June 23, 2008
by O.K. Davis
It would take a story with a word-count comparable to "War and Peace" to chronicle the many individual achievements of Karl Anthony Malone.
Do you have a month or so to peruse all of these incredible numbers, record-setting feats and milestone moments?
Well, try getting "The Mailman" to deliver some resemblance of a detailed analysis as to just how phenomenal his basketball playing career was and you get a response straight out of the How To Be Humble primer.
"I had a great group of teammates wherever I played," said Malone, who will be among the Class of 2008 inductees into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches on June 21. "I never set out playing the game to win a bunch of awards or honors. That's never been me. What it's been all about from the time I started playing was to go out and play the game with respect, handle my business in the proper way, work hard and do the right things. Everything after that is just icing on the cake."
In the case of Malone's career, there was a thick layer of icing.
High school. College. Pros. The Olympic Games. He excelled at every level.
At Summerfield High School, where he averaged 28.3 points and 12.3 rebounds a game, Malone was a three-time selection as the Outstanding Player in Class C.
In a three-year career at Louisiana Tech University, he earned All-American and All-Southland Conference honors and finished among the top 10 scorers and rebounders in school history.
And in the NBA, where the name of Karl Malone was elevated to even greater heights, he had a 19-year career in which he stamped an indelible claim as the game's greatest power forward ever. In the middle of his career, he was a part of the legendary 1992 USA Olympic "Dream Team" that waltzed to a gold medal in the Barcelona Games.
"I don't think you're going to get much arguing over that," offered former Grambling State University and New York Knicks' legend Willis Reed, a Louisiana Sports Hall of Famer. "When you speak about the great power forwards in the game, the roll call begins with Karl."
Indeed, the figures don't fib when placing Malone among the game's best players ever. His 36,028 points are No. 2 all-time behind the 38,387 of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In all but two of his 19 seasons in the NBA, he averaged more than 20 points per game -- ironically, the lone exceptions were his first and last years -- and he had a career high of 31.0 in 1989-90. On 10 occasions, he averaged no fewer than 10 boards.
It's no wonder, then, that legendary NBA talent evaluator Marty Blake immersed himself in critiquing Malone to the fullest when he was at Tech.
"Karl and the Tech team had this game down at McNeese State when he and (Louisiana Sports and Basketball Hall of Famer) Joe," recalled Blake. "It created quite a stir with the NBA scouting fraternity. Here you had two of the best players in the country on the same court, and both of them were certain to be playing at the next level.
"When I walked into the gym that night, there were about 30 scouts sitting on press row. You knew when you walked out, you had just seen two future NBA players."
Blake liked what he saw, noting on his scouting report that "Malone has the potential to be one of the top power forwards in the NBA."
Somehow and in some manner, the story later got around that the guru of NBA scouting might still have had some questions lingering over Malone and his long-range worth in the league.
"Maybe it was because when Tech and McNeese played, the big hype and talk was more about Joe than Karl," Blake said. "But I also knew that we sure better not miss out on seeing this guy named Malone. When Karl became the NBA's second all-time leading scorer, he good-naturedly dedicated part of the honor to me because he thought I might not have rated him as high as I should have when he was in college."
Former Tech guard Dave Simmons, now the head coach at McNeese State and then a graduate assistant coach under Andy Russo at Tech, was convinced Malone was destined for stardom in the NBA after seeing him compete against the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon of Houston, Keith Lee of Memphis and Tisdale.
"After we played Oklahoma, I'm thinking that if Tisdale is a first team All-American, then Karl is just as good and can have a great career at the next level," he said.
Dominant inside and with a powerful physique that helped shatter two glass backboards at the Thomas Assembly Center, Malone averaged 18.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in 92 games at Tech.
In his junior season, he helped deliver the 'Dogs to within a whisper of an NCAA Elite Eight appearance.
Only an 11th-hour, rim-rounding shot by Wayman Tisdale of Oklahoma kept the 'Dogs from advancing out the regionals at Reunion Arena in Dallas and to -- who knows? -- maybe even an eventual date in the Final Four.
"Honestly, I think we could have gone all the way," Malone said. "No doubt about it. Had we won that game (against Oklahoma), who knows what might have happened after that?"
While at Tech, he connected on nearly 60 percent of his field goals. And, no surprise, it became standard operating procedure for the then Russo-guided Bulldogs to revolve their offensive system around the 6-8 post player whose wide frame proved a formidable obstacle for any would-be defender.
"We had a game in Karl's junior year where we were down at Beaumont against Lamar and they were up about two points on us with three or four minutes remaining," recalled former Tech guard and current Bulldogs' assistant coach Rennie Bailey. "As the captain of the team, I called a timeout, huddled us up and told everyone that for the rest of the game, we were getting the ball inside to Karl. Every time we got it, we were going to get it in to the big man. And we did. On every possession during those final minutes, Karl was touching the basketball every time and scoring."
The Bulldogs wound up winning, 68-65.
After his sterling career at Summerfield High, college recruiters were in proverbial "foaming at the mouth" mode.
"Actually, the first time I ever saw Karl play was when Summerfield was playing against Shady Grove, who had a great player named Terry Martin," remembered former Tech assistant Steve Welch, who signed Malone. "It was Karl's junior year, and I went mainly to see Terry. But after seeing that game, I told coach Russo that Terry Martin was good, but Karl Malone was a full running stud."
Malone opted to pass up his senior season with the 'Dogs and applied for the draft in 1985, where the Utah Jazz made him its No. 1 pick and No. 13 overall.
Over the course of his next 18 years in the sport, he would wear the Jazz jersey and become its most popular and successful player ever. Teaming up with guard John Stockton with the famed "pick-and-roll," Karl would earn 13 trips to the All-Star Game, be named twice as its MVP and also record a "deuce" as the league's overall MVP.
Malone was also a key component of two U.S. OIympic gold medal-winning teams, the last on American soil in Atlanta during the summer of 1996.
"Karl was renowned for his work ethic and that's what separated him from so many players," Stockton said during an interview several years ago.
Much of that hard-work ethic could be credited to Malone's mother, Shirley, who passed away five years ago this summer.
"Mom was my greatest inspiration," he said. "She always believed in me and was always there to encourage and guide me. Without her, I would have never enjoyed the many honors and awards I was able to receive over the years or to be able to be a part of so many great moments in the game."
And while Karl Anthony Malone would prefer to credit "a great group of teammates" through the years for the success he had, there is little doubt that he deserves his place among Louisiana's all-time greatest athletes.
