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56 I SPORTS I THEPROVINCE.COM BASKETBALL WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2015 nn JVU jvlISI mm I Njv fir. cage star: Rules were altered because of 'Mumbles' Philadelphia 76ers Julius Erving, left, and Moses Malone, right, hold the NBA championship trophy after winning the title in 1 983. Malone was a three-time NBA MVP. the associated press files September 8 October 7, 2015 Schedules are subject to change without notice. HORSESHOE BAY NANAIMO Leave Horseshoe Bay 6:20 am 112:00 pm 44:20 pm 8:30 am 12:50 pm 5:20 pm 10:40 am 3:10 pm 06:30 pm 7:30 pm 9:30 pm i Sep 8 only.

4 Sep 11, 18, 25 19:50 only. TSAWWASSEN NANAIMO (DUKE POINT) Leave Duke Point The recruiters weren't just supposed to be selling Malone on their college teams. They were supposed to be selling him on college. Malone's family, however, wasn't just in dire circumstances. He was also a middling student at best.

Of the average Malone would need to get into a worthy school: "He doesn't quite have it now," Bob Kilbourne, athletic director at Malone's high school, told the Washington Post in 1974, "but we're pretty sure he's going to get it" After Malone signed with the Stars, the centre's silence, which some writers linked to his alleged lack of intelligence, became legend. Two New York Times headlines referred to him as a "man-child." Before he was "Chairman of the Boards," one nickname, the unwelcome gift of a Utah radio DJ, was "Mumbles" Malone. Whenever reporters did score what passed for a quote from the player, they often rendered it in dialect accompanied by unflattering descriptions. Even his famous line about the outcome of the 1983 postseason Fo' FoJ a prediction of three series sweeps in four games could be read as mocking. In 2005, the NBA decreed that players must be 19 to enter the draft.

A decade later, the decision isn't universally popular. There are so-called "one-and-done" players who do a year at college before turning pro. This outcome doesn't seem to serve anyone. "College is not for everybody," Rick Pitino, head basketball coach at the University of Louisville, said earlier this year. "So if a kid doesn't want to go to college, let him go to the pros." JUSTIN WM.MOYER WASHINGTON POST WASHINGTON It was the dog days of summer 1974, and University of Maryland basketball coach Lefty Driesell was angry.

He had spent the better part of a year scouting a star high school basketball player from Petersburg, named Moses Malone 6 feet 10 inches, 220 pounds, 19 years old and, according to one scout, a "pro talent now." After a heated recruiting battle, Malone signed a letter of intent with the Terrapins. But, before his first game, the centre defected to the Utah Stars, dealing the Maryland basketball program a huge blow. But this wasn't just about the Terps, Driesell said. This was about a young man the first young man in history to forego a college education and jump right from high school on to a pro court. It just wasn't appropriate.

More than 40 years later, Malone who died of an apparent heart attack over the weekend at 60 has left a legacy many an NBA pro would kill for. With 7,382 offensive rebounds, the man who helped take the Philadelphia 76ers to a world championship was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2001, the first year he was eligible. But a generation ago, this silent and, some said, not very smart giant was at the centre of a controversy about sports and education and race that rages to this day. If the American Basketball Association which merged with the NBA two years after Malone was recruited needed the perfect player to justify scooping right out of high school, Malone certainly fit (DEPARTURE BAY) Leave Departure Bay 6:20 am 10:40 am 02:10 pm 7:30 pm 8:30 am 412:00 pm 3:10 pm 9:30 pm am 12:50 pm 5:20 pm Sep 13, 20, 27 only. 10:15 am 3:15 pm 5:45 pm 10:45 pm 7:45 am 12:45 pm Except Sun.

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LANGDALE Leave Longdate 6:20 am 12:35 pm 4:50 pm 8:25 am 2:45 pm 05:25 pm 10:25 am 43:15 pm 6:50 pm 8:45 pm Sep 13, 20, 27 only. the bill. First of all, he was incredibly poor. "It was obvious that they were broke," Larry Creger, who scouted Malone for Utah, told Terry Pluto for the 2007 book Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association. "The house had no paint.

There wasn't any grass where the lawn was supposed to be. The whole neighbourhood was like that" Malone was the only child of a woman who battled serious health problems even as she worked as a Safeway checker for $1 00 per week. "If a kid doesn't want to go to college, let him go to the pros." University of Louisville coach RickPitino Mary Malone had left school after the fifth grade to keep her family afloat, and kicked Malone's father out of the house when he took to drinking. "I didn't like him to do no work at all," she told sportswriter Frank Deford of her son in 1979. "I know how hard I come up, so I didn't want him to." The Malone homestead Deford described was little more than a shack one that was condemned after Malone's mother moved out once her son got his payday.

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