Two hundred ninety-three consecutive games without missing one — no flu, no cut over the eye, no rest day a doctor demanded. Then twenty-six, which is everything an NBA career had left after one landing on February 4, 1984. That injury costs a player nine months today. He was born about fifteen years too early.
This film covers the best college player in America in 1980, the captain of a United States Olympic team that never boarded a plane for Moscow, and the fourth man in the history of college basketball to reach 2,600 points and 1,300 rebounds. You will hear how a man told he would never play again was voted a league's player of the year at twenty-nine, why he bought a ticket to France, and what he did from a hospital bed in 2016 while his club played for a championship.
Subscribe to Broken Hardwood for more untold stories from the NBA's golden age.
TIMECODES
00:00 — Two Hundred Ninety-Three Games, and Then Twenty-Six
02:08 — West Philadelphia, and a Father Gone in Ninth Grade
03:12 — Why the Best Schoolboy in the City Signed with La Salle
04:14 — Michael Brooks: 2,628 Points, Beside Robertson and Hayes
05:29 — Bob Knight Names Michael Brooks Captain of the Olympic Team
06:47 — December 1979, a Boycott, and Games He Never Reached
07:54 — Draft Night 1980, and a One-Word Verdict: "Tweener"
10:47 — February 4, 1984: Game 293, and Michael Brooks's Knee
14:33 — Told He Would Never Play, and Named Player of the Year at 29
17:24 — Limoges, Two French Championships, and a European Final Four
24:05 — Lake Geneva, and the Diagnosis He Told Nobody
#MichaelBrooks #LaSalle #MichaelBrooksStory #NBAGoldenAge #NBADownfall
Two hundred ninety-three consecutive games without missing one — no flu, no cut over the eye, no rest day a doctor demanded. Then twenty-six, which is everything an NBA career had left after one landing on February 4, 1984. That injury costs a player nine months today. He was born about fifteen years too early.
This film covers the best college player in America in 1980, the captain of a United States Olympic team that never boarded a plane for Moscow, and the fourth man in the history of college basketball to reach 2,600 points and 1,300 rebounds. You will hear how a man told he would never play again was voted a league's player of the year at twenty-nine, why he bought a ticket to France, and what he did from a hospital bed in 2016 while his club played for a championship.
Subscribe to Broken Hardwood for more untold stories from the NBA's golden age.
TIMECODES
00:00 — Two Hundred Ninety-Three Games, and Then Twenty-Six
02:08 — West Philadelphia, and a Father Gone in Ninth Grade
03:12 — Why the Best Schoolboy in the City Signed with La Salle
04:14 — Michael Brooks: 2,628 Points, Beside Robertson and Hayes
05:29 — Bob Knight Names Michael Brooks Captain of the Olympic Team
06:47 — December 1979, a Boycott, and Games He Never Reached
07:54 — Draft Night 1980, and a One-Word Verdict: "Tweener"
10:47 — February 4, 1984: Game 293, and Michael Brooks's Knee
14:33 — Told He Would Never Play, and Named Player of the Year at 29
17:24 — Limoges, Two French Championships, and a European Final Four
24:05 — Lake Geneva, and the Diagnosis He Told Nobody
#MichaelBrooks #LaSalle #MichaelBrooksStory #NBAGoldenAge #NBADownfall
Man, I got to put him on my NBA2K27 Roster.