Word: balling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...will make the N.B.A. each year. "The odds of becoming a brain surgeon are greater than the odds of winning a starting spot on the Boston Celtics," says John Slaughter, president of Occidental College. Of the thousands who do not make the N.B.A., a few will play pro ball overseas or for the Continental Basketball Association, where salaries average $8,000 a year. But most discover that there is no career for them in basketball, that they must rely on their educations to build a new career. After playing four years, many leave school without a degree...
Even those players who arrive on campus hoping to get a practical education as well as play ball can find obstacles in their path. That was the case with Brian Rahilly, who as a 6-ft. 10-in. senior electrified Oklahoma's Muskogee High School with his on-court wizardry in 1983. Brian, who comes from a white, middle-class background, was sought after by dozens of colleges before choosing the University of Tulsa. He says he had two goals: to play in the N.B.A. and to become a sports broadcaster...
Lafester's choice: Iowa State. Coach Johnny Orr had flown to Memphis, where, says Lafester's mother Elsie, "he made two promises -- that he would graduate and that he would play pro ball." Lafester did neither. Today Elsie is bitter. She feels Iowa State did not keep its word. "My momma talks about it - every day," says Lafester, who after five years left Iowa State a few credits short of a degree in family and consumer science. He took twelve hours of classes, but often put in 20 hours of practice a week. Ironically, it was his freshman year, when...
...high-class call girl (the tonier papers left it at "socialite") and hunted down her many eminent admirers, including Sunday Times Editor Andrew Neil (quickly dubbed "Randy Andy") and Observer Editor Donald Trelford ("Dirty Don"), as well as Sports Minister Colin Moynihan, who escorted Bordes to the Conservative Winter Ball. Tory M.P. David Shaw, it turned out, had been so taken with her talents that, with the help of fellow Tory M.P. Henry Bellingham, he hired Bordes as a researcher in the House...
...adversity. Wheelwright's challenge is vintage Irving, an event that is simultaneously horrifying and absurdly funny. It occurs during a Little League game in the summer of 1953 when Meany, in the lineup because his diminutive strike zone draws walks, swings away. He connects for a mighty foul ball that shoots toward the stands and fatally strikes Wheelwright's mother on the head. The game is suspended along with, it is hoped, the reader's disbelief...