I have always been fascinated by veteran athletes.
Some would call them “old timers,” but I prefer veteran athletes.
They are the ones who have seen “stuff,” life on and off the athletic field and pursued life after sports.
Dr. Dick Barnett, former member of the Knicks only championship teams (so far) and an educator and author, died this past weekend at age 88.
He had a good run, and full disclosure: I liked Dr. Dick.
A veteran friend of his, another former Knick, Tom Hoover, called him a “character.”
When he called my house, my wife would answer and he would bellow, “Barnett!” into the phone, much to the displeasure of said wife.
“Can’t he say hello?,” she asked.
I mentioned it to Dr. Dick, and he became more friendly.
“Barnett!,” he still bellowed, adding, “Is Tony Paige there?”
Veteran Knick fans remember his highly-unorthodox southpaw jumper with the ball released over his head, and a dolphin-like kick of his feet. When the ball left his hand, he knew it was true as he uttered his famous line to the opposing team, “Fall back Baby!”
“[Lakers announcer] Chick Hearn, stole it from me,” Barnett once told me. “I didn’t copyright it and besides, that was the sanitized version.”
Character indeed.
He was the fourth overall NBA pick in 1959 by the Syracuse Nationals (now Detroit Pistons). Besides the Knicks, he played for the Cleveland Pipers of the old ABL winning a championship with his Tenn A&I University coach John McClendon (a Hall of Famer) and the team owned by George Steinbrenner. He also played for the Lakers during his 14-year career where he owned a night club.
When asked if he had any stories I could put in an article for the Daily News, he simply said, “No.”
When I asked Hoover the same question, I got the same, “No.”
There was more to Dr. Dick than just a strange jumper and his two titles with the Knicks of Reed, Frazier, DeBusschere, Bradley, Monroe and Lucas and his No. 12 being retired by the Knicks.
He captured back-to-back-to-back NAIA championships with Tennessee A&I State University (now Tenn St.).
He also captured back-to-back tournament MVPs with the Tigers and he’s in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame both as a player and with his alma mater.
It was his life-long dream to get the Tigers recognized and inducted in the Hall of Fame. The 2022 documentary on his battles entitled “The Dream Whisperer,” helped his cause as the team was inducted in 2019.
He was inducted in 2024 the same year the Tigers went to the White House and were honored and met Vice President Kamala Harris.
I always saluted him by calling him Dr. Dick out of respect because he got his doctorate from Fordham University in education. Plus, he participated in lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville, dealing with Jim Crow.
When I was toiling on the overnights at WFAN, I would occasionally have Dr. Dick on as a guest. One Saturday night he wanted to come on and talk hoops and education. I asked him what time should we call him. He said he wanted to come into the studio.
I sheepishly told him I didn’t have a budget for a car service. No problem, he said, “I’ll be there.”
He stayed over an hour and left after midnight.
Dr. Dick brought a sensibility about athletes being successful after sports. Listening to him was an education not found in books.
He authored a bunch of tomes including “The Funky Jockstrap,” but he always preached education to his students.
In “The Dream Whisperer,” as he met student/athletes at Tenn St., they didn’t know who he was, but he educated them about himself and their responsibility to be successful.
The Gary, IN native, nicknamed “Skull” with his droopy doe-like eyelids, commanded your attention whether you wanted to listen or not.
He made you listen, and the man could talk.
Whether he was reminiscing about going into the paint against Chamberlain or Russell, or trash talking back in the day (ex-Celtic Sam Jones: “A trash talker!”), Dr. Dick put a smile on your face.
The first time I laid eyes on him was at a Knicks practice at Pace University and Red Holzman was coaching (yes, that long ago). Dr. Dick would go on to become his first assistant coach. I sat in the bleachers and watched practice, something that is strictly verboten in today’s NBA.
I watched his jumper and wondered how he did it as it swished in over and over.
Unorthodox, but he got it done.
When asked if he could play in today’s NBA and hit the three, he defiantly spat out, “I was shooting threes when [Steph] Curry was still in his mother’s womb.”
Dr. Dick will be missed, as all the best characters are.
