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George Mikan, professional basketball's first dominant big man, who led the Minneapolis Lakers to five NBA championships, has died, family members in Scottsdale, Ariz., said Thursday. He was 80.
He was considered the Babe Ruth of basketball's first half-century, and was the heart and soul of the Minneapolis Lakers, the game's first true dynasty.
As the 10-year-old marbles champion of Will County, Ill., Mikan was given the opportunity to travel to Comiskey Park in 1934 to meet Babe Ruth before a White Sox-Yankees game.
In Tomorrow's Paper:
Columnists Sid Hartman and Patrick Reusse weigh in on Mikan's extraordinary legacy.
George MikanTracy HaysSpecial To The Star TribuneMikan asked Ruth to hit a home run. Ruth agreed, and later stepped up to the plate and delivered. "For a moment," Mikan later wrote, "I thought he could perform on command."
The basketball world would come to think no less of the Will County, Ill., marbles champion.
As the game's first dominant center, Mikan won seven pro basketball titles and led the Lakers to six championships in seven years, starting in 1948. The last four (1950, '52, '53 and '54) were in the National Basketball Association.
Mikan in actionStar Tribune File Photo"I guess I've done just about everything in life people told me I wasn't able to do," Mikan once said. "I respond pretty well to somebody telling me there's something I can't do. I started wearing glasses when I was 12, and people told me then that anyone who wore glasses could never be a great athlete. And I always took a lot of taunts because I was so big. In college they laughed and said I'd trip over the foul line. After a while, that stopped, too."
It stopped enough that one of his Lakers teammates, Vern Mikkelsen, a fellow Hall of Famer, now says this: "In our time, George was Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird all rolled into one."
George Mikan on Jan. 6, 1952.Star Tribune File PhotoMikan was named the best basketball player of the first half of the 20th Century. Nearly a half-century later he was named as one of the best 50 players in NBA history.
He was supposed to be a doctor, priest or pianist. Growing up in Joliet, Ill., he was tall but also skinny and awkward, and as a kid he spent more of his time inside Mikan's Tavern, owned by his Croatian grandparents, than he did on a basketball court.
Because George's mother, Minnie, was the tavern cook, his grandmother ended up raising him and his two brothers, Ed and Joe, and sister, Marie. George's grandmother Mary went by the affectionate nickname of Blondie. It was Blondie who, with the help of a broom, would officiate all streetside basketball games.
After eight years of piano lessons, George wanted to give basketball more of a shot. Yet, like a fellow named Michael Jordan, George once got cut from his basketball team. As a freshman at Joliet Catholic High School he was one of 14 players on the team before the first game. Unfortunately, there were only 12 uniforms. One roster spot remained for the last three players.
The Rev. Gilbert Burns noticed that Mikan was squinting. George told the coach he was not wearing his glasses. "You just can't play basketball with glasses on, son," Burns said. "You better turn in your uniform."
Little did he know.
After a year at the school, Mikan moved on to Quigley Prepartory Seminary in Chicago. Blondie wanted her grandson to be a priest. Mikan quickly realized that this was not his calling. In the fall of 1941, though, he was offered a scholarship to go to DePaul University. He did not have the guts to tell Blondie or his parents, who still thought he was studying to be a priest at Quigley. "One day, I'm back home in Joliet and my dad is reading the paper and he sees something about a tall `Mikan' who is going to play for DePaul. And he says, `Looks like we have some relatives in Chicago.'
George confessed the Mikan in question was him.
After coach Ray Meyer worked exhaustively with the gangly center, Mikan slowly but surely developed into a force. As a junior he led the Blue Demons to the 1945 National Invitation Tournament title, back when the NIT was the college basketball championship to win. He played alongside his brother Ed, who died at the age of 74 on Oct. 26, 1999.
In three NIT games, George scored 120 points. He matched Rhode Island's point total -- 53 -- in a 97-53 victory in Madison Square Garden. That remains the NIT scoring record.
He eventually became a law student at DePaul, then signed with the Chicago Gears of the National Basketball League in 1946. The Gears switched to the Professional Basketball League of America, which folded in November 1947.
While the Gears were refused entry into the NBL, Ben Berger, a Twin Cities theater-chain owner, and Max Winter, who later would own the Vikings, led a group that purchased the Detroit Gems for $15,000 and moved them to Minnesota to join the NBL. The Minnesota group was awarded rights to Mikan, who was first reluctant to move. "I just got drafted by Siberia," he said. Mikan, who by now had married a Chicago woman named Patricia Daveny, visited Minneapolis anyway for contract talks. Columnist Sid Hartman and Winter turned up the heat during a ride back to the airport. It was just long enough that Mikan missed his flight back to Chicago. With the extra time, Mikan finally caved in and signed a one-year deal for $12,500, then a stunning contract.
Just as important, the Lakers also had signed an athletic forward named Jim Pollard, an All-American on Stanford's 1942 team, which won the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship. In 1949, point guard Slater Martin and Mikkelsen, the prototype power foward, joined the team. Their coach was John Kundla, formerly of St. Thomas. And the dynasty was all but cemented. In the inagural NBA season, 1949-50, the Lakers fashioned a 51-17 record and won the title.
Mikan won scoring titles in four consecutive years, averaging as many as 28.4 points a game. Only when he broke a leg in 1951 did the Lakers fail to win the championship, even though RMikan continued to play. The Lakers still reached the conference finals before falling to Rochester, N.Y., the eventual champion. "The doctor taped a plate on it for the playoffs," Mikan recalled. "I played all right, scored in the 20s. I couldn't run, sort of hopped down the court."
Bud Grant was a teammate. "I have played with and coached many great players," the legendary Vikings coach said. "And I've seen and coached against some of the best -- Walter Payton to name one. But I'd have to say that George Mikan was the greatest competitor I've seen or been around in any sport. I studied George back before I realized I'd someday make my living studying athletes, and he was amazing. He played hurt. He played when he'd had no sleep because of our travel schedule. And he always played at one speed -- top. Then when things got tough, he'd turn it up. His will to win permeated the whole team."
Injury was the only thing to slow Mikan. At 6-10, his dominance certainly got the attention of opposing teams. So much so that the lane was widened from 6 feet to 12 (later to the present 16), and the shot clock was created. Too many teams tried to negate Mikan's brilliance by simply holding onto the ball, creating 19-18 final scores.
At the tender age of 29, Mikan retired after the 1953-54 season to become the general manager. His body was battered by then. More importantly, he wanted to spend more time with his family. "I came home one day picked up my second son, Terry, and he began crying," Mikan said. "He was afraid of me, because he didn't know who I was. It broke my heart."
The prodding of frustrated Lakers fans -- and team woes at the box office -- convinced him to return to the court for the second half of the 1955-56 season. That was his last season as a player. After the team was sold to Bob Short, Mikan had stints as coach and general manager before moving on in 1958. There would be other adventures. He became an attorney, ran for Congress in 1956 (and lost), worked as a stockbroker, travel agent and even became the first commissioner of the American Basketball Association. Last year, he moved from Edina to be closer to family members in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Yet he will be remembered most as a basketball pioneer when the game had more of a cult, than international, following.
And though the game has prospered and changed dramatically since Mikan played, those who have followed him have not forgotten his impact. "I know a lot of baseball players today don't know who Jackie Robinson is," former Knicks All-Pro guard Walt Frazier said at a New York City function two years ago. "And a lot of basketball players don't know the pioneers of the game, either. I never took it for granted. And that's why I want to pay homage to a man like Mr. Mikan, who made it possible for me to make a living playing basketball."
Said Wolves standout Kevin Garnett: "Anybody who doesn't know who Geoge Mikan is, is not a basketball fan."
It was comments like that one that warmed Mikan's heart in his twilight years. He had once been worried that nobody cared to remember the past anymore.
"I'm very happy that the NBA has taken it upon itself to bring the history of the NBA up to speed so a lot of young people know what we had done," he said. "The young people are finally starting to see some of those old films that were taken and they're starting to realize that they wouldn't be there today if it were not for us. I felt like we were in the covered wagons that went across the United States."
He was considered the Babe Ruth of basketball's first half-century, and was the heart and soul of the Minneapolis Lakers, the game's first true dynasty.
As the 10-year-old marbles champion of Will County, Ill., Mikan was given the opportunity to travel to Comiskey Park in 1934 to meet Babe Ruth before a White Sox-Yankees game.
In Tomorrow's Paper:
Columnists Sid Hartman and Patrick Reusse weigh in on Mikan's extraordinary legacy.
George MikanTracy HaysSpecial To The Star TribuneMikan asked Ruth to hit a home run. Ruth agreed, and later stepped up to the plate and delivered. "For a moment," Mikan later wrote, "I thought he could perform on command."
The basketball world would come to think no less of the Will County, Ill., marbles champion.
As the game's first dominant center, Mikan won seven pro basketball titles and led the Lakers to six championships in seven years, starting in 1948. The last four (1950, '52, '53 and '54) were in the National Basketball Association.
Mikan in actionStar Tribune File Photo"I guess I've done just about everything in life people told me I wasn't able to do," Mikan once said. "I respond pretty well to somebody telling me there's something I can't do. I started wearing glasses when I was 12, and people told me then that anyone who wore glasses could never be a great athlete. And I always took a lot of taunts because I was so big. In college they laughed and said I'd trip over the foul line. After a while, that stopped, too."
It stopped enough that one of his Lakers teammates, Vern Mikkelsen, a fellow Hall of Famer, now says this: "In our time, George was Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird all rolled into one."
George Mikan on Jan. 6, 1952.Star Tribune File PhotoMikan was named the best basketball player of the first half of the 20th Century. Nearly a half-century later he was named as one of the best 50 players in NBA history.
He was supposed to be a doctor, priest or pianist. Growing up in Joliet, Ill., he was tall but also skinny and awkward, and as a kid he spent more of his time inside Mikan's Tavern, owned by his Croatian grandparents, than he did on a basketball court.
Because George's mother, Minnie, was the tavern cook, his grandmother ended up raising him and his two brothers, Ed and Joe, and sister, Marie. George's grandmother Mary went by the affectionate nickname of Blondie. It was Blondie who, with the help of a broom, would officiate all streetside basketball games.
After eight years of piano lessons, George wanted to give basketball more of a shot. Yet, like a fellow named Michael Jordan, George once got cut from his basketball team. As a freshman at Joliet Catholic High School he was one of 14 players on the team before the first game. Unfortunately, there were only 12 uniforms. One roster spot remained for the last three players.
The Rev. Gilbert Burns noticed that Mikan was squinting. George told the coach he was not wearing his glasses. "You just can't play basketball with glasses on, son," Burns said. "You better turn in your uniform."
Little did he know.
After a year at the school, Mikan moved on to Quigley Prepartory Seminary in Chicago. Blondie wanted her grandson to be a priest. Mikan quickly realized that this was not his calling. In the fall of 1941, though, he was offered a scholarship to go to DePaul University. He did not have the guts to tell Blondie or his parents, who still thought he was studying to be a priest at Quigley. "One day, I'm back home in Joliet and my dad is reading the paper and he sees something about a tall `Mikan' who is going to play for DePaul. And he says, `Looks like we have some relatives in Chicago.'
George confessed the Mikan in question was him.
After coach Ray Meyer worked exhaustively with the gangly center, Mikan slowly but surely developed into a force. As a junior he led the Blue Demons to the 1945 National Invitation Tournament title, back when the NIT was the college basketball championship to win. He played alongside his brother Ed, who died at the age of 74 on Oct. 26, 1999.
In three NIT games, George scored 120 points. He matched Rhode Island's point total -- 53 -- in a 97-53 victory in Madison Square Garden. That remains the NIT scoring record.
He eventually became a law student at DePaul, then signed with the Chicago Gears of the National Basketball League in 1946. The Gears switched to the Professional Basketball League of America, which folded in November 1947.
While the Gears were refused entry into the NBL, Ben Berger, a Twin Cities theater-chain owner, and Max Winter, who later would own the Vikings, led a group that purchased the Detroit Gems for $15,000 and moved them to Minnesota to join the NBL. The Minnesota group was awarded rights to Mikan, who was first reluctant to move. "I just got drafted by Siberia," he said. Mikan, who by now had married a Chicago woman named Patricia Daveny, visited Minneapolis anyway for contract talks. Columnist Sid Hartman and Winter turned up the heat during a ride back to the airport. It was just long enough that Mikan missed his flight back to Chicago. With the extra time, Mikan finally caved in and signed a one-year deal for $12,500, then a stunning contract.
Just as important, the Lakers also had signed an athletic forward named Jim Pollard, an All-American on Stanford's 1942 team, which won the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship. In 1949, point guard Slater Martin and Mikkelsen, the prototype power foward, joined the team. Their coach was John Kundla, formerly of St. Thomas. And the dynasty was all but cemented. In the inagural NBA season, 1949-50, the Lakers fashioned a 51-17 record and won the title.
Mikan won scoring titles in four consecutive years, averaging as many as 28.4 points a game. Only when he broke a leg in 1951 did the Lakers fail to win the championship, even though RMikan continued to play. The Lakers still reached the conference finals before falling to Rochester, N.Y., the eventual champion. "The doctor taped a plate on it for the playoffs," Mikan recalled. "I played all right, scored in the 20s. I couldn't run, sort of hopped down the court."
Bud Grant was a teammate. "I have played with and coached many great players," the legendary Vikings coach said. "And I've seen and coached against some of the best -- Walter Payton to name one. But I'd have to say that George Mikan was the greatest competitor I've seen or been around in any sport. I studied George back before I realized I'd someday make my living studying athletes, and he was amazing. He played hurt. He played when he'd had no sleep because of our travel schedule. And he always played at one speed -- top. Then when things got tough, he'd turn it up. His will to win permeated the whole team."
Injury was the only thing to slow Mikan. At 6-10, his dominance certainly got the attention of opposing teams. So much so that the lane was widened from 6 feet to 12 (later to the present 16), and the shot clock was created. Too many teams tried to negate Mikan's brilliance by simply holding onto the ball, creating 19-18 final scores.
At the tender age of 29, Mikan retired after the 1953-54 season to become the general manager. His body was battered by then. More importantly, he wanted to spend more time with his family. "I came home one day picked up my second son, Terry, and he began crying," Mikan said. "He was afraid of me, because he didn't know who I was. It broke my heart."
The prodding of frustrated Lakers fans -- and team woes at the box office -- convinced him to return to the court for the second half of the 1955-56 season. That was his last season as a player. After the team was sold to Bob Short, Mikan had stints as coach and general manager before moving on in 1958. There would be other adventures. He became an attorney, ran for Congress in 1956 (and lost), worked as a stockbroker, travel agent and even became the first commissioner of the American Basketball Association. Last year, he moved from Edina to be closer to family members in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Yet he will be remembered most as a basketball pioneer when the game had more of a cult, than international, following.
And though the game has prospered and changed dramatically since Mikan played, those who have followed him have not forgotten his impact. "I know a lot of baseball players today don't know who Jackie Robinson is," former Knicks All-Pro guard Walt Frazier said at a New York City function two years ago. "And a lot of basketball players don't know the pioneers of the game, either. I never took it for granted. And that's why I want to pay homage to a man like Mr. Mikan, who made it possible for me to make a living playing basketball."
Said Wolves standout Kevin Garnett: "Anybody who doesn't know who Geoge Mikan is, is not a basketball fan."
It was comments like that one that warmed Mikan's heart in his twilight years. He had once been worried that nobody cared to remember the past anymore.
"I'm very happy that the NBA has taken it upon itself to bring the history of the NBA up to speed so a lot of young people know what we had done," he said. "The young people are finally starting to see some of those old films that were taken and they're starting to realize that they wouldn't be there today if it were not for us. I felt like we were in the covered wagons that went across the United States."
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