The good die young

Louis Orr just died.

Most of you don't know Louis, #55 playing for the eternally-hopeless NY Knicks, but I did. 

From 1976 -1980, he was part of the Louie & Bouie Show, or was it Bouie & Louie Show, with the Syracuse Orangemen. This was a time when the program was in its heyday and consistently ranked in the AP Top Ten.

So formidable were the Orangemen of my college days, that when lesser teams from upstate NY came to Manley Field House, they were humiliated beyond the pale. Worse than the people who shelled out $99 for a Trump Trading Card. 

Their defeat was so secure that prior to their arrival, the Daily Orange, the school newspaper sponsored elaborate and zealous pep rallies under the laughable auspices of "Beat Sienna", "Beat Le Moyne" or "Beat the Mighty Bonnies" (terrible name for a sports team) from St. Bonaventure.

We were that cocksure.

In any case, Louis Orr was figuratively and literally a BMOC, Big Man On Campus. You can imagine my shock and delight when, on the first day of the second semester, he sat next to me in Public Speaking 101, widely regarded as an easy A. Though not always the case for student athletes.

The course presented its own difficulties to Louie, who was shy and reserved by nature. Though I'm happy to say he was always a receptive audience to my half-assed, always-stoned speeches that produced laughs, but nothing of any consequence.

Louis made the mistake of always falling back on basketball. He'd start a speech about learning to drive a stick shift. But invariably the speech would veer off-course into the retelling on one of his recent games. "It was like that time we were playing the Johnies of St. John and Bouie set a ball screen for me and I drove the lane and went to the rack..." 

He didn't do that was once. He did that all the time. 

But I was just thrilled he knew my name. And would acknowledge me on the off chance that we met on campus. Or, in later years, if he came into Sutter's Mill and saw me bartending. He was salt of the earth, through and through. And never had the affect that other star athletes -- I'm looking at you, football players -- might have had.

In 2011, a lifetime since those college days, I found myself on a freelance assignment for adidas and was sent by TBWA Chiat/Day to go to Las Vegas for a weekend. For the record I hate Las Vegas. 

Also, for the record, I love Las Vegas when not only is everything comped, including a super deluxe room at the Aria, but when I'm getting paid my full day rate (plus overtime) to film a college basketball recruiting tournament and given the chance to interview the nation's top coaches. 

In between talking to Roy Williams, Bill Self and the legendary Coach K, I ran into my old friend, Louie Orr, who was the head coach at Old Dominion or Bowling Green. He didn't remember me at the time. But I refreshed his memory by bringing up our time in Public Speaking 101. His face up like a menorah on the 8th day (please note the timely reference.)

We exchanged some small talk. And I didn't want get in the way of him recruiting a ball handling phenom and future point guard from Brooklyn, so I asked if he'd having his assistant coach snap a picture of us. Either Louie's slim 6' 9" didn't fit in the picture or his assistant didn't know how to operate an iPhone. I think it was the iPhone 3 at the time.

I don't have the picture of me and Louie, but I will always have the memory of a sweet big man who always had a smile and never got too big for his britches.

Rest in Peace, Louis Orr.