay, whom he first met when she was visiting her cousin at Gardner-Webb.

"The team was walking through where we were and a short time later, my cousin says, 'You know that tall guy on the basketball team? He wanted your phone number,' " said Enola Gay.

"When he left for JU, absence just made the heart grow fonder. After he graduated from JU, he asked me to marry him. I wanted to wait until he had a year in the ABA. My parents fell in love with Artis right away. He's just a remarkable man."

So the Gilmores finally wed on July 1, 1972, and for 39 years, Enola Gay has been the supportive wife. She was instrumental in raising their kids while Artis changed teams six times, including a one-year basketball venture to Italy after the NBA.

Enola Gay doesn't care to speculate on reasons why Artis had to wait this long to become a Hall of Famer, but she's grateful his appointment with basketball immortality has arrived.

"Without a doubt, now is the perfect time," said Enola Gay. "Our children will be able to appreciate it. It was meant to be. We're just so thankful."

Artis will have about 10 minutes to make an acceptance speech. He expects to touch on people who impacted his career, but the man who excelled at being composed on the court does wonder if he can keep his emotions in check.

It's a moment that's been a long time coming. Orlando Magic general manager Otis Smith, also a star at JU, and Gilmore have been friends for more than two decades. Like many Gil- more supporters, Smith is glad to see him in the Hall of Fame, but feels it wasn't necessary to validate what makes Artis special.

"He's always been the gentlest giant out there," Smith said. "He's not one of those sexy [basketball] names, he was just a man that did his job. You don't find enough guys that walk into the league and leave it the same way. Artis was a nice man coming in, and a nice man going out. That's Hall of Fame-worthy in itself."

gene.frenette@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4540


Read more at Jacksonville.com:  http://jacksonville.com/sports/basketball/nba/2011-08-10/story/after-17-years-waiting-jacksonvilles-artis-gilmore-finally#ixzz1UiXcofA5