Dom Amore: Johnny Egan left a legacy of friendship, fun, inspiration from Hartford to Providence to Houston
Johnny Egan and Lenny Wilkens arrived on the Providence College campus a year apart, kindred spirits, ball-handling wizards. It was only natural they’d become friends as well as teammates and would remain so for more than 60 years.
“It’s the loss of a dear friend,” Wilkens said from his home in Seattle. “Johnny was just a happy-go-lucky guy. We played together. We played when the NIT was a big, big tournament. Just a very down-to-earth human being. He was fun. He was exciting. We both could handle the ball, push the ball, penetrate to the basket, and if a teammate was open, he’d find him. It was an exciting time for us at Providence.”
Egan, one of the greatest basketball players ever to come out of Hartford, died Thursday at 83, leaving a legacy of fun, excitement and inspiration for those who grew up in his neighborhood, to illustrious teammates and opponents in college and in the NBA. He was just 5 feet 11, but he could dunk from a standing start, earning the nickname “Space.”
Though it’s impossible to say who invented the floater, or teardrop shot, there is plenty of evidence on YouTube to indicate Egan’s version of it was to die for. He’d seem to hang in the air and loft the ball with perfect touch, even if Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain were blocking his path.
“He could pull up on a dime,” Wilkens said. “He could stop. Pop up. It was a signature shot. Watching him get to the basket, doing the things he could do, just inspired me to do it even more. I grew as a player. A lot of the things I saw him do, I was able to do in the pros.”
Wilkens graduated in 1960, after Providence reached the NIT final. In 1961, Egan led the Friars to the title, which at that time was a bigger deal than the NCAA.
“We had a lot of the same values,” said Wilkens, who is from Brooklyn. “We were at school, we loved basketball, but we were there to get an education. There were four or five of us, Dick Whelan, John Woods, Timmy Moynahan, John and myself, we just meshed. We had great chemistry.”
Both Wilkens and Egan went on to play and coach in the NBA. Whenever Wilkens, a Naismith Hall-of-Famer, ran charity events in Seattle, Egan was sure to travel from Houston to be there.
Egan’s NBA career was notable in its own right. He was with the Pistons and Knicks, and he was Jerry West’s backcourt mate on two Lakers teams that made the NBA Finals.
“He could really jump,” Kevin Loughery, Egan’s teammate with the Bullets in the mid-60s, told the Baltimore Sun. “He would be terrific in today’s game because it’s dominated by point guards. He would be fantastic. He could shoot. He had distance on his shots. He could take it to the hoop.”
Before he was in college or the NBA, Egan led Weaver High to an undefeated season, winning the 1957 New England championship, and was the idol of nearly every youngster who bounced a basketball in Hartford. One of them, Howard Greenblatt, who graduated from Weaver in 1967, wrote “The Johnny Egan Story,” published in 2020.
“Anyone that played at Weaver wanted to be like that team, and me, I wanted to be like Johnny Egan,” Greenblatt said. “He was the ultimate basketball player from Hartford. I used to go to this park that wasn’t far from my house, Bowles Park, and try to get in a game, or shoot by myself. This one time, Johnny was there. Just watching him shoot, I could see how I could become a better shooter. He was at heart a teacher of basketball. That was one of his gifts. He was able to communicate how to play the game the right way.”
Leigh Montville, New Haven native and UConn grad who has written books about everyone from Babe Ruth to Muhammad Ali to Evel Knievel, wrote extensively about Egan in “Tall Men, Short Shorts,” his book about covering the NBA for the Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated.
“High school basketball was just so much bigger in 1957 than it is today,” Montville said. “Games were on the radio. Egan was this ballhandling wizard, this scoring machine from Hartford Weaver. Everybody knew about him. I think at that time, kids in Connecticut, if you could trade places with anyone in the universe, you’d pick Johnny Egan. He was just doing the stuff of all your daydreams.
“A dozen years later, I’m a sportswriter, shooting questions at Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, no problem, but I’m nervous talking to Egan. He was who you wanted to be if you grew up in Connecticut at that time.”
After coaching the Rockets to the playoffs, Egan left the basketball life and settled in Houston. He was the picture of health well into his 80s, teaching his ballhandling and shooting tricks to his grandchildren, or others who wanted to learn, until a fall began his decline. “He lived a big life,” his son, John Jr., told the Houston Chronicle.
“They shouldn’t forget how great he was,” Wilkens said. “But also, he was very humble. He was always about helping the team. I thought that was magnificent.”
More items for your Sunday Read:
A chance for UConn’s Matt Donlan
Now that the MLB draft is down to 20 rounds, hundreds of players slip through who wouldn’t have before. But a catcher who can throw out runners like Matt Donlan, from Guilford and UConn, is bound to get his chance. The Red Sox locked him up moments after the final pick was made.
“A lot of thoughts were going through my head,” Donlan said, “a lot of emotions for about 5 seconds, and then I started getting calls. I grew up a diehard Red Sox fan, so that was pretty cool.”
Donlan transferred from Division II Stonehill to UConn and had a big season, throwing out 22 of 42 base stealers and hitting .260 with 12 homers and 60 RBIs in 61 games.
“It’s been a lot of fun the last two years, getting from where I was to where I am,” Donlan said. “But it’s more a credit to the people who helped me get there. When I got to UConn, the coaches, they’re the ones who helped propel me.”
Donlan leaves Sunday for Fort Myers, Fla. to begin his minor league journey. The Red Sox can offer up to $125,000 without it counting against their bonus pool.
“The most important thing is getting the opportunity to play professional baseball at the end of the day,” Donlan said. “So here we go.”
Talking up the All-Star Game
I like to think I’m open to new ideas, but I was a little uncomfortable with miking up players on the field during the All-Star Game. I’m probably wrong about this — most people seemed to like it — but kept envisioning a pitcher hit in the face with a comebacker while talking, or a distracted runner getting picked off. Can’t see doing it in games that count.
Summer reading
We’ve told you about the Greenblatt and Montville books. Here’s another, with a little connection to another Connecticut legend. Ron Shelton has written “The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham.” One of the main characters of Shelton’s classic 1986 baseball film is based on Steve Dalkowski, the hard-throwing, but wild and star-crossed pitcher from New Britain. So the great storyteller now tells the story of the story he has already told.
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com.
