Chauncey Billups will forever be known as Mr. Colorado in the Hall of Fame
Chauncey Billups is a Hall of Famer? What’s news about that? The Denver native always has been. This ol’ sports guy recalls watching the King of Park Hill as a prep standout at George Washington. Fellow Channel 4 sports journalist Marcia Neville covered the high-school sporting scene but Billups was that good. There was always room in the nightly sportscasts among the Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies and Avalanche updates for the latest from an athlete known as “Smooth” as a youngster.
I remember when the McDonald’s All American shocked many and stayed home to play for the Buffs under coach Joe Harrington. It was a major recruiting coup. Every major college power was trying to lure the 6’3” phenom. Ricardo Patton was an assistant on Harrington’s staff at that time and is largely credited with landing the five-star recruit.
Your scribe was the host of Harrington’s television show that became Patton’s show once the latter replaced the former as Buffs head coach midway through Billups’ freshman season. What I recall from each coach? Whenever talking about the gifted guard? It always started with family.
Colorado’s current coach, Tad Boyle nailed this truth about the player known in a 17-year professional career as “Mr. Big Shot.” Boyle on parents Ray and Faye: “If parents were given a Gold medal for the children they have raised, Mr. and Mrs. Billups would receive one for raising Chauncey and his brother Rodney. All of us at the University of Colorado are proud of this accomplishment for Chauncey and his family.”
Billups’ mom and dad were ever present at Buffs’ home games. Wonderful role models for ayoung man mature beyond his years. At the time, NBA rules required players to be out of high school two years before turning pro. The Buffs in Billups’ sophomore season finished second to Kansas in the Big 12 regular season and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time in almost three decades.
Everyone knew the All American was headed for the NBA after the sensational campaign. The date of his announcement will be an assignment never forgotten.
It was the spring of 1997. The basketball season was complete. The arena, then known as the Coors Events Center, was dark and quiet. I was in Boulder to perform a live shot outside the facility. Photographer and reporter were biding time in the KCNC-TV news van awaiting a top-of-the-5pm newscast report. Billups was turning pro. It was big news in Denver. However, quite unexpectedly, Mother Nature called and McIntosh needed a bathroom. Quickly.
The station’s live truck operator had run power cables from inside the arena to a position near the impressive bronze buffalo statue prominently displayed outside the west-side entrance. A dude needing a bathroom burst into the pitch-black darkness. This was before cellphones with spotlights on them. The “Buff Guy” was flying blind and relying on familiarity with the concourse level in seeking relief.
Wouldn’t you know it? After finding a restroom? An attempt to turn on the lights failed. Power was controlled by a key, not a switch. I’ll save you the stinky details of what happened next but let’s just say the nice suit your correspondent was wearing that day? The pants? No pun intended Coach Boyle, but they were a tad soiled.
Moments later, wearing sweat pants borrowed from station photographer but looking professional from waist up in coat and tie, the live shot went on without a hitch despite the lack of britches. The future five-time NBA All Star was going pro and McIntosh was going to the dry cleaners.
The 47-year-old has excelled at every level. Now in a second season as head coach of the Portland Trailblazers, Billups is the second Buff, the late Burdie Haldorson was first, to enter basketball’s Hall of Fame: “I call it basketball heaven. As a kid I never even thought about it, To be here now is unbelievable,” Billups said.
Unbelievable. Perfect word to describe the 2004 NBA champion and Finals MVP for the Detroit Pistons. On and off the court. The Centennial State’s finest ever. Colorado to the core.
JEFF HAUSER