By Dustin Dow
The Cincinnati Enquirer

SAN ANTONIO - Thirty-four years after his death, Maurice Stokes, one of the greatest players of the 1950s, received one of basketball's highest honors.

The former Cincinnati Royals player, who spent the final 12 years of his life paralyzed, was announced as a 2004 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Monday.

Stokes played just three NBA seasons before a bizarre illness cost him a basketball career and ultimately the ability to walk. He was an All-Star for each of those three seasons, 1955-58, and finished with career averages of more than 16 points and 17 rebounds a game.

"It means a lot to me because he's very deserving of it," said Jack Twyman, Stokes' teammate and legal guardian after the illness. "Not because he was sick, but because he was the premier player in the country in the '50s. In addition to it being tragic from Maurice's point of view, I think Cincinnati would have had a much richer history in professional basketball had Maurice not taken ill."

Stokes will be enshrined into the Hall Sept. 10 along with five other new members: Clyde Drexler, Jerry Colangelo, Bill Sharman, Lynette Woodard and Drazen Dalipagic.

Stokes will be in the same Hall of Fame as Twyman, who was inducted in 1983 after a standout career at the University of Cincinnati from 1952-55, and later with the Royals.

"It's fitting that it will remind a lot of people of how great a player he was," said Twyman, who was Stokes' Royals teammate. "He was destined to be one of the greatest players of all time had he not taken ill. If you can think of Michael Jordan or Elgin Baylor, just add about 50 pounds to Maurice and about 3 inches. He did all the things that they did."

Twyman became Stokes' guardian. Stokes was facing staggering medical bills, and his aging parents in Pittsburgh could not afford the expense.

Stokes was a robust, 6-foot-7 guard coming out of St. Francis (Pa.) College in 1955, the same year Twyman graduated from UC. The Royals, then based in Rochester, N.Y., drafted Stokes No. 2 overall, and he earned Rookie of the Year honors. The team moved to Cincinnati for the 1957-58 season, and in the final regular-season game that year, Stokes' life changed forever.

On Wednesday, March 13, 1958, Stokes went up for a rebound over the back of the Minneapolis Lakers' Vern Mikelson and fell to the ground. Stokes' head slammed against the court, and he lay unconscious for about two minutes. He later re-entered the game but got sick on the train to Detroit for a playoff game the next day. "We thought he had food poisoning," Twyman said.

It was far worse than that. Halfway into the flight back to Cincinnati, Stokes began to shake violently and went unconscious.

He was comatose for three months and lost his contract when the team was sold shortly thereafter. Two years later, Stokes was diagnosed with post-traumatic encephalopathy, a result of his fall in Minneapolis.

Stokes never regained his ability to walk, but his mind remained keen. Stokes spent his final years at Good Samaritan Hospital until he died 34 years ago today, April 6, 1970, at age 36.

As his guardian, Twyman visited Stokes regularly until he died and helped raise funds to pay the medical bills. One event was an annual charity basketball game in Monticello, N.Y., that featured the NBA greats of the time, who played to raise money for Stokes. In 1973, a movie called Maurie was made that chronicled Stokes and Twyman's relationship.

"His mind was perfect," Twyman said. "That was the sad thing about it: It was a perfect mind trapped in a paralyzed body. A week before he fell ill, he was one of the most spectacular athletes in the United States."

---

E-mail ddow@enquirer.com