Great piece written on the late Gus Johnson by way of Jock-bio.com
I didn’t realize he was high school teammates with Nate Thurmond!
Take all the things that make up an NBA superstar—talent, tenacity, intelligence, imagination and style—and put them together. What’s the result? Michael Jordan. And what happens if you take away good health? You get Gus Johnson.
To those who saw Gus and Jordan in their primes, bum knees were all that separated these two stars. With apologies to Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson and Julius Erving, the man known as “Honeycomb” for the sweetness of his game was MJ before MJ—the prototype of the modern American basketball superstar. A generation before Jordan, Gus was the man who believed he could fly.
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
