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Sunday, April 08, 2001

By Phil Axelrod, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

As Dick Groat sat in front of the television watching Duke win the national championship, he focused on Jason Williams, the spectacular guard for the Blue Devils.

Groat smiled when Williams, a 6-foot-2 sophomore, slashed to the basket and put in an acrobatic layup high off the glass. He nodded approvingly every time Williams launched a 3-pointer with a quick-trigger jump shot.

It took Groat back 50 years, when he was a slashing, jump-shooting guard at Duke. When he was the premier point guard in college basketball. When he was the Jason Williams of his day.

"Was I ahead of my time?" Groat asked, repeating the question. "Probably." Pause. "I was very much like Jason."

Could you dunk? "No." Were you as strong? "No." As quick? "Not quite."

"But I did a lot of the same things Jason does, other than I didn't have a 3-point shot. I shot from out there, but it didn't count for three," said Groat, 70, a radio analyst for Pitt basketball and an All-Star shortstop for the Pirates in the 1960s. "And like Williams, I had assists."

Unlike Williams, Groat, at 6 feet, couldn't dunk.

"Nobody dunked," he said. "It wasn't allowed."

Williams scored 16 points in Duke's 82-72 victory against Arizona Monday to set the school season scoring record with 841, surpassing Groat's 831 in 1951, when he averaged 26.1 points as a junior. Groat was a two-time All-American and the national player of the year in 1952.

"I did an awful lot of penetrating. I was a real driver," said Groat, a native of Swissvale who is an owner of Champion Lakes Golf Course a few miles outside of Ligonier. "It's a different game today. With the 3-point shot I have might scored 1,000 points in a season. Records are made to be broken. I never expected it to last this long.

"Jason Williams is the best guard I've seen at Duke since me. I thought Bobby Hurley was until I saw Jason."

Groat was a fundamentally solid player, who never dribbled behind his back or between his legs.

"Nothing fancy, not even a little bit. I didn't believe in that," he said. "I threw only one behind-my-back pass in my life. It was against [Bob] Cousy. I wanted to get even with him. He made an ass of me the first time I played against him."

Groat was a rookie with the Fort Wayne Pistons and Cousy was with the Boston Celtics. Cousy dribbled past Groat, stopped before he reached the 10-second line and glanced back at Groat.

"Just to show me up," Groat said.

On Fort Wayne's next possession, Groat dribbled around Cousy and flipped a behind-the-back pass to a teammate for a layup.

"The only thing he said to me was, 'OK, Dick, we're even."'

Asked if his game would fit in today, Groat chuckled and then answered, "I have no qualms I could have played today. I know I could play it. I wasn't allowed to play defense at Duke because they didn't want me to foul out. Paul Birch was my coach at Fort Wayne and I became a good defensive player in the pros. Whoever had a hot hand, that's who I got.

"The game has been improved. I didn't think I'd like the 3-point shot, but I love it. I like the shot clock. But I don't like the trash talking and I don't like that they let you carry the ball with your dribble. The players on great teams are still outstanding because they distribute the ball. If you're a scorer, as a guard, you should lead your team in assists."

Groat's uniform No. 10 was the first jersey retired by Duke and was the only one to hang in the rafters of Cameron Indoor Stadium until Mike Gminski's was raised in 1978. When Groat played at Duke, Cameron was a state-of-the-art building and was called Duke Indoor Stadium.

Groat only played 21/2 varsity seasons at Duke. Freshmen were ineligible under NCAA rules and he left school midway through his sophomore season because of academic difficulties. He restored his eligibility at summer school and came back to star as a junior and senior.

As a sophomore, Groat played under coach Jerry Gerard, who was dying of cancer. To assist Gerard, Duke brought in Red Auerbach as a part-time assistant.

"Auerbach picked me out and I was his fair-haired boy," Groat said. "Two hours before practice Red worked with me. He was the greatest teacher. I was the luckiest guy in the world."

After Gerard died, Hal Bradley coached the Blue Devils during Groat's junior and senior seasons. Duke was 24-6 and ranked 12th in the country in 1952, but the school's administration turned down a bid to the National Invitation Tournament. At that time, the NIT was much more prestigious than the NCAA tournament.

"That was the saddest part of my basketball career," Groat said. "I was one of three seniors who went and sat down with the president, athletic director and the coaches. They didn't even give us an option to talk about it. We were all hurt.

"We were 24-6. I hope somewhere down the line we helped to build Duke's tradition."

Williams had the luxury of playing for two seasons alongside 6-8 Shane Battier, the national player of the year. Groat also had a big man with a big game as a teammate: Bernie Janicki, a 6-5 center from Ambridge.

Janicki, a sophomore when Groat was a senior, still holds the school single-game rebounding record with 31 against North Carolina in 1952.

The Final Four brought back a flood of memories for Groat, whose name was mentioned often on the broadcasts. When Duke rallied from a 22-point deficit in the first half to defeat Maryland, 95-84, in the semifinals, the announcers recalled the greatest halftime comeback in NCAA history.

"We trailed Tulane by 29 at the half and they scored the first basket in the second half to go up by 31," Groat said. "I had 25 in the second half and Duke won by two. It was a Christmas tournament at Reynolds Coliseum in 1950-51."

Groat, who keeps in touch with friends at Duke, last visited the Durham, N.C. campus two years ago as a speaker at the Tradition of Excellence basketball banquet held in Cameron Indoor Stadium. He still follows the Blue Devils closely and is proud of the way Coach Mike Krzyzewski runs the program.

"People tell me it's the cleanest program in the country," Groat said. "Coach K has done a magnificant job. They expect to win."

This was the third championship for Krzyzewski, who guided the Blue Devils to titles in 1991 and 1992. They will be one of the favorites in next season if Williams decides to stay at Duke rather than head to the NBA.

"If I were Jason Williams, I would finish at Duke," Groat said. "You can only have the college experience once."

Groat's was memorable.