Parker Almost a Bruin??

Tony Parker very nearly left France to attend UCLA, but was too enamored with his home country to leave at that point.

"I almost went to college," said Parker. "I was that close to going to UCLA. At the last moment I changed my mind and I stayed playing professional in Paris.

10 months ago BruinsRUs 13 comments 0 recs |

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And I was that claoe to almost rooting for a Spur

Basketball-wise it is probably better that he didn’t end up a Bruin. He would have showed up with Lavin in charge.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Jan 19, 2009 2:01 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Yep

He was extremely interested in UCLA but good for him for not picking us because it would have been detrimental to his development.

Also note … Michael Jordan wanted to go to UCLA … but whoever was leading the program at the time didn’t even think about recruiting him.

by Nestor on Jan 19, 2009 8:13 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

I might be wrong, but Michael Jordan at that time was not projected to be the super star that he became later. How could the coach in charge could have known? There are thousands of potential basketball recruits in the country that are still growing and developing at the high school level. It really is a very difficult task to recruit the best.

by cyberdbk on Jan 19, 2009 10:34 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

IIRC

Jordan was a well known blue chip recruit (and came to UNC with decent amount of hype).

by Nestor on Jan 19, 2009 10:46 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

As we all know, he was cut from the Varsity team his sophomore year because of being too short. However, the next year he had his big growth spurt, made the team the next two years, and had two very strong exceptional years. I’m also pretty sure he was a McDonald’s All-American, and this success earned him a scholarship to play under Dean Smith and UNC.

Going back to 1981 when Jordan entered college, UCLA’s coach was Larry Farmer. Maybe he would be more well-known if Jordan played under him?

by uclaisthebest123 on Jan 19, 2009 11:50 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

MJ

i thought MJ always dreamed of playing at UNC

by 8sp0rts8 on Jan 19, 2009 1:18 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

There's an autobiography online

Because the material is copyrighted, there are yellow blanks throughout the text, but what is publicly available, I’ll include here:

_ considered attending _, North Carolina State University, North Carolina, the University of South Carolina, or the University of Maryland. He preferred __, but the Bruins never recruited him.

by Tydides on Jan 19, 2009 2:03 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Don't know if it's okay, but...

…when I found it online, mine didn’t have yellow blanks:

Jordan considered attending UCLA, North Carolina State University, North Carolina, the University of South Carolina, or the University of Maryland. He preferred UCLA, but the Bruins never recruited him.

Boy, I mean we already have greats like Kareem and Big Red, amongst others. Imagine if MJ was a Bruin too. I guess that’d mean we’d be a Nike school though. That part kind of sucks.

by Bellerophon on Jan 19, 2009 5:17 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

being a nike school sucks??

how would that suck. And if jordan went here we’d be a jordan school like Cal, UNC, Cinci, etc. but i think Nike does a MUCH better job of marketing its teams than adidas does

by uclabruin34 on Jan 22, 2009 5:36 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Nike makes the world's ugliest uniforms

It would be a sin to change the classic look of our uniforms, but Nike would be expected to put pressure on to make us wear their absurdities. That’s why being a Nike school sucks. Best example is Oregon. They had a classic look, like the Packers. Now they have twenty different unforms and the all suck in a major way.

by Fox 71 on Jan 22, 2009 9:26 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Looks like the yellow blanks are highlighting the search terms

Although, if they are meant to obscure something, they don’t do it very well.

by jaffa on Jan 19, 2009 6:35 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Got it

I was at work on IE, so no surprise that it couldn’t render it. My mistake.

I don’t blame my company for keeping legacy programs as it creates less headache for IT, but seriously, IE6 is an albatross. At least let me use Firefox…

by Tydides on Jan 19, 2009 8:13 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs