NBA great has a lot on his plate

SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP - During John Havlicek's basketball career at Ohio State and throughout his NBA years he was known for always being on the move.

Apparently not much has changed in the 30 years since he played his last game.

"There's always something going on. In the last nine days I've been in Scotland, Florida and Lima. I travel a lot of ground at times," the 68-year-old Basketball Hall of Famer said as he sat at a table at the Shawnee Country Club on Monday.

Havlicek was in Lima for the Thomas J. Moening Classic, a golf outing to benefit the Lima Memorial Hospital Foundation.

Two hundred fifty-two golfers played in the outing and 24 tennis players also took part in a "Lobs for Life" competition on Monday.

The golf outing was named for Tom Moening, the former chief executive officer of Webb Insurance, who died late last year. He was a co-founder and officer of the Lima Memorial Hospital Foundation.

Havlicek combined a business trip to Lakeview Farms, a Delphos food company he owns a piece of, with the golf outing.

"This is one of the things that came up on the calendar and I knew Tom a little bit. It's something I wanted to do," he said.

Former University of Dayton and Lima Central Catholic basketball standout Dan Sadlier also participated. For him, it was more personal. He and Moening were classmates at LCC, graduating in 1965.

Havlicek played on Ohio State's 1960 national championship team and the 1961 and 1962 national runner-up teams.

In the pros, he was a 13-time all-star and was on Boston Celtics teams that won eight NBA titles in his 16 seasons. He was known for his defense and toughness, but also is the Celtics' all-time scoring leader with 26,395 points.

He has homes in Boston, Cape Cod and Palm Beach, Fla., so his direct contact with the Celtics during the season is limited. He spends the winter in Florida and saw three regular-season games and one playoff game this season.

Still, he keeps up on his old team. And, after playing in seventh games in the playoffs eight times himself, he could identify with what the Celtics and Cavaliers were dealing with in Game 7 of their series on Sunday.

"You can't wait for the game to start because the waiting game is the worst part of the whole thing. You're anxious to play," Havlicek said. "Once the game begins, you tune into your faculties and everything becomes normal again.

"It affects some people differently than others. Paul Pierce obviously felt it was his time to make a big contribution and so did LeBron (James). Some people shy away from the ball in seventh games. I liked the intensity both teams had yesterday," he said.

Boston won six of the eight playoff seventh games Havlicek played. The one he is remembered most for is a 1965 divisional series against the Philadelphia 76ers.

That series, which the Celtics won 4-3, produced the enduring "Havlicek stole the ball," description by legendary Boston radio play-by-play man Johnny Most.

The Celtics were leading 110-109 with Philadelphia attempting to throw the ball in bounds with five seconds left on the clock. Havlicek faked out the 76ers' Hal Greer by playing off Chet Walker, then deflected the ball as Greer tried to hit Walker with the pass.

Most, whose style could be described as excitable in any situation, used several sentences to describe the play, but the one that stuck was "Havlicek stole the ball." Havlicek even finds people who weren't born yet in 1965 who associate it with his name.

"That's fine. It was one of those dramatic points in the game where it looked like we might have a chance of losing the game. That enabled us to go on an win another one (NBA title). So I'll take it," he said.

"A lot of people when I meet them, they'll say, ‘Havlicek stole the ball.' It's one of those things that precedes a lot of telecasts. It's still out there in the forefront."