MORGANTOWN —
The best part of dealing with Jerry West is that you never, ever really know where you might be heading.
Take Sunday, at the graduation of the sports management class, which included his son Jonnie, who got to hear his famous father impart words of wisdom on the graduates.
Now there are those who showed up expecting to take two things from his talk, an improved jump shot and the path to riches.
That, however, was not really what is foremost in his mind these days.
Instead, the talk and the press conference that preceded his speech were far deeper than you’d ever imagine from a man once dubbed, much to his dislike, “Zeke From Cabin Creek,” even though he would close his press conference with the admission that “I am a hick and I’m proud to be a hick.”
If he is a hick, he is the deepest, most philosophical hick this side of Minnie Pearl.
West, you see, took the moment to expound upon many of his beliefs and philosophies, and none of them had anything to do with whether or not LeBron James should play for the Cleveland Cavaliers or New York Knicks next season.
Instead there was talk of destiny and literature, of how you will certainly fail at some endeavors but that the important thing is how you respond to those moments. The names that came out were names you would never expect to hear, from John Adams to George Washington to Abraham Lincoln to Winston Churchill to Adolf Hitler.
It was deep enough to even include West’s inability to understand why men fight wars, having had a brother killed in battle.
“I don’t understand wars. I don’t understand people being killed over nothing,” he said.
And he talked about how he, now looking at the far side of 70, has remained almost Peter Pan-ishly young.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever grow up,” he said. “I don’t want to.”
In truth, the half hour or so spent with West was fascinating, almost the reverse of spending time with Albert Einstein and having him talk about the advantages of the spread offense over the I-formation, unexpected but intelligently well thought out.
Take his beliefs on nothing being predetermined.
“Our lives are not predetermined,” he stressed. “We have a lot to do with our successes and failures.”
Someone — okay, it was me — asked if he really believed that it wasn’t predetermined that he be a basketball player despite the skills with which he was gifted. He maintains it was not, that it had far more to do with circumstance.
“When I was young I played, I didn’t practice,” he said. “I played to occupy my time. I was a loner. I played alone because I was from a small town and no one wanted to do what I liked to do.”
It was youth trying to discover itself.
“When you are young nothing seems to be bad,” he said. “You dream. Your mind is your greatest friend. It can put you in any environment you want to be in.”
His dreams then were of basketball and could not have fulfilled them better, but even there he was always troubled. As successful as he was, the ultimate championships avoided him. In college at West Virginia, he led his team to the NCAA final but lost by a point to California.
And as a professional, where he was so good that he became the NBA’s logo, the NBA championship always passed through Boston until he was finally matched with Wilt Chamberlain.
Today, however, Jerry West doesn’t play much basketball, although no one doubts that he could.
“If I had to shoot now I’d probably break out in a rash,” he joked.
Yeah, a rash of 3-pointers, something he didn’t have a chance to take advantage of as a player.
West’s life and career have been fascinating and he is currently authoring an autobiography — not to be confused with the biography that came out recently — entitled “West by West” and scheduled to be published in the fall.
The title, he says fits, considering that he played in 14 All-Star games and “I was the only guy to have West on the front of my uniform and West on the back. I even turned it around a couple of times.”
“It’s been a cleansing process,” West said of writing the book. “I do not believe in closure. Closure never happens, but it will hopefully reflect at about me and how I feel about people and winning.”
And winning is one of the subjects he talked to the graduates about, for he doesn’t believe that success is measured in how much material things you can accumulate. To him, it how you live and what you contribute to, not what you take from society, that determines whether you have succeeded in life.
Someone — okay, it was me — asked him about his graduation day from WVU.
“I didn’t consider myself a student at that point,” he admitted.
He got through school as best he could and actually almost skipped his graduation ceremony.
“I did not want to wear that silly hat,” he admitted.
It was about that time that Jonnie West entered the room.
He was dressed in his gown. His cap was in his hand.
Like father, like son.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
