Colleges

Giant refuses to be felled

Called "too nice" by friends, ex-Cav Ralph Sampson stays positive.

By DAVE SCHEIBER
Published March 4, 2007

The voice on the other end of the line is calm and upbeat, hardly what you might imagine from a man whose once towering basketball career has given way to prolonged, humbling legal woes and an imminent two-month jail term.

But there's something even more surprising than Ralph Sampson's steady tone on the phone recently. In a world in which most troubled athletes past or present would make a fastbreak away from the media - or simply no-comment their way through the embarrassment - the remarkable thing is that Sampson has called back at all.

"I'm holding up very well," he says in a brief conversation from his home in suburban Atlanta. "I do have my trials and tribulations. But those are almost over. I really believe that good things are ahead for me."

Perhaps not until early summer, though. By then, the 7-foot-4 legend from the University of Virginia and half of the acclaimed Twin Towers for the NBA's Houston Rockets will have served his time as part of a plea agreement offered by federal prosecutors in a complicated case involving mail fraud and unpaid child support.

As part of the agreement, Sampson would pay $300,000 he owed the mothers of two children he fathered in the 1980s and plead guilty to a mail fraud charge tied to a $43,000 SUV he bought in 2004 through one of his corporations. The government dropped its charge that Sampson lied about his income and financial status during his arraignment after his 2005 arrest in Atlanta in another child support case. He was charged with failure to pay $250,000 to another women with whom he had a child in 1987, but that also has been settled.

During the trial in September, Sampson's attorney, James C. Roberts of Richmond, Va., prevailed upon judge James Spencer to weigh the one-time star's extensive work with children. And he read a letter of support from former Virginia coach Terry Holland, whose Cavaliers dominated the Atlantic Coast Conference - set to begin its tournament at the St. Pete Times Forum next week - during Sampson's four-year tenure from 1979-83.

"If Ralph Sampson has a flaw, it's that he can't please everyone or meet their expectations," wrote Holland, according to an account by the Associated Press.

Roberts, who said he represented Sampson for free, stressed that his client only stopped paying when his NBA money ran short, dropping from $539,000 in 1999 to $135,000 in 2000 in his final season in the league. He presented evidence that Sampson was not served well by an agent.

The judge was moved by the arguments and the show of support. "I've not seen one thing that convinces me Mr. Sampson is a bad person, a terrible person," he said. "He was unable to pay, not unwilling to pay."

Spencer granted Sampson's request to start his sentence April 2 near Atlanta, allowing him to spend time with his family. He lives with his fiancee and their daughter, 3, and his ex-wife and their four children reside in the area as well. He has eight children, including a daughter starting college and two sons who play basketball.

"As many kids as Ralph has," Roberts says, "he spends time with all of them. And some were getting ready to start back up to school and he didn't want a sentence that would require him to be incarcerated at the same time the kids were going to college."

"I have great kids," Sampson, 46, says. "And I always tell my kids and the ones I work with, the glass is half full, not half empty. This has been going on a number of years, but I've gotten through it. And I've always looked ahead, because I want to make sure that what happens in the end will show people what Ralph Sampson is all about."

Amazing ability

Those who knew him at Virginia say they already have the answer. Their verdict is positive.

"Ralph is a shy and a very gentle person," Holland, now athletic director at East Carolina, remarks in an e-mail interview. "His greatest strength can become his greatest liability - he is a very nice person. And if the worst thing that most people can say about you is that 'You are too nice!' then I guess most of us would take that as our epitaph."

Holland prevailed in convincing Sampson, one of the most heavily recruited prep basketball players ever, to choose Virginia over Kentucky. The former Cavaliers coach recalls the many trips he took to tiny Harrisonburg in the Shenandoah Valley to court Sampson, who didn't make up his mind until the morning of his news conference May 31, 1979.

"My car automatically went to Harrisonburg, Va., whenever I turned it on," Holland says. "I attended as many games as possible and even went to his sisters' games and track meets."

Under Holland, Sampson would win three consecutive Naismith Awards as national player of the year, matching Bill Walton's streak at UCLA. He is the only male player to be a double winner of the Wooden Award, presented to the outstanding collegiate basketball player of the year.

Still, one of his disappointments was that Virginia never won a national championship during his dominant reign. The closest he came was in 1981, when he helped lead the Cavaliers to the Final Four.

"I never went into a gym when I played with Ralph that I didn't expect to win," says former teammate and Virginia guard Ricky Stokes, now coach at East Carolina. "I tease our guys today that he made everybody better because basically he erased all your mistakes. If a guy beat you on a play, you had Ralph there to block a shot. You didn't have to rebound. He got all the rebounds."

At the same time, Sampson was known for his remarkable agility and ball-handling skills, despite his height, adding an extra dimension to his game.

"He dribbled way too much," quips American University coach Jeff Jones, a standout ex-guard who played three seasons with Sampson at Virginia. "He liked to do it and for a 7-4 guy, he did it well, just not as well as his smaller teammates. But his ability to run, move laterally and jump was amazing.

"I can't think of a player who was more dominant since Ralph left - and I'm talking in the ACC," Jones says. "There have been some fantastic players; obviously Michael Jordan had a great collegiate career at North Carolina. And Tim Duncan two-time ACC player of the year at Wake Forest was great. But even with Duncan, people guarded him one-on-one in the post for the most part in his senior year. You absolutely could not guard Ralph one-on-one in the post. He would destroy you. Certainly Ralph has had his critics over the years, but I think it's indisputable that for a college career, there weren't any players I have seen who were as good as Ralph."

Highs and lows

Best-selling author and veteran sports journalist John Feinstein has spent many years observing the ACC and often covered Sampson's Virginia career for the Washington Post. He saw something lacking in Sampson.

"I think he played basketball because he was extraordinarily talented, but I never sensed much passion from him for the game," Feinstein says. "He was never somebody who really wanted the ball in the clutch."

Feinstein recalls that Sampson's ACC career ended against North Carolina State, with Tim Mullen taking the last shot in the NCAA West Region final. Sampson rebounded the ball and dunked it one tick too late.

"To me, that was symbolic of his career," Feinstein says. "Virginia won a lot of games when he was there. They went to a Final Four. But when you talk about the great winners in ACC history, his name doesn't come up."

Mullen remembers Sampson in a different light. "My first and second years were the ones that Carolina had Jordan and (James) Worthy," he says. "And our athletic director, Dick Schultz, created this great schedule for Ralph: Georgetown and Patrick Ewing, Louisville, Houston with Hakeem Olajuwon," he recalls. "And Ralph would outplay everybody, including Ewing."

The much-hyped showdown against 7-foot Ewing, pitting No. 1 Virginia vs. No. 2 Georgetown in the Capital Center, ended with a 68-63 Cavs win.

Sampson had more than his share of highlights in the NBA as well. Houston made him the No. 1 overall pick in 1983, and he was rookie of the year in '84, a four-time All-Star and MVP in the 1985 All-Star Game. He and Olajuwon were dubbed the "Twin Towers," with 7-foot Olajuwon at center and Sampson at forward, despite his height edge, between 1984-88. The Rockets reached the NBA Finals in 1986, propelled by Sampson's turnaround basket at the buzzer to beat the Lakers. But as in college, he never experienced a championship. And a series of knee injuries soon undercut his game and led to his NBA demise in 1992.

In retirement, Sampson tried coaching and various business ventures. But money increasingly became a problem. His satisfaction came from working with youths, including his Winner's Circle foundation geared to helping promising athletes obtain college scholarships.

He was devastated in 2003 when one of his athletes, Krista Watson, earned a scholarship to Alabama only to be killed in a car crash the day she graduated from high school. "She was like my daughter, and it really hurt," he says. "People don't know what I do or what I'm about."

Few people know him better than B.J. Johnson, a longtime scout for the Rockets who grew up on the same block as Sampson in Harrisonburg and has remained close to him.

"I think the biggest problem in Ralph's life is that there's no way he could just be a regular person," Johnson, says. "When you're 7-4, you're always going to stand out in a crowd, wherever you are. Ralph is really just a regular guy and that's all he's ever wanted to be. But when he stands up, you're suddenly in the spotlight. There's no way to hide."

Johnson calls his old friend "a good guy with a great heart" and says he has never seen anybody more devoted to his children. And he is sure of one thing: "If Ralph hadn't torn up his knee, he would have become known as one of the greatest NBA players ever."

Sampson, meanwhile, doesn't hesitate when asked about his greatest highlight at Virginia.

"It was that rainy day in May when I graduated," he says. "That was the culmination of all the years of hard work. There are 18-million basketball highlights I could mention, but that event was the special moment for me."

Sampson plans to continue working with his youth foundation and hopes to start a learning center after he leaves jail. He has some business ventures involving small telephone companies.

"I've talked to him several times on the phone and Ralph seems to be doing real well," attorney Roberts says. "He is a guy who has said, 'I've made a lot of mistakes, and I'm sorry I made them, but I want to get this all behind me and make a new life for myself.' "

Dave Scheiber can be reached at scheiber@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8541.

[Last modified March 4, 2007, 00:12:17]