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“Of course, Hayes didn’t show up. Neither did Alcindor.”Alcindor preferred to stay in school. Others preferred not to risk lucrative pro contracts. Haywood made the team easily.Haywood was born in Silver City, Miss., thr son of a carpenter. His father died a month before he was born and his mother was put on relief, with eight childrens’ mouths to feed.As the children grew up, they took over more of the responsibility but Spencer was shuttled back and forth among brothers and sisters. He went to Detroit when he was lOVz, later to Chicago. He always had to return to Silver City for school.He got a scholarship to the University of Tennessee but failed to pass entrance examinations .Haywood recently entered the University of Detroit.“I am majoring in dramatics,” he said. “I want to be an actor. I have three years more of college before I can sign with the pros.“1 am anxious to play pro ball and act on the side. I get impatient sometimes, but it looks like a nice future. I can wait.”By WILL GRIMSLEY I Associated Press Sports WriterMEXICO CITY (AP) — Spencer Haywood, towering center on the U. S. Olympic basketball team, aspires to be I an actor but his future probably lies in trying to upstage Wilt “The Stilt” Chamber-lain and Oscar “Big O” Robertson in the rich professional game.“TTiis boy is young but he has to be one of the greatest,” Hank Iba of Oklahoma State, veteran coach of the American team, said today. “He has natural talent. I don’t see how he can miss.”A few weeks ago, Haywood, a 6-foot-8 stringbean from Detroit, was virtually unknown. Today he is regarded as the spark that probably will ignite the American team to its eighth straight Olympic gold medal without loss of a game.He has averaged more than 20 points a game. He is leading the team in rebounding. His clever ball-handling, Houdini-like faking and moves have made him the standout of the American ragamuffins. Failure of Houston’s ElvinAlcindor, Mike Warren and Lucius Allen and Wes Unseld of Louisville to come out for the team left the Americans with a patch-work outfit that entered the Olympics an underdog for the first time in history.Haywood and his teammates, particularly Jo Jo White of Kansas, Bill Hosket of Ohio State and Ken Spain of Houston, have suddenly changed the tideHaywood settled his long, skinny legs on the steps of the American headquarters at the Olympic Village Monday, a day off, and told how he suddenly was projected into the limelight of his life.“I was playing with Trinidad State Junior College and 1 decided I was going to make the Olympic team,” he said. “I figured the man I had to beat out was Hayes.“He had been getting a lot of publicity. I watched him on television. I studied his moves.“I felt I was a better player.I believed I could dribble better and shoot better f ;om the outside. First, I made the junior college squad at Hutchinson, Kan., and then I went to Albuquerque, N. M., for the mainHayes, UCLA’s Lew tryouts.
Newspaper Details
Seymour Daily Tribune
Seymour, Indiana, US
Wed, Oct 23, 1968
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
WV, USA 03 May 2020
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