Building Community Through Sports

Buffalo native Bob Lanier's work continues today

Bob Lanier speaks with children at the NBA Cares Read to Achieve event during 2008 All-Star Week in New Orleans. (David Dow/NBAE/Getty Images)

You might know Bob Lanier for his Hall of Fame career with the NBA's Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks. You might remember the 6'11" post player for his enormous, size 22 basketball sneakers, his old Miller Light TV commercials or his brief mention in the classic 1980 comedy Airplane!

What you might not recall is that Lanier hails from Buffalo, N.Y., where he attended Bennett High School before getting a scholarship to attend nearby St. Bonaventure University.

From his home in Arizona, the 60-year-old Lanier spoke recently with FanAwards.com about growing up in Western New York, how Buffalo was such a sports-friendly town and what it is that he looks for in his favorite athletes these days.

FAN: But let's talk about growing up in Buffalo… How were you introduced to basketball? How did you get your start in the game as a youngster?

Lanier: Just like most kids. All of the kids in the neighborhood would get together and play sports at the Boys & Girls Club. I think I joined when I was about 12 years of age.

FAN: Was basketball your first love?

Lanier: I enjoyed all of the sports we played. We played baseball, basketball, football, table tennis… I was a city champion in table tennis. But it's funny, we were just playing for fun. There wasn't any notion of being a college athlete or pro player or anything. We just played those sports because everyone else was doing it. So everybody else got with it.

FAN: I know that you experienced some difficulties when you first tried to play basketball competitively in school. What was that all about?

Lanier: Well, at that point, I was really tall and awkward and clumsy. In fact, when I was a sophomore trying out for the team that all of my buddies were on, I got cut. I didn't make the team because the coach said I was too clumsy and that I was never gonna be a basketball player. I was devastated.

FAN: Because you were really starting to like basketball?

Lanier: No! Not at all. I really wanted to make it because all of my friends were on the team. And I just wanted to feel a part of it.

But getting cut just made me want to work harder when I played at the Boys & Girls Club. Mr. Alexander, the man who was running the Club back then, took me through a whole series of drills and coordinated a training regimen for me. In all, the whole experience pushed me so that I could better myself.

My junior year, my biology teacher became the basketball coach at Bennett because the previous coach wanted to focus on coaching football and baseball. And it was ironic. If the same coach had been coaching the following year, I probably would never have made the team and gone on to play basketball, period.  So that's really how I got into playing basketball more seriously.

FAN: So was that when basketball took over for the other sports you'd been playing and became more serious?

Lanier: No, I don't think it really took over. I still liked the other sports. And I don't think basketball really did take over. In fact, I don't really know why or how it ever did. Maybe it was when I was offered a scholarship to play basketball in college and I hurt my arm playing baseball.

Honestly, in my heart of hearts, baseball was the game I wanted to play. If I had to really pick a sport, it would have been baseball. I played first base, pitched and played center field.

FAN: You could have been an earlier version of Randy Johnson, staring batters down at 6'11". Were all of the hitters intimidated when they saw you out there on the mound?

Lanier: (Laughs) I remember when I was about 12 years old. I was tall then, too. And I threw the ball so hard, but I had some trouble figuring out where the target was. It was almost like every kid that came up there (to hit against me) was a target (laughs). My control wasn't so great. So parents would come and complain because they were worried about their kids getting hit. It was tough (laughs).

FAN: What was it like in high school then? Was basketball competitive there?

Lanier: It was competitive, but we really didn't play a lot of games. The high school system isn't as developed as the system was in New York City, for example.

FAN: Were there other big-time talents to come out of the Buffalo area at that time?

Lanier: Tony Masiello (the eventual mayor of Buffalo) was a heck of a player who went on to play at Canisius. Dale Tepas was a terrific player. Paul Grys, John Hayes from Niagara Falls was a hell of a player. There were some players around who were pretty good.

FAN: What was Buffalo like as a sports town back then?

Lanier: Oh, it was a big sports town. And it was a big family town. There was a great park system, there were rec centers… there were lots of things like that in place that made sports and families flourish. And parents loved to get their kids involved in sports for that reason. They really felt like they were connected to something. And that's a special connection. They were opening up all of these Boys & Girls Clubs back then, so they were all really new and nice. And that was a great way for all of us kids to connect in the community.

Those days were a little bit different. Life was a little easier back then. You had more eyes watching you, because families weren’t as separated like they are now. All of the family structure was there. And we were very much a product of that post-war, black exodus from the South. All of my mother and dad's brothers and sisters came (from the South) to live with us until they got started. So we kids had a lot of support mechanisms built in. It made youth sports there a real family experience and because I had a lot of family there, they'd come to my high school and college games, too. My father came to all of my home games in college.

FAN: When it came time for college, there were a bunch of schools interested in you. How did you decide to attend St. Bonaventure?

Lanier was a 6'11" beast out on the court during his college days as a Bonnie. (Courtesy of St. Bonaventure University)

Lanier: I think it was my dad, really. My plan was to stay around Buffalo, so it was one of the "Little Three": Bona, Niagara or Canisius. They were all really, really good schools at the time and they all wooed me a little bit, but my dad was the final decision maker.

My family wanted me to be around and they wanted me to be at a school where I was gonna play and where I was going to excel academically. And I don’t think there could have been a better place for me. It's in a quaint, little community-type setting. There weren't a lot of distractions that could I could get involved in. It was a great place for me.

FAN: So during your senior season as a Bonnie in 1970, you led the team to the Final Four, a pretty impressive feat for a school of that size. How big an achievement was that for the school and for the Buffalo area?

Lanier: Oh, you won't even believe it. Buffalo and the surrounding areas were so big into sports. So the reality of any of the three schools making it that far -- but especially the Bonnies, because I was a local boy -- was huge.

But on the court, starting in my second season, we were undefeated until we lost to North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament. My junior year, we were ineligible (for the postseason) because of some kind of recruiting violation. That was one of those really tough seasons to play, because it was hard for a coach to keep people focused when there wasn’t a real payoff at the end of the year.

But my senior season… We knew we had a good team. We were full of good players. We had Bubba Gary, who was a heck of a forward, and another kid from D.C. named Matt Gantt. We had my roommate Billy Kalbaugh, myself, Tepas, Grys, Paul Hoffman, Jimmy Satalin, Mike Kull... We had a really good basketball team full of guys with really good basketball intellect, No. 1, and passion for the game, No. 2. And we got along really well. We were like a family. We couldn’t have asked for a better situation.

That year, we lost one game during the regular season, and that was to our archrivals Villanova. It was a game where we felt like we really had the game stolen from us at the end. As luck would have it, we played them again in the Eastern Regional Final (in the NCAA Tournament). And we got our sweet revenge. The hard part about that, though, was that was the game when I got injured and knocked out of the tournament. My team went on to the Final Four and they played admirably and made everybody proud, but they lost.

But all of that said, I do believe that the environment in Buffalo and the surrounding areas was amazing throughout our run. Everyone bled with us and cried with us. They wore the Bonnies on their shoulders and carried us in their hearts and minds, because we were the hope. A little school like that from a community like Buffalo… to make it to the Final Four and to perform heroically after the wrenching loss of one of their star players… it was pretty heartbreaking at the time, but it was an amazing story. And I still feel it to this day.

FAN: After your time at Bona, everybody knows you went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Pistons and Bucks in the NBA. But during and after your pro career, you were very involved in charity work. In fact, you were just the fourth recipient of theNBA's J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award back in 1978. How did helping out with charities and in the community become such a focus for you?

Lanier: Honestly, it was never about getting involved or helping people out. It was just something I'd done since grammar school. My mother always had us helping out people in the church from our community. So it really wasn’t anything new. Helping people out was part of the Franciscan education at Bona, as well. And then in the NBA, we'd do community-focused work at camps and clinics using basketball as a carrot to talk to young people about making better choices, earning respect or setting goals.

Then, (NBA Commissioner) David Stern asked me to get involved with the league's Stay in School program, where we talked about the P-R-I-D-E acronym: Positive mental attitude; earning Respect; Intelligent choice-making; Dream your dreams and setting goals; and Effort and education. Those were the stepping stones for where we are today with our larger NBA Cares program, which covers all of the league's philanthropic efforts.

FAN: And now you're a vital part of that NBA Cares program, attending events and clinics throughout the year all over the world. What sort of work have you done as part of that program?

Lanier: The key to all of the events I attend is the huge number of caring, passionate members of the NBA family. You can't fool people with rhetoric. But if people know that you care about them, they'll accept you and embrace you. And I think that NBA players do that incredibly well. And the league is involved with so many wonderful groups, both here and abroad.

FAN: What stands out most in all of the work you've done with the NBA? Was there one appearance you've made that sticks out as being a point at which you thought, "Wow, this is why I'm doing this work,"?

Lanier: Wow… hmmm… We were at a hospital visit. I don’t even remember where it was, but it just blew my mind:

There was a kid who needed an operation because he had a tumor on his brain. And because of his surgery, he couldn't be in the area we were coming when we visited to sign autographs and hand out basketballs.  So his mother asked us very nicely if we would just come to see her son after his surgery. Having been through a couple of surgeries myself and knowing how woozy you feel in the recovery room afterwards from the gas and the pain medication, I knew he wouldn't even remember us being there to see him. But we went anyways.

And just like I imagined, the kid was just… out. But we signed basketballs and left some stuffed animals for him on his bed. His mother stopped us and made us take a picture with him. She said he wouldn't remember us visiting, but that she was taking this picture of us because as he was recovering from the surgery and getting well, the photo would lift his spirits.

And that made tears come to my eyes. To think that maybe we could be a small part of his recovery… just because we took a little extra time to go talk to him after his surgery… was unbelievable to me.  

FAN: Finally, what do you think of sports these days? What do you like to watch in your spare time? Who are your favorite athletes now?

Lanier: I like people who show character and passion for what they do. The quarterback from the Indianapolis Colts, Peyton Manning… I love him. He shows professionalism and character. Derek Jeter: professionalism and character. Kevin Garnett, Steve Nash: professionalism and character. With people like that, doing what they do is contagious. They help the people around them and lift them to another level. They also connect with the fans and make the fans more interested in them and their teams. People want their kids to be like these athletes, parents want their daughters to marry guys like that... they want their sons and grandsons to be like them. That is what it's all about. If you, as a fan, can't connect with a guy who works hard, has passion, has character and keeps making good choices, then woe be it to you. They set positive examples, and that's what sports are all about.

If you're involved in a sport, especially at a high level like that, you're the caretaker for that sport for the next generation. And you need to have people behind you who are looking up to you, seeing the way you do things. So you're setting the standard. And having people who keep setting high standards is how our game is going to continue to improve and grow. If the leaders and caretakers in any sport -- or any business, for that matter -- are not making good choices and are not held accountable for their own character, we're in a lot of trouble.