QUINN BUCKNER
“My gift was football…I could play football and play it well without even having to think about it. I took my football skills for granted, honestly. I had to work harder in basketball.”
“I played on really good teams and I was very well-coached. I was trying to make sure I was not the weak link, and did what I needed to do to support my teammates, that was really it. It was never about being the person.”
“That’s served me well over my life. Basically, we’re all in a team sport. In group dynamics, you have to watch when people strive to be the individual greatest. That’s not an environment I want to be part of.”
— -Quinn Buckner
“He was the leader from the first day he stepped on the campus. The leadership is what screams out at you when you’re around Quinn. He’s a no-nonsense guy. He really set a tone for our team, from our freshman year all the way through.”
“It was an intangible. We all felt it. We all benefited from playing with him. There are so many subtle things a leader will do that makes your team what it is. Having a leader like Quinn differentiated us from a lot of other good teams.”
— -IU Basketball Teammate Tom Abernethy
Apparently, William Quinn Buckner had the word ‘leader,’ stamped on his forehead at birth.
[And right from the jump, let us not confuse this ‘Bill Buckner’ with the more infamous and dearly departed original Bill Buckner, another terrific athlete. Although, a genuine and mutual respect between the two men would be easy to imagine].
The 66-year-old native of Phoenix, Illinois was a consummate winner too — at every level — lauded for his suffocating defense, a hallmark of grit, selflessness and team play.
In football and basketball, both of which he played with great distinction at Indiana University, starting in each sport as a freshman.
(Interestingly, he was officially enrolled at IU on a football scholarship, which saved a basketball scholarship for coach Knight).
But it began well before that.
Quinn Buckner is the only person ever named Chicago Area Player of the Year in both football and basketball.
A premier return man and stellar safety, he was a two-time All-Conference, All-Area, and All-State player and an All-American his senior season (Fall 1971) at Thornridge High School in Dolton, IL.
He also led the school’s basketball team to a pair of state championships, again recognized as All-Conference, All-Area and All-State and as an All-American his senior year.
His hoop Falcons lost only one game during his junior and senior seasons — including winning 58 games in a row, (and 62 of 63) — and the 1972 team was undefeated, with no opponent coming within 14 points of them; that squad, captained by Buckner, is widely hailed as the greatest team in the history of Illinois high school basketball.
In an era without the three-point shot, the team averaged 88 points per game and won the state title contest, 104–69.
After the season, Buckner was named National High School Player of the Year.
In 2006, Buckner was voted as one of the 100 Legends of the IHSA Boys Basketball Tournament, joining a select group of former players and coaches, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the statewide tourney.
He was one of the most decorated high school athletes ever to come out of the state of Illinois.
He was the captain of Indiana’s 1976 undefeated national championship team and the 1976 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team.
The 1975-’76 Indiana team is renowned as one of the best in the history of college basketball, the last team to have an undefeated season.
He was drafted by the Washington Redskins in 1976 as insurance to the club; he had told George Allen at the time, that he would not be pursuing the NFL.
His ten-year NBA career included a 1984 championship with the Boston Celtics.
“For who I work for, I’m a Pacer. But in terms of my playing career, I’m a Celtic. The way I saw the game is the way the Celtics saw it. They saw it like, the open man gets the shot. Everybody pitches in. Everybody helps each other.”
Vintage Quinn Buckner.
Buckner’s ’84 ring vaulted him into the golden pantheon of just six other players to win NCAA and NBA titles, as well as an Olympic gold medal in basketball.
(The others are Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Jerry Lucas and Clyde Lovellette — and of those gentlemen, only Buckner, Lucas and Magic could add state high school championships to their resume).
Yet when Buckner was traded to the Celtics from the Milwaukee Bucks for Dave Cowens, who was returning from a two-year “retirement,” he wasn’t thrilled.
It took none other than The General, coach Bob Knight — as was his wont — to set him straight.
“When I got traded, coach Knight told me what I was getting into, because he knew Red Auerbach and he’d known Wayne Embry and others.
One of the things that was interesting is that, when I got traded, I was a little apprehensive about it because I was doing well in Milwaukee.
You know, first time traded, no love, the whole deal.
And coach told me, ‘Hey, get your head out of your you-know-what. You’re going to one of the most storied franchises in the history of sports, not just basketball.’
And he knew that I had a chance to be unique if I won a championship.”
Knight knew two things about Buckner.
That he would never be a scorer and that he was a winner, not necessarily in that order.
“Coach was like that. He always understood those kind of things, and he kind of wanted that for me…”
Buckner joined a team with Larry Bird, Cedric Maxwell, Robert Parish, Tiny Archibald, Kevin McHale, Gerald Henderson and Danny Ainge in September 1982.
But it wouldn’t be until after the Celtics were swept by the Bucks in the second round of that Spring’s (’83) playoffs, that things changed.
K.C. Jones took over for Bill Fitch, Dennis Johnson joined the crew — traded from Phoenix for Rick Robey and an exchange of draft choices — and the C’s went on to beat the Lakers for the 1984 title.
Buckner knew Bird and most of the guys, “but more important than all of that,” he offered, “I knew that Red Auerbach was running the shop. You’re only going to be as good as your leader, and that’s as good a leader as there’s ever been.”
Took one to know one.
Buckner was then — and is now — honest as the day is long.
He was traded to the Pacers in September of 1985 for a second-round pick (which became Reggie Cross) and he blamed himself.
He could have remained a member of that Celtics edition which won another championship in ’86.
“When I got traded, frankly, I should have gotten traded.
I didn’t handle being on the bench with those guys well.
I’m a light-spirited guy that once I cross the line I get into an intensity, but there was too much light-spiritedness at times on the sideline with M.L (Carr) and Max.
We were trying to keep each other engaged, and Max was being goofy and M.L. was being M.L. and I’m a little bit caught in that.
The year I got let go, I was not prepared to play the way I needed to play.
So while I was hurt that I got traded, I knew why I got traded.
I needed to be up pressuring more, and I wasn’t in the kind of shape I needed to be to do that.”
A supreme competitor, Buckner tipped his cap to Bird, who may have stayed longer than two weeks at IU had Buckner, an incoming junior then, been on campus at the time.
He was overseas playing in an international tournament and the rest is history.
About Bird, as a Celtic teammate, he said this:
“It was chasing back-to-backs that I wasn’t prepared for.
Larry was.
I remember after we won in ’84 going to see Larry to have a couple of cold drinks, but when I went over there his wife told me he was out running again.
It didn’t click for me.
He knew that we had a shortened offseason, so you’ve got to get right back at it.
It didn’t click for me.”
Not much didn’t click for Quinn Buckner.
His 13–69 record as the Dallas Mavericks’ head coach in 1993-’94 simply demonstrates that nobody is perfect.
And speaking to perfection and in a nod to Buckner’s honesty, I bet he’s rooting for USC to upset Gonzaga (29–0) in this season’s NCAA Tournament Elite Eight match-up, tomorrow night (March 30).
Wouldn’t blame him a bit.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in March 2021.]
