 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Princeton To Retire The No. 42
Created: 10/1/2008 3:17:49 PM
|
Dick Kazmaier ’52 and Bill Bradley ’65, two of the greatest icons in the history of American college athletics, will be honored by the Princeton University Department of Athletics by having their shared uniform number retired at a ceremony later this month.
Kazmaier, the 1951 Heisman Trophy winner, and Bradley, the 1965 Sullivan Award winner, both wore the No. 42 as undergraduates. The uniform number has not been issued in decades in football or basketball, and it will now be officially retired across all sports at Princeton.
The official retirement ceremony will be held in Jadwin Gym Friday night, Oct. 24, and will be followed by a recognition at halftime of the Princeton-Harvard football game the next day. Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee ’53 will introduce both men at the event in Jadwin.
“Princetonians Dick Kazmaier and Bill Bradley shared not only the same number but also the same national acclaim for their academic accomplishments as undergraduates and their heroic athletic achievements at Palmer Stadium and Dillon Gym,” says Princeton Director of Athletics Gary Walters, a teammate of Bradley’s on the Tigers’ 1965 Final Four team. “If one mentions the student-athlete ideal, Dick and Bill immediately come to mind as arguably the two most iconic, publicized and historic Ivy League student-athletes of the 20th century. Dick appeared on the cover of Time; Bill on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Both added to their legendary status with a lifetime of commitment to public service, and they remain to this day humble and classy despite the magnitude of their life’s accomplishments. Make no mistake: These two men have burnished the reputation and image of Princeton in a manner that few before them or since have approached. Princeton has been the beneficiary of their remarkable stature, and now it is time for Princeton to honor them and to dignify their achievements as two of the most worthy and deserving Tigers of all-time.”
Kazmaier came to Princeton from Maumee, Ohio, shortly after the end of World War II as a small, almost-forgotten member of the freshman team. By the time he graduated, he had led Princeton through one of its most glorious eras and had earned college football’s highest honors.
A passing and running threat in the single-wing, Kazmaier still holds six school individual records and remains second all-time at Princeton in touchdown passes thrown and average yards per rush. He held the Princeton record for total offense in a career for 34 years before it was broken.
Princeton went 6-3 in 1949 in his first year on the varsity and then put together back-to-back 9-0 seasons his junior and senior years. The 1950 Tigers won a share of the national championship; the 1951 Tigers finished the year ranked first in the East and sixth nationally.
After leading the nation in total offense and pass completion percentage in 1951, Kazmaier won the Maxwell and Heisman Trophies as college football’s best player. He received 506 first-place votes; runner-up Hank Lauricella of Tennessee received 45.
After graduation, Kazmaier turned down an opportunity to play professional football and instead attended Harvard Business School. He spent three years as a Naval officer and then embarked on a long career in business and philanthropy, including a tenure as the chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness under President George H.W. Bush. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Bill Bradley, the son of a banker from Crystal City, Mo., arrived at Princeton almost a decade after Kazmaier graduated and left as inarguably the greatest athlete in school history. The numbers he put up on the basketball team will almost surely never be matched, despite the fact that he played only three varsity seasons and did not play with the three-point shot.
Princeton would win the Ivy League championship in all three of his varsity seasons, and the 1965 team defeated Penn State, North Carolina State and Providence to reach the NCAA Final Four. After Princeton fell to Michigan in the semifinals, Bradley scored 58 points in the third-place game win over Wichita State, setting a record for most points in a Final Four game that still stands 43 years later. His NCAA tournament scoring average of 33.7 points per game ranks second all-time.
Bradley scored 2,503 points in his career, or 957 more than the next-highest total in school history. He holds the top 11 single-game scoring totals in school history, and he is the only player in school history ever to score at least 40 points in a game. He averaged 30.1 points per game for his career and twice average more than 30 points per game for a season. He never scored fewer than 16 points in a college game.
After graduation, Bradley delayed his NBA career to study at Oxford as a Rhodes’ Scholar. He returned to become an Air Force reserve officer and a member of two NBA championship teams with the New York Knicks. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988.
Bradley was the captain of the 1964 gold medal-winning U.S.A. men’s basketball team at the Tokyo Olympic Games. He also served three terms as a United States Senator from New Jersey and was the runner-up for the 2000 Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
Greg Seaman of the men’s lacrosse team is the only current Princeton athlete to wear the No. 42, and he will be permitted to wear it for this his senior year. After that, no other Princeton athlete will ever wear the No. 42 again.
The retirement celebration, hosted by the Princeton Varsity Club, Princeton Football Association and Friends of Basketball, is open to the public. Those interested in purchasing tickets or obtaining further information should call 609.258.6696 or go to www.PrincetonVarsityClub.org.
|
|
Related Schools: Princeton
|
|
Related Sports: No Associated Sport
|
|
*This Article has been archived.*
|
Click here for a printer friendly version
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
 |
|
|
