one of the most entertaining ball players to wear the Maroon & White. From Harlem NY.
Followed Ron Green to Murray St.
Followed Ron Green to Murray St.
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RIP Gary Hooker
- Thread starter knock him out john
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by far the most fun guy to watch. He could really play. Him and Ray White as freshmen really started a basketball revival. Until Hubbard they were the best freshmen to ever wear the maroon and white.
I used to love to watch him play as a teenager. Dad and I had season tickets right behind Bailey Howell. My favorite MSU basketball times.
How bad of a job was State in 78 to lose a coach to Murray State?
That one was on Tyler...
it was Greene's alma mater. Kentucky got the only NCAA bid that year with 48 teams in the dance.
MSU basketball history would look a lot different if Greene does not leave. He was recruiting at a very high level. Then came Hatfield!
RIP Gary Hooker
I remember because it's when I first started paying attention to Mississippi State basketball. At least I can remember sitting in my room, listening to games over the radio.
Yes, he would've played with both Wiley Peck and Ray White. Rickey Brown, Greg Grimm and Al Perry were also on some of those teams.
I met Greg Grimm in the east side Club level last year at a game.
Forgot where he said he lived but got back to one or two football games a year.
Greg was in the Chattanooga area the last time I talked to him.
The golden years when I never missed a home basketball game. What fun it was back then. The NCAA snubbed us and we played Alcorn State in the NIT.
We seem to have gotten a lot of guys out of NYC back in those days. Remember “Shu”?
and the Braves and Coach Dave Whitney kicked our azzes. Yes young readers, Alcorn punked us in our own building
We were up by 18 points and an angry Braves fan threw a whiskey bottle from the upper deck onto the floor of the Hump. It would have killed someone if it hit them. It was all down hill for us after that. I was at the game.
We've had a couple or so since then. Gary Irvin and Todd Myles immediately come to mind.
It's worth mentioning that Alcorn came into that game 27-0 and had a guy named Larry Smith who was averaging 14 rebounds a game. He would have a long NBA career. They lost by 4 at Indiana the next game.
Different level of SWAC talent then.
I remember listening to Jack on the radio in South Mississippi and being shocked
Oh for sure. Those were the days (45 years ago) that most of those guys didn't have opportunities to go to any school but a HBCU but were legit big school athletes. I was a naive 18 year old that had heard about racism my whole life in S MS but had no clue what it really meant. Whitney was a classic of a coach that I never have heard anybody say anything negative about
I played pickup games in McCarthy Gym with Gary, Ray White, Al Perry, John Adams, Wiley Peck, etc. Ray was usually stoned when he played. Gary Hooker could stop a 2 on 1 fastbreak better than anyone I've ever played with. His damn arms were so long he could cover 2 passing lanes completely. Impossible to get by him. One day Wiley Peck asked me to play one-on-one with him. I reluctantly agreed. However, I did pretty well vs the big boy. If he backed me down near the basket there was almost no way to stop him from scoring. On the other hand, I had success shooting outside on him. He wouldn't want to come out from under the basket and if he did, I could slash around him and to the basket. I was a pretty good shooter back in the day. BTW.....there were no 3 pt. arcs or shots back then, but some of the shots I took would have been 3 pointers. Saddened me when McCarthy was torn down. Lot of memories in that place.
Ray White sticks in my mind as one of the “smoothest” players/shooters I’ve watched play, and now I know the rest of the story.
Tom Shuberth. For some reason with that with that mop head he was my favorite basketball player. I don’t know why. He played hard I guess he was just looking him up so he played at UNLV for two years and then came to State.
He was the point guard in the WHO DAT game which was the year after Perry finished school. Peck & White were seniors on that team. Schuberth starting getting cramps in the 2nd half & we could not beat their full court press with him out of the game.
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