The importance of the number “44” in Sports…
Written by The Go-To-Man Mattie T. on January 19, 2009
We are less than 24 hours away from Barack Obama being sworn in as the 44th President in United States history & becoming the first Black president ever. This had me thinking since past presidents are always remembered sports-wise (which i see Obama has great knowledge on), what important sports figures are associated with the number 44?
First off, it is the number that was worn by the legendary Jerry West, who is the symbol behind the NBA’s logo.
West is the NBA’s 14th all-time leading scorer with 25,192 career points.
It also belonged to “Hammerin” Hank Aaron, who previously held Major League Baseball’s record for the most career home runs at 755 up until August 7th, 2007, when current free-agent outfielder Barry Bonds broke Aaron’s record.
Jim Brown wore #44 at Syracuse before going on to become the NFL’s 8th all-time leading rusher with 12, 312 career yards.
Boston Celtics’ current GM Danny Ainge wore #44 in his first 7 NBA seasons, which were spent with Boston.
Ainge engineered 2007 off-season trades for both Kevin Garnett & Ray Allen, which lifted Boston to their first NBA Championship win in 18 years last June.
Dave Bing wore #44 at the end of his 12-year NBA career, which saw him win the 1966 Rookie of the Year award & MVP of the 1976 All-Star Game.
George Gervin wore #44 with the San Antonio Spurs while leading the league in scoring from 1978-80 & was named MVP of the 1980 All-Star Game.
Dan Issel wore #44 in college at the University of Kentucky & with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets. Issel previously held Kentucky’s all-time record of points in a game with 53, which was recently broken on January 13th, 2009 by Jodie Meeks.
Issel later would engineer the first huge NBA playoff upset, as his #8 seeded Denver Nuggets overcame an 0-2 deficit to stun the top-seeded Seattle Supersonics in the 1st round of the 1994 NBA Playoffs.
Former college standout “Pistol” Pete Maravich donned #44 for his first5 NBA seasons with the Atlanta Hawks & the New Jersey Nets.
Maravich averaged an amazing 44.1 points per game during his 3-year collegiate career at LSU, which is still a Divison I record.
Former NBA player Paul Westphal wore #44 for his entire 12-year playing career & took the Phoenix Suns to the 1992 NBA Finals in his 1st year there as head coach.
Reggie Jackson, aka “Mr. October” wore #44 for the New York Yankees when he hit 3 home runs during Game 6 of the 1978 World Series & became the first player to win World Series MVP’s for two different teams.
Legendary San Francisco Giants’ former 1st baseman Willie McCovey wore #44 and won both 1969’s National League MVP & MVP of the All-Star Game.
Hope that this blog took my readers down memory lane!
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