Indiana University Olympians. David Woods
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was omitted from the NBA’s fiftieth anniversary team in 1996, despite statistics exceeding many of the big men who made it. One of them, Wes Unseld, asked, “Do you know what Bellamy did?”
What did he do?
He was an All-Star four times, and he averaged 20.1 points and 13.7 rebounds over fourteen seasons and 1,043 games. He was twice inducted into the Hall of Fame—belatedly as a player in 1993 and as part of the 1960 Olympic team in 2010.
The only other enshrined Olympic team is that of 1992. He was inducted into IU’s Hall of Fame in 1982.
“I just like to think I made a contribution to basketball,” Bellamy said in a 2007 interview.
He wore seven NBA uniforms: Chicago Packers and Zephyrs, Baltimore Bullets, New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks, and New Orleans Jazz. He was traded three times: from the Bullets to Knicks in November 1965, from Knicks to Pistons, and from Pistons to Hawks in February 1970.
Russell once told Sports Illustrated that Bellamy, at his finest, was one of his toughest rivals. Bellamy, sometimes critiqued for not always being at his best, was often stuck on rebuilding or expansion teams.
Before he coached the ABA’s Indiana Pacers, Hoosier great Bobby “Slick” Leonard coached the Bullets. The Bullets were 31–49 in 1963–64, and Leonard largely blamed Bellamy. The coach frequently chided the center for not hustling, and twice Bellamy was fined . . . despite a season in which he averaged 27.0 points and 17.0 rebounds.
Under a new coach, Buddy Jeannette, Bellamy was made captain the next year. Beyond his production—24.8 and 14.6—he led the 37–43 Bullets to the 1965 Western Division finals, where they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.
After Baltimore traded him, Bellamy helped the Knicks climb out of the cellar and into the playoffs in 1967 and 1968. His presence displaced Willis Reed, a natural center, so the Knicks in turn traded Bellamy and Howard Komives to Detroit for forward Dave DeBusschere.
After the third trade, Bellamy teamed with Walt Hazzard and Lou Hudson to push the Hawks to the 1970 Western Division finals. They were swept by the Lakers 4–0. Bellamy, with “Pistol” Pete Maravich in the backcourt, also made the playoffs in 1971, 1972, and 1973. Bellamy played one game for the Jazz in 1974 and retired at age thirty-five.
His home remained in Atlanta, where his wife, Helen, was a middle school science teacher. He was especially active in the NAACP.
He was a public affairs consultant, four-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention, commissioner of Atlanta’s Police Athletic League, a special events director for a scholarship fund for minority students, a mentor at a local YMCA, a board member for a nursery school, and a member of two African Episcopal Methodist Church boards.
In 1977, he was a sergeant-at-arms at the door of the Georgia Senate. Bellamy escorted Prince Charles and introduced him to the legislature.
He died November 2, 2013. He was seventy-four.
Derek Drouin
Courtesy of Indiana University Athletics.
Derek Drouin
2012, 2016
Canada’s Humble Superstar
DEREK DROUIN IS AN ANONYMOUS, AND RELUCTANT, SUPERSTAR. YET CONsidering what he achieved and what he overcame, the Indiana University high jumper had one of most epic double comebacks in Olympic history.
In March 2011, he tore two ligaments in his right foot, an injury known as a Lisfranc fracture. Doctors conceded it was potentially career ending. A little more than sixteen months later, he won a bronze medal at the London Olympics.
In May 2016, an MRI scan revealed he had a double stress fracture in his back.
The Olympic Games were set for three months later in Rio de Janeiro.
“I was optimistic that if I did everything people told me to do, it was going to be fine,” Drouin said. “I was confident I could deal with the pain. I only needed to get to Rio, where I knew the adrenaline and the competition would mask any pain.”
In Rio, he applied pressure on his competition when he was first over the bar at 7 feet, 9¾ inches. No one else could clear it.
Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim won silver at 7–8¾ and Ukraine’s Bohdan Bondarenko bronze at 7–7¾. When Bondarenko missed his only attempt at 7–9¾, the gold medal was Drouin’s. He missed once at what would have been an Olympic record of 7–10½, then ended proceedings. He draped himself in the Maple Leaf and posed for photographers.
“It feels pretty sweet,” Drouin said. “There have been some sacrifices, but I’ve always prided myself on my mental toughness.”
He became the Hoosiers’ first individual gold medalist in track and field since long jumper Greg Bell and decathlete Milt Campbell, both in 1956. Drouin and decathlete Milt Campbell are the only athletes out of IU to win track and field medals in two Olympics.
“The last couple of days I had a realization that I wasn’t nervous at all,” he said in Rio. “I was so excited to be out there because I was confident in my preparation, and also I just love the Olympics and was really just taking the whole moment in. I thrive in a situation where there is a lot going on. I don’t sense a whole lot of distractions.”
Drouin had been numbingly consistent in an event in which a miss can separate gold from no medal at all. After he won bronzes at the 2012 Olympics and 2013 World Championships, he won four successive major championships: the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the 2015 Pan American Games, the 2015 World Championships,and the 2016 Olympics.
Obviously, Drouin had a long résumé before he became an Olympic champion. Not that it made him a celebrity.
When he was surrounded by Canadian reporters in London, it was apparent they knew almost nothing about him. Life did not change after that. Nor did it after he won a historic three-way jump-off to win gold at the 2015 World Championships.
“The only time I think about it is when a reporter asks,” Drouin said. “I’ll basically go back to my regular routine as soon as I could after World Championships.”
Students at IU knew less than Canadian media. Drouin took a lifeguarding class in fall 2011 with Chad Canal, who remembered how hard it was to simulate saving someone as tall as six foot five who had “zero body fat.” Later that semester, Canal received a campus email and realized he had been partnered with an NCAA high jump champion.
“We had no idea he was a track superstar,” Canal said. “And he acted like a normal student. Nobody understood this guy being a big deal. Yes, he was tall and very lean, but that’s it.”
Canal, a dentist, later sent Drouin a message apologizing for not recognizing him.
Drouin’s response: “Haha. I’m quite content with not a lot of attention.”
He once sat at a table at York University in Toronto next to a sign asking, “Who am I?” Only one in ten could identify him, and he was already an Olympic medalist. That might have been welcomed by Drouin, but it sometimes rankled Jeff Huntoon, his coach since 2009.
“There’s not the level of respect that he deserves to have. It disappoints me greatly, actually,” Huntoon said.
Drouin’s technique was so good that colleagues told Huntoon that once the high jumper checks in for his event, the coach’s job is over. TV analyst Dwight Stones, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist in the high jump, called Drouin “maybe one of the best technicians in the event today.”
Drouin