Re: What should've been..

[Theresa Lee <tjoyce@MIT.EDU>]

>On Wed, 16 Apr 1997, Alex Caporicci wrote:
>
>> was wondering what you guys thought of Lewis and where you think his career
>> would have been hadn't tragedy struck.

I used to work at Northeastern U., Reggie's alma mater.  I met Reggie
twice. He used to spend a lot of time on campus finishing his degree (yes,
that mattered to him) and playing basketball. The second time I met him was
the most memorable.  I was walking to the parking garage and noticed he was
a few yards in front of me.  A group eight or nine-year-old kids was
approaching Reggie from the opposite direction. Reggie was holding a
basketball and was sweating pretty heavily. The kids, noticing he was
holding a basketball said, "hey, who are you?"  Reggie answered, " I'm
Reggie Lewis." One of the kids looked at him and said, "yeah, right and I'm
a famous football player."

I walked quickly to catch up with Reggie whom I admired.  I didn't really
catch up to him until I was in my car and leaving the garage. He was
standing behind his car changing his shirt. I passed his car, screwed up my
courage, stopped, rolled down the window and said, "hey those kids didn't
know who you were." He replied, "yeah, well. No big deal." At that time,
they were making selections for the Dream Team and my husband and I both
thought he deserved a chance to be on the team (what did we know?). I told
him that I thought he should be on the team and he simply said, "thanks,
that's nice of you to say."

He was a nice, gentle man.

TJL


tjoyce@mit.edu