That guy is going places...

Most of us old timers can go back in time and recall the time we witnessed an exceptional athlete perform.

At the time, we might have said, to the person to the right or left of us, "that guy is going places." It happened to me just like that in 1964. I was a sports publicists at a junior college in eastern Arizona (EAJC) and I saw this amazing athlete take a feed from a teammate, take two steps, and then unleash a dunk shot behind his back.

What was so amazing, the athlete was not much bigger than me. He was listed at six feet even, but a swear he looked eight feet tall as he headed back to the bench, while the fans let out a roar that shook the building. He scored 25 points that night against a freshman team from Texas Western. The El Paso team was one heck of an opponent. A few of the players ended up on the famous Texas Western team that won the NCAA title. The movie "Glory Road" documented the rise to fame of the 1967 Miners team, coached by Don Haskins.

But on this particular night, the star of the show was Eastern Arizona's Freddie Lewis. Freddie went on to play at Arizona State University and in 1966 was drafted in the tenth round by the Cincinnati Royals, but ended up the following year with the ABA and the Indiana Pacers. And he wasn't just a one-year wonder. Lewis played from 1967 to 1977 and amassed over 12,000 points and was a member of three championship ABA teams.

He played in 686 ABA games and 64 NBA contests. Lewis also played in 106 ABA playoff games, scoring 2,015 points. His lifetime regular season average was 17.0 points per game, while his playoff average topped out at 19.0.

Lewis, 66, is retired and resides in Indianapolis,Indiana, where it all started for him more than 40 years ago. I recall we had a Sociology class together at Eastern Arizona. It seems like it was just the other day when both of us were staring out the window, waiting for class to end. We both wanted to get to the gym. Freddie had basketball practice and I wanted to tag along, with pen and paper in hand, so I could watch a guy perform who was...going places.