In Reply to: Poll: Who is your favorite UCLA Basketball player of all time? posted by Impgard on July 19, 2024 at 14:15:12
because he had a heart like a lion and he may have been one of the players who got about as much out of his talent, skills, and abilities an anybody. Also, and maybe this might be the most important thing. He came about (two consecutive national championships) at the same time that I was entering high school and beginning to start my maturation as a basketball player. I had been playing competitively since I was 8 years old, but it wasn't until high school that I started to become more acutely aware of the bigger basketball world. So, there's an emotional connection there with those first two championship teams and being a guard I identified with the guards. My choice could have also easily been Hazzard but I had to choose and Goodrich was a little more identifiable to me since Hazzard was almost otherworldly and made to be admired from afar and from well below so as to look up to him and his almost unreachable stature. At least that's how I saw him back then.