Billy McGill Serves as Warning to Athletes Who Ignore Education

You don’t have to know who Billy McGill is to understand his story. From hero to homeless, the man went from one of the brightest basketball prospects in the country to unemployed in a matter of years. Now at 71 years of age, the former basketball star is still searching for his job.

McGill is a 6’9″ big man who led Jefferson High School to two LA city championships in the ’50s. Academic issues kept him from attending Cal and playing under Pete Newell, so he wound up playing for Utah. As a senior he averaged 38.8 points per game, a mark topped by only three players — Pete Maravich, Frank Selvy, and Johnny Neumann (to the best of our knowledge). He wound up being the top overall pick by Chicago in the 1962 draft, but he was out of the NBA a few years later.

McGill says a knee injury suffered in high school prevented him from reaching his potential, and he told the LA Times he believes he would have otherwise been up there with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson.

We don’t doubt him.

But with his basketball career not going the way he envisioned, McGill wound up jobless and homeless by the time he was 30. The pioneer of the jump hook regrets not applying himself academically, and one has to wonder how much teachers passed him along in school undeservingly.

Professional athletes make much more money by comparison than they did in the 60s, but nothing can ever replace the value of an education especially if the money ever goes away. Hopefully players realize there’s life after playing careers end, especially now that lockouts loom in the NBA and NFL. Nobody wishes the misfortune of McGill upon anyone else.

Thanks to LBS contributor Gene for passing along the story.