A missed opportunity? Bruce Hamming

[MrMustang1965]

For that first consultation, most patients sit fretfully in an examining room, awaiting the slow turn of the door handle and the appearance of someone roughly their size, wearing a white coat and studying a handful of X-rays and charts.

They don’t picture their surgeon to be 6-foot-11 Dr. Bruce Hamming, ducking under the top of the door frame.

“It’s definitely an ice-breaker. Especially with little kids,” the former Augustana College and Rock Island High School basketball star said. “I usually spend 10 minutes answering questions like, ‘How tall are you?’ ‘Did you play basketball?’ ‘Where did you play basketball?’ Sometimes I think that’s a good thing because they’re already scared to be there.”

Hamming, an orthopedic surgeon for the past 21 years at Lake Shore Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Gurnee, Ill., was one of the most dominant players in Vikings history from 1971 to 1975. But he really excelled in his junior and senior seasons after 7-foot teammate John Laing graduated.

He was an NAIA All-American his third year and an NCAA Division III All-American his senior year, leading Augustana to an astounding 101-18 record over his four years and Final Four appearances in 1973 and 1975. He still holds the school record for single-season rebounds and is third all-time in career scoring (1,668 points) and rebounds (1,060). He was inducted into the Augustana Hall of Fame last fall.

One game during his junior year still sticks out.

“Early in the season, we played Millikin at their place, and they beat us pretty good,’’ Hamming said. “They had a 6-11 player named Leon Gobczynski, who was leading the nation in scoring. He was averaging 35 or 36 points a game.

“It was near the end of the conference season when we played them again at Augustana. We crushed them. We just rolled over them. To top it all off, coach (Jim) Borcherding had us play a diamond-and-one defense and I was at the bottom of it. We shut (Gobczynski) out. He was scoreless for the game. I think I had 36 points. A couple of magazines picked it up and wrote about it.”

His soft touch around the hoop came easily to Hamming, but what he did on the court was just half of what he was. The son of a geography professor and a junior-high math teacher, he maintained straight-A’s as a pre-med major. Despite being drafted by the NBA’s Baltimore Bullets (now the Washington Wizards), he chose to go to medical school at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

“By the time I finished at Augustana, I had an early arthritic condition in my knees,’’ Hamming said. “They had gotten really bad. I would ice them all the time and load them up with atomic balm and wraps before games. Sometimes coach would have me skip parts of practice.

“Sometimes I do wonder if I could have made it in the NBA. But the Bullets had Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld as their front line at that time. There’s no way I was going to go replace them. I do think I could have caught on as a reserve.”

When he left Rock Island to pursue college, he had numerous offers. The one he took most seriously was a scholarship from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. A trip down south to visit the campus reaffirmed his values and helped make the decision to stay close to home and attend Augie.

“They were bringing in quite a few Illinois kids then,’’ Hamming said. “I think they had three kids from Galesburg on their team. They flew me down, offered me a scholarship and all that other stuff. But I could go to Augustana for free since my dad had taught there for over 10 years, and I wanted to go somewhere where I wasn’t an employee of the athletic department.

“I didn’t want to feel like basketball owned me. (SMU) told me, ‘You can’t take a chemistry class because that would mean there would be afternoon labs and that would interfere with practice. We have a great accounting program.’ But I didn’t want to be an accountant.”

The 51-year-old father of two boys, Brian and Carl, is through with basketball, having played in suburban Chicago city leagues up until a couple of years ago. He spends most of his time gardening, watching his son’s high school volleyball games and taking walks with his wife of 23 years, Mary.

“I’m at a point in my life where running and jumping are out of the question,” he said.

http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?sto ... 32,1046374

[MrMustang1965]

The 51-year-old father of two boys, Brian and Carl, is through with basketball, having played in suburban Chicago city leagues up until a couple of years ago. He spends most of his time gardening, watching his son’s high school volleyball games and taking walks with his wife of 23 years, Mary.

“I’m at a point in my life where running and jumping are out of the question,” he said.

Sean Moeller can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or at [email protected].

http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?sto ... 32,1046374

[EastStang]

Coach Prewitt was not one to view medical school as an option for his players. That would have been an interesting team with both he and Ira Terrell down low. I.T. had to sit out a year during that stretch for some recruiting nonsense, so they might have only had a year or two together.

[Water Pony]

Fascinating article.

I live in the same town as Bruce and his older brother, Ed, who is 3-4" shorter and played at Augustana before his brother. What a tandem and both are Orthopedic Surgeons in practice together. They are personal friends and on the quality and character scale they are "off the charts" so to speak.

Didn't know he could have been a Mustang. Whoa is us!

[neonleon]

It was a long time ago, but my memory is still clear. As the saying goes, why let the truth get in the way of a good story. You see, my name is Leon Gobczynski and I am at the center of this discussion and would like to correct some errors. First of all I am 6'9" tall. Secondly, I remember the first matchup with 6'11" Bruce Hamming. Millikin won by 20 points and I had 43 in a man to man situation with Bruce. The second game at Augustana had 4 players devoted to my defense and yes, I did not score in that game. It was a great disappointment that my teammates did not pick up the slack. Despite this, I was the 2 nd leading collegiate player in the nation in 1974 and still hold all of the conference scoring records in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin. I went on to play 8 1/2 yrs in Europe winning the French Cup in 1981. I wass in the Houston Rocket training camp in 1979. A side note was that I was recruited by SMU out of high school and almost went there. Let me conclude in saying Bruce Hamming was a great basketball player and he played with another great player a couple years senior by the name of John Laing who went on to star in Europe. Thanks for reading!

[Grant Carter]

And now you know the rest of the story.

[ponyboy]

Unbelievable that you posted on here, Leon!


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[CalallenStang]

Welcome Leon! I hope you hang around on Ponyfans for a bit!

[neonleon]

I really follow the Mustangs and am sooo glad it was such an exciting season. More good things to come....have one lasting memory of Moody Whe I watched the Chaps play an ABA game there....priceless.

[ponyboy]

Most on here won't remember the Chaparrals


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[The Falcon]

Ponyboy - I remember the Chaps very well. In fact, I worked almost all of the games at
Moody and enjoyed the ABA and the red, white, & blue ball. In fact, I met Terry Stembridge
two weeks ago going into Moody for an NIT game - as you may remember he was the Chaps
radio announcer for several years. We exchanged some old timer talk just before the SMU game.

Thanks Bruce for the story above - enjoyed reading it. I grew up in Rockford IL just up the
Rock River from Rock Island and we played Rock Island in 1950 and 1951. That is great
basketball country.