Jerry Lucas

He would also briefly have his own chain of fast-food restaurants, Jerry's Beef-N-Shakes. An autopsy revealed he died of a cerebral edema and heart failure, and a later coroner's inquest revealed that this was brought on by acute cocaine poisoning. Lucas would have to be satisfied with his personal fame and one of the league's best paychecks. During the early evening of 14 February 2004 Pantani was found dead at a hotel in Rimini, Italy. With the star-laden Boston Celtics as clearly the league's best team, and the 7'2" (2.18 m) Wilt Chamberlain as the dominant player, the Royals and Lucas would have to take a backseat during the 1960s. At that point the chances of him once again being a contender in major races looked slim. He also earned the reputation of being arguably the most intelligent man ever to play in the NBA. Pantani admitted himself into a clinic in northern Italy in June 2003, suffering from clinical depression.

His intelligence also made him an effective defender, cleanly forcing opponents to take difficult shots or using his sense of timing and technique to be an underrated shot blocker. He seemed to be back during the Giro of 2003, where he did not win any stage but proved to still be able to compete with the best racers, finishing well-placed in the mountain stages. As a shooter/scorer, rebounder and passer, Lucas showed himself to be one of the greatest players ever. After that he raced only sporadically in 2001 and 2002, still morally defeated from doping suspicions. As disappointing as that was, Lucas did post his usual amazing individual achievements, becoming a seven-time All-Pro and nine-time All-Star, and being named Rookie of the Year in 1964 and All-Star Game MVP in 1966. This was the last race won by Pantani, who left that Tour before its end. Despite that, the two All-Pros were often at odds, and they failed to win a championship during their years together in the 1960s. In that same Tour, up to Courchevel, he won another stage, attacking and leaving everyone behind him, even Armstrong.

Robertson was jealous of Lucas' publicity and was adamant about being the star of the team, something Jerry did not actually want for himself. The nickname was derived from Pantani's very prominent ears. He would be reteamed with Oscar Robertson, a schoolyard and college rival as well as Olympic teammate. On the final stretch, Armstrong allowed Pantani to pull away, giving him the stage victory, a gesture that Pantani resented, causing bad blood between the two riders, exacerbated when Armstrong referred to his rival as Elefantino (italian for 'little elephant', a nickname Pantani hated. In 1963 Lucas agreed to join the NBA's Cincinnati Royals, who had actually drafted him as a high-school junior in 1957. Although well off the pace for much of the race, he showed a glimpse of his talent and determination when he matched the seemingly invincible Lance Armstrong pedal for pedal up the fearsome Mont Ventoux, leaving the rest of the field way behind. But the ABL went bankrupt, and Lucas had to sit out the season. Pantani did also participate at the 2000 Tour de France.

Lucas agreed to a combination player-management contract with George Steinbrenner's Cleveland Pipers of the ABL in 1962 so he could use his education. In (2000) he was back on the Giro, without having really prepared for it, and did not seem to be able to compete with the other racers: he lost a lot of time and could not place any attack until the last mountain stage arriving in Briancon, in which he helped his teammate Stefano Garzelli to win the Giro and placed an attack without anyone being able to follow him, but he finished only second on the stage because he could not catch a persistent attacker. He already had his bachelor's degree by the end of his junior year of eligibility, had married, and was pursuing a post-graduate degree in business marketing when his senior year concluded. Despite the drug allegations, Pantani remained popular with many fans as something of a throwback to the great pure climbers of the past, explosively attacking in the mountains and making the race exciting, rather than grinding his rivals down. Arguably the greatest amateur player of all time, Lucas had no motivation for professional basketball. After his banishment from the Giro, his pride wounded, Pantani stayed away from the rest of the year's races. coach Pete Newell called Lucas "the greatest player I ever coached.". He was well on the way to winning, having already won four stages, with all his challengers far away in the classment and only one mountain stage left, when he was disqualified from the race (eventually won by Ivan Gotti) for a suspiciously high red blood cell count which suggested (although could not conclusively prove) use of the banned substance EPO (he was also found to have a hematocrit level of %60 after his crash in 1995 - far above the later adopted %50 limit [1] ).

U.S. Things turned bad for Pantani towards the end of the 1999 Giro. Lucas also was noteworthy as he had memorized paragraphs of Japanese, Italian and Russian, and would briefly converse with players speaking those languages during the Games. Under those conditions, Pantani, who was not touched by the doping scandal, looked like a saviour for that Tour and for cycling in general. team roared through the international tournament to easily win the gold medal. There were two cyclists' strikes protesting the police atmosphere to which the Tour had fallen. The U.S. The scandal touched not only the Festina team, but all the cyclists: during the Tour there were investigations of numerous teams and many of them left the Tour voluntarily.

The team's youngest player at age 20, Lucas was its leader and star at center. That year, the Festina team was excluded from the Tour after one of its medical staff members was caught at the France-Belgium border with many illicit doping products hidden in his car. The team, which also listed Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Walt Bellamy, and Terry Dischinger among its members, is generally considered the greatest amateur team of all time. Unfortunately, because of the big doping scandal during 1998's Tour, the Tour that should have been remembered as Pantani's Tour, passed to history as the Tour of the Festina Affair; from the name of the French Team Festina led at the time by Richard Virenque. Olympic team for the Rome Games that year. Not since the days of Lucien van Impe (1976) had a 'pure' climber been victorious, and Pantani's triumph resurrected the legend of the specialist mountain man flying up the steepest of ascents as if made of air. In 1960, Lucas was also named to the U.S. His achievement was all the more remarkable because for many years previously the Tour had been dominated by powerful time trial specialists, such as Miguel Induráin and Jan Ullrich, who possessed enough climbing ability to limit their losses in the mountains.

He was considered the greatest college player ever upon graduation, and remains the only player ever to record 30 points and 30 rebounds in the same NCAA Tournament game. Although Ullrich showed his character by going on the offensive on the Col du Madeleine during the next stage to Albertville, Pantani followed him easily and went on to become the first Italian since Felice Gimondi (1965) to win the Tour. The 6-9, 240-pound (2.06 m, 109 kg) Lucas was All-American all three years, Big Ten Player of the Year all three years, and was named ahead of all college and pro athletes to be Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year" in 1961. In the Pyrénées Pantani pulled back early time losses to Ullrich from the first week and then delivered a sensational coup by defeating him by almost nine minutes in one epic Alpine mountain stage, from Grenoble to Les Deux Alpes, via the Col de la Croix de Fer and Col du Galibier, under horrible weather conditions. (Future coaching legend Bobby Knight was a reserve player.) They were national champions in 1960, and had just one loss in 1961. And he was also triumphant in the Tour de France; where he was finally able to crack the resolute and hitherto indestructible Ullrich, who, though wearing the yellow jersey in his first year as team leader, had also showed his lack of experience by becoming isolated from his team-mates several times in the mountain stages. Lucas was the team's clear star, leading the nation in shooting accuracy and rebounding all three years, and leading Ohio State to three straight NCAA Finals. For the first time he won the Giro d'Italia, beating Pavel Tonkov and Alex Zülle.

When the three became sophomores in 1959 (freshman were then ineligible for varsity college sports), they teamed with junior Larry Siegfried to form a basketball juggernaut that would go 78-6 over three NCAA seasons. The following year, 1998, was the year of glory for Pantani. Ohio State had also recruited three-sport star John Havlicek and Columbus-area star Mel Nowell that year. Ullrich was then able to recover these losses and more in the individual time trials to which he was far more suited; thus, he ultimately claimed the yellow jersey, with Pantani finishing third overall after Jan Ullrich and Richard Virenque. Lucas insisted on an academic scholarship also, as he was nearly a straight-A student and already well-known for his memory. Because of his slight build and unique ability, Pantani was virtually unmatchable in the high mountains of the Alps and Pyrénées and won two stages, establishing the record time for the climb of Alpe d'Huez, but the bulkier and more powerful Jan Ullrich showed his own determination and limited the amount of time he lost to Pantani during some titanic battles. Offered more than 200 athletic scholarships, it appeared Lucas might choose Adolph Rupp's legendary Kentucky program, but he instead chose more-local Ohio State - which was not well-known for basketball at the time. Remarkably, he returned to action the same year in the Tour and mounted a strong challenge for the yellow jersey.

Lucas' team suffered its only loss in 1958 in the state playoffs. Pantani returned to action in the Giro in 1997, but was felled by a black cat which ran out in front of him during one of the first stages, ending his race. He, Wilt Chamberlain, and Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) are generally considered the greatest high school basketball players of all time. He broke his leg in two places and was left facing the end of his career. Lucas was so popular that a radio network was set up to broadcast his games across Ohio, drawing more listeners than several Division I colleges. Just when he looked set to build on this success, Pantani was in a horrific collision during the Italian Milano-Torino race near the end of the 1995 season. Coaches and scouts often traveled hundreds of miles to see Lucas play, swelling Middletown's gym to nearly three times its usual capacity. He preferred this position so much that Bianchi built him a special bike with a very high head-tube to accommodate a higher handlebar position.

Even while passing up shots, Lucas broke Wilt Chamberlain's national high school scoring record as a senior by making more than 60% of his shot attempts and 85% of his free throws, another standard for his career. Pantani developed a unique climbing style in which he stayed on the drops the entire way, often while pedaling out of the saddle. Shying from the limelight, Lucas decided to pass more so that his scoring would not make him appear selfish; it would become his standard for the rest of his playing career. His determination to win, which made him take big risks downhill and often arrive at the top of a mountain pass close to asphyxia, can be well explained by the way he answered to a journalist asking why he was so fast during a climb: "to make my suffering end sooner.". Lucas usually scored more than two points per minute, and his best performances were in closer games against better teams because he was allowed to play more. He impressed the other cyclists so much that, during a stage in Tour de France one of them clapped his hands as he was overtaken by Pantani. Lucas strained somewhat under the media glare, and his minutes in blowout games were usually limited. Even though he often lost a lot of time during individual time trials, it looked like no one could resist him in the high mountains.

Crowds of as many as 10,000 were common for games in which he played. During the early years of Pantani's career he created a sensation with his unique style of climbing. With his advanced gameplay, Lucas broke nearly every existing high school record during these two seasons, and became arguably the first high school basketball player to be known coast-to-coast at a time when television was in its infancy. He also finished third in 1995's world championship. In 1956 and 1957, Lucas led Middletown High to undefeated seasons and back-to-back Ohio state high school championships. In 1995 he could not participate in the Giro because of an accident, but he was back in the Tour and he won two stages, at Guzet Neige and at Alpe d'Huez. Lucas was gifted with great hands, which he could use to dazzle onlookers in an array of magic card tricks, as well as with 20-10 eyesight. Pantani made his Tour de France debut in 1994 finishing 3rd overall, but he did not win a single stage even though he attacked and left behind him Induráin (the Tour winner) during several stages.

He had developed shooting accuracy as far out as 25 feet, and had trained his leaping ability and timing to become an amazing rebounder. He would probably have won that Giro if his team had not asked him to help their leader, Claudio Chiappucci, during the first mountain stages, where he lost a lot of time to Berzin. Lucas was already a playground legend by age 15, as he was already at almost his full-grown height of 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m). In 1994, during his second participation to the Giro d'Italia, he became known after winning two mountain stages and finishing 2nd overall after Eugeni Berzin and before Miguel Induráin, who had won the last two editions of the Giro. Lucas was born in Middletown, Ohio, a town of 20,000 halfway between Dayton and Cincinnati which in the 1940s and 1950s boasted one of the most respected high school basketball programs in the United States. At 1.72 m and just 57 kg (5 ft 8 in, 126 lb/9 st), Pantani was a classically built mountain climber. He was named to Sports Illustrated's five-man College All-Century Team in 1999. .

In 1996, the NBA's 50th anniversary, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. He died of a cocaine overdose in 2004. Jerry Ray Lucas (born March 30, 1940) was a legendary basketball star from the 1950s to the 1970s, and is now a world-renowned memory education expert. However, since 1999 his career was dogged by drug allegations, following his failing a blood test in the 1999 Giro. The bandana he often wore and his attacking style of riding led to him being dubbed 'Il Pirata' (the pirate) by the adoring Italian "tifosi" - his fans. The high point of his career was to win the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia in 1998.

Marco Pantani (Cesena, January 13, 1970 – February 14, 2004) was an Italian cyclist widely regarded as being one of the best climbers of all times in professional road bicycle racing.