He has been part of our lives since March 9, 1967. We didn’t notice it within the second, after all. The papers that day all featured photos of No. 52 for the Southern Illinois Salukis, the most effective staff in what was then referred to as the “college division” of NCAA basketball.
The Salukis would’ve been a shoo-in to win the faculty division match. They’d already received 22 video games, already crushed defending Division I champ Texas Western and burgeoning D-I energy Louisville that yr, and craved the largest stage and the most effective competitors. So when the NIT got here calling, Southern Illinois jumped on the probability.
“We would’ve walked from Carbondale, Ill., to New York,” No. 52 mentioned a couple of years in the past, on the anniversary of that Salukis’ staff march to glory. By then, we knew him as Walt Frazier.
By then, we knew him as “Clyde.”
