I had already heard of St. Bonaventure several years earlier when, as a Knicks fan growing up in rural Albany, Fred Crawford played parts of two seasons with my favorite NBA team.
But it was the 1969-70 Bonnies who got my attention.
This Bob Lanier guy seemed to be the real deal.
After all, as a sophomore, he led Bona to 23 straight wins, the first defeat finally coming in the second round of the NCAA Tournament against North Carolina at Raleigh.
Expectations were higher for the 6-foot-11, 260-pound junior center but St. Bonaventure was on probation for a minor recruiting violation and Lanier along with the other four members of the “Ironman Five,” sleep-walked through a miserable 17-7 season.
But, as a senior, the left-handed pivot man and his indefatigable mates made a vow … NCAA championship or bust.
And, in the process, Lanier became part of one of the biggest “what ifs” in college basketball history.
At the time, I was working in radio at Altoona but became a bandwagon St. Bonaventure fan. The Bonnies rolled to a 22-1 regular season, the lone blemish a two-point loss at Villanova.
Then came the NCAAs with Bona bidding for an assumed finals meeting with John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins, winners of the five previous championships. Back then I thought/joked the small Catholic university from New York’s Southern Tier was an upset it could win.
That’s when Lanier was at his best.
In comfortable wins over Davidson, North Carolina State and Villanova, Lanier averaged 26 points and 16 rebounds. But it was in the latter victory that the bump heard over the college basketball world occurred. The Wildcats’ Chris Ford inadvertently clipped him in the knee midway through the second half and the result was a torn medial collateral ligament.
The Bonnies went on to the Final Four with Lanier hospitalized in Buffalo, the focal point of the biggest question in Olean sports history.
Would UCLA have won that sixth straight NCAA Championship had the Bruins been matched up with Lanier and St. Bonaventure in the finals?
“BIG BOB” died, at age 73, Tuesday in Arizona after battling health issues in recent years.
His path to becoming St. Bonaventure’s most famous alumnus started rather ignominiously at Buffalo’s Bennett High School, where he was cut from the basketball team as a sophomore.
Lanier blossomed his final two scholastic seasons and surely he would accept a scholarship to hometown Canisius College.
But Bona coach Larry Weise wasn’t deterred and capitalized on the fact his prized recruit was anxious to get out of Buffalo.
As Lanier’s numbers proliferated in college, an embarrassed Canisius basketball staff offered its own take, saying that during recruitment he was seen as an academic risk and was carrying too much “baby fat.”
Of course, he was actually a bright, thoughtful student at Bona and it didn’t take long before the reported 290 pounds he weighed when arriving on campus was 30 less.
MY FIRST interaction with him came after joining the Times Herald in 1973 and by then I had been regaled with stories that his first year at Bona, many fans would show up for the freshman games but not stick around for the varsity feature.
At that time, he was in his third season with the Pistons, who took him as the No. 1 overall pick in the ‘70 NBA Draft, even though he was still recovering from surgery.
Given his size, Bob was an intimidating figure, no matter, but nobody warned me of his angry scowl that made members of the media realize he was processing the questions.
Most of it was an act, but he pulled it off convincingly and utilized that look until he got to know the questioner.
OVER THE YEARS, when Bona hoops struggled under coaches Tom Chapman and Anthony Solomon, there was an alumni outcry as to why Lanier, given his celebrity and prominence in St. Bonaventure basketball history, wasn’t being utilized in recruiting.
Indeed, his name wasn’t even added to the Reilly Center floor until 2007, and these days that title seems to have almost disappeared.
My most lasting memory and insight into Bob came in September of 1992 when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Lanier was part of a class that included Al McGuire, Jack Ramsay, Connie Hawkins and Lou Carnesseca.
During a pre-induction media session, Lanier should have been focused on his stellar 15-year pro career — 10 with Detroit, five with Milwaukee — and his eight NBA All-Star Game invitations, one resulting in an MVP, but instead it was elsewhere.
In a brief one-on-one he expressed to me his anger that his beloved coach, Weise, had been ousted as athletic director by the school he loved, and replaced by Tom O’Connor.
“What a scoop,” I thought.
Except it wasn’t.
During his induction speech before a national audience, Lanier called out his school for its treatment of Weise.
To this day, I’m struck by the loyalty he displayed.
AS FOR that “What if?”
There’s not a Bonnie fan who doesn’t think St. Bonaventure would have won that ‘70 NCAA title had Lanier not been injured.
Me, I’ve become more circumspect over the years.
I, too, think Bob would have eaten up pedestrian UCLA center Steve Patterson and spit out the bones.
But three Bruins starters — forwards Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe and guard John Vallely — were first-round NBA draft picks and the other guard, Henry Bibby, was a fourth-rounder and, not insignificantly, their coach was an all-time great.
That was an awfully talented team.
In my mind, maybe it’s better we don’t know. If Bona had played UCLA and lost, 52 years later, it would have been a sad footnote in history. Instead, we have an unanswered question that remains an integral part of the legacy of one of the great big men in college basketball history.
(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
