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Q: Now I’m ready to move into talking a little bit more about athletics. I know you talked a little about him, but if you could talk about Ward ‘Piggy’ Lambert, and the impact that he had on the game of basketball and on your life. W: Well, Lambert is one of the highest-principled men I’ve ever known. I can give other examples, but I’ll give you one example. My sophomore year, we had an outstanding team. We had an outstanding team because of Stretch Murphy. We had the greatest center in the game, and a wonderful friend throughout my life. We just had a real good team. And that enabled me to get off to a good start. And before the end of the year, Lambert wanted me to come into the office, and he said, ‘Do you remember Doctor -- ’ and for the life of me, his name sort of escapes me right now. And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Well he really likes you.’ And I said, ‘Oh, yeah? That’s very nice. Why is that?’ And he said, ‘Well, he wants to do something for you.’ And I said, ‘What does he want to do for me?’ He says, ‘He wants you to quit working. He wants to pay all your expenses so you won’t have to work anymore.’ Hi ho! I thought that was something. And he said, ‘Well, how you gonna pay him back?’ And I said, ‘Well, maybe I misunderstood. I thought he just wanted to do it.’ And he said, ‘Yes, he wants to do it. And he’s not expecting to be paid. But I just thought you’re the kind of person who would want to pay him back. But you think it over for a little while and come in to see me.’ Before the end of the semester, the school year, I went in to see him. And he said, ‘Well, what did you decide?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m getting along all right. I’ll continue.’ And he said, ‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’ He said, ‘But come next, the start of the basketball season,’ he said, ‘you need more clothes.’ And he said, ‘I know when we went to Wisconsin and Minnesota last year, you weren’t dressed warmly, and didn’t have good clothes and shoes.’ And he said, ‘When school, next fall when you come back, I want you to go over to the big department store, and they’ll fix you up with the clothes.’ And I said, ‘But I’m not going having the money to get clothes,’ and he said, ‘No, no, no, this doctor will take care of that?’ And I said, ‘How am I gonna pay him back?’ And he said, ‘You’re paying him back.’ He said, ‘He gets your tickets. You’re not gonna get any tickets. He’s gonna get all your tickets you’d have. And you qualify for, uh, four tickets.’ Sophomores got two, juniors got three, and if you’re a captain, you got four. He said, ‘He’ll get your four tickets. So it’s not a gift. Now if Nellie or your family, any, come up for any games, I’ll get them in, so you won’t have to worry about that.’ And, but that was just an idea. And there were other things along that, that he did. He was concerned about his individuals. He knew more about them, and their background. He cared for you more than just as a basketball player. I think he was way ahead of his time in fast-break basketball. It was little more difficult then with the center jump. But he still used it to best advantage. And as I mentioned a little earlier, the heart of my pyramid is condition, skill and team spirit. And he wanted his team to be in the best possible condition. And he wanted you to be quick, and execute promptly and quickly, and then, as I said, you’d better be a team player, or you were going to the bench. I think, more than anyone else, that philosophy carried over into my teaching. He was a wonderful person. Small, but he had been a quarterback at Wabash College in football. He’d been a guard in basketball, and he’d played some minor league baseball right after college. So he was a very good athlete. He was very bright. But more than anything else, he was just concerned and considerate of others, and I owe him much. |
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