BOISE, Idaho — This Day In Sports…November 14, 1964, 60 years ago today:
Rookie Gus Johnson, who played his college ball at Boise Junior College and the University of Idaho, cements his status as a rising NBA star with 41 points in the Baltimore Bullets’ 127-115 win over the L.A. Lakers. Johnson, who was drafted 10th overall by the Bullets out of Idaho in 1963, was a power forward before that was really a thing. He was fast and strong, but he was also technical. Johnson’s athleticism made an immediate impact on the NBA—he shattered three backboards during his NBA career with his thunderous dunks, and opponents swore they could hear a “whoosh” when he jumped.
Nicknamed “Honeycomb,” Johnson played his first nine seasons with the Bullets and split his final campaign between the Phoenix Suns and Indiana Pacers (when they were still an ABA franchise). He averaged a double-double every year of his career, scoring 1,000 points and pulling down 1,000 rebounds in the same season three different times. Johnson was a five-time NBA All-Star and led Baltimore to five playoff appearances and the 1971 NBA Finals, where the Bullets lost to the Milwaukee Bucks. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
Johnson began his college career at Boise Junior College and spent one season there in 1961-62, rolling up 790 points and averaging 28.2 points per game. He then transferred to Idaho, where he still holds the Vandals’ single-season rebound record with an average of 20 per game in 1962-63. Johnson was inducted into the Boise State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987 and the University of Idaho Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007.
Johnson could jump out of the gym. Legend has it that in 1963, Hermie Goetz, the owner of the Corner Club bar in Moscow, challenged him to show off his epic leaping abilities. According to the Corner Club’s website, “Johnson leaped 11 feet, 6 inches in the air, touching one of the ceiling beams. Goetz marked the spot with a nail and announced that anyone who could leap that high would drink for free. It didn’t happen again until 1986 when a member of the College of Southern Idaho’s basketball team touched—and bent— he nail after three tries.”
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
