I saw a post yesterday that said my last boyhood idol is lying in his deathbed.
Since I was a boy in the Seventies, it’s about right that the last athlete that I emulated is at that age today.
Not many people know that I’m an Indiana Pacer fan. I never supported my hometown team, the Chicago Bulls. Even when they were winning championships in the nineties… I was the only fan of the Blue and Gold in Cook County.
I’ve been with Indiana since their ABA days in the early 1970’s and my favorite player was George McGinnis.
George Mac, big number 30 was my guy when everyone else worshiped Bob Love of the Bulls.
Along with Dick Butkus who just joined Heaven’s defensive squad recently…. The Pride of George Washington high school will be the last of them.
Joining Willie Stargell, Walter Payton and Keith Magnuson. That was my Mount Rushmore of sport icons when I was a kid.
A scrappy defenseman for the Blackhawks, the best running back in Chicago Bear history, a Pittsburgh Pirate, the man who put the monster in the Midway and an ABA player born and raised in Indianapolis.
I don’t have any baseball players from the two Chicago teams, but I do have two Bears and a Blackhawk.
I wish I still had the ABA ball that my Aunt B. gave me fifty some odd years ago.
Oh and one other thing…. In the Nineties…. I followed Reggie, not Michael.
