Published: October 10, 2007 01:48 am            

VALVANO: Dampier is a new Bocce hero

My brother Jim used to like to tell this story.

When he was about nine years old, he and our older brother Nick, who was about 12 at the time, went to Yankee Stadium for one of the first times by themselves (I can't imagine the same woman, who raised me under such scrutiny in the relative hinterlands that was Long Island at that time, allowed my two brothers to take the subway from our home in Queens to the Bronx — by themselves — to see a baseball game, but she did.)

My brothers and their equally-young friends were at the park very early. They went out to the bleachers when the bleachers used to overlook the bullpen. The starting pitcher was warming up, throwing to a catcher whom the boys had read about and watched on TV.

It is always impressive how hard big leaguers throw, but especially so when you are nine years old. With each pop of the ball into the catcher's glove, the boys were getting more and more dazzled. Finally, my brother began yelling down to the catcher, calling him by name.

“Hey doesn't that hurt? He's firing that thing...it’ll break your hand! Doesn't that hurt?”

Very calmly the catcher looked up and said, “Hey kid, why don't you go …”

Well, I can't tell you what he suggested he do. This is, after all, a family newspaper!

The point is sometimes we meet people we admire in the public eye and it only takes a second to learn there really are very few true heroes.

I don't imagine Lou Dampier, the former All-American from the University of Kentucky and all-time great 3-point shooter with the Kentucky Colonels and San Antonio Spurs, would be comfortable calling himself a hero. But my experience meeting him, after watching him play many games in person when his Colonels team came to New York to play the Nets, was the opposite of the kind my brother described in his story.

Many of you probably remember his tremendous long range shooting skills. When the ABA ceased operations in 1976, Dampier was the all-time leader in 3-point shooting and in points scored. He broke my heart a lot when he would stick a dagger into the Nets in some of their legendary battles with a key trey (it really was great basketball), but I brought back terrific memories when I finally got to meet him after moving here.

What a likable guy. His reputation when he was playing was that he could enjoy himself as much as anybody on the road, but that he never let it get in the way of his playing (he led the league in minutes played numerous times). So we already know he was a college champion, a pro champion, a great individual player, a fun-loving creature and a good guy.

Imagine my surprise when I learned something else — he is a great bocce player.

I feel confident that it is okay to say this is a surprise because, a.) Lou didn't know he was a good player either, and b.) he won the championship of the first event he ever played in.

I know that because it was four years ago. It was the first Celebrity Bocce tournament for the V Foundation that we now hold each year in Louisville. He had never played the game before, but it didn't stop him from winning the title.

And now he has another achievement. Monday, he won the event again. In four years he has won it twice (Paul Rogers the Louisville play-by-play voice won it in year two, while former Cardinal LaBradford Smith and Bats announcer Matt Andrews shared the title last year.)

It was fun to watch the athletes and celebs pick up the game and see them get more competitive as they got the feel for it. U of L baseball coach Dan McDonell, who lost his first game on a 12-0 shutout, came back and won his next three games to garner third place.

Some might say he had home field advantage, since we played the tournament in the outfield at Jim Patterson Stadium, the baseball home of the Cardinals.

Louisville Fire coach Tommy Johnson finished second and McDonell finished third. We had four different teams win trophies for flight championships, with Sam Swope's team winning the overall tournament championship.

Most importantly we all won. We will make a check presentation to Kosair Children's Hospital on Nov. 1 for at least $30,000, and that benefits all of us.

Many of you here on the “Sunny Side” of the river helped us with this event and I thank all of you very much. We are all helping make an important difference in this fight.

I just wonder if Louie will display the Bocce Cup next to his ABA championship ring?

        

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