Richard Peek: A man for many seasons

      (Fourth in a series)
      One cold March day in the mid-1970s, Richard Peek was off duty from his fireman's job and went fishing with a buddy on the banks of the Trinity River in Dallas.

Richard Peek (44): A big man who could play
in the mid-1960s (photo from Louisiana Tech
sports information office)
 

      Within their sight, a boat overturned, and two men and a little boy went under the water.
      Peek had trained as a paramedic at the start of his 33-year career with the Dallas Fire Department. He saw the danger; without hesitation, he dove in the water.
      He saved one man and the boy. Unfortunately, the other man -- the boy's father -- drowned.
       Richard came home still wet and disheveled. His wife, Carole, asked what happened. "He was real quiet about it," she remembers. He said, 'I had to go in the water.' No further details.
       Three days later, Carole found out what had happened. The story had been reported in the papers and friends of the Peeks were calling.
       President Gerald Ford soon sent a letter of commendation. The Carnegie Foundation offered a financial reward. Richard refused to accept it.
       "Anything he did as a fireman or as a person, he didn't talk about himself," Carole said.
---
       We're here to write about him. We remember Richard Peek as a basketball player, the 6-foot-11, 230-pound center who played two seasons for Louisiana Tech University, the second as one of the "Triple Towers" of the 1966-67 conference championship team coached by Scotty Robertson.
       That was his senior season and he was -- my view -- the quietest, most steady player on that team and perhaps its most important player, a skilled and tough inside force.
       He was the only one of those Bulldogs to play professionally, one season with the Dallas Chaparrals.
       Beyond basketball, he was a man of many interests. He lived a full life -- as an outdoors person, an adventurer, an achiever, and particularly as a family man.
       Richard Peek died on Feb. 16, 2014, in Tyler, Texas, at age 70, after a steady, debilitating health decline -- Parkinson's and then Lewy body dementia.
       It was a tough and challenging last few years, physically and emotionally, for Carole as she had to try to move his big body when he was unable to do so on his own.
       They had moved after his Fire Department retirement and three decades of living in Garland, Texas -- east side of greater Dallas -- to a place in the country near Chandler, just outside of Tyler. That was to be nearer kids and grandkids, but the difficulty of his illness forced another move even closer, to Whitehouse.
     He and Carole -- friends since junior high days in Pensacola, Fla. -- were married for 49 years, with three children (Michael, 47; Julia Ann Cole, 45; and Jeffery, 41) and seven grandchildren. Jeffery is the tallest of the kids, at 6-7.
---
      Richard came to Louisiana Tech following two years in the University of Florida program. After sitting out a year as a transfer, practicing with the Tech team along with 6-10 Bob Watson (who became eligible a half-season earlier than Peek), it was easy for his teammates to be impressed.
      "He was a very good player, a pretty polished low-post player," said Leon Barmore, one of the guards in those years. "He had post moves that a lot of guys in that time didn't have. He'd leave guys guarding him in the post just standing there."
      Jimmy Pruett, the other starting guard: "Richard Peek was a very good player, steady, dependable. All-[conference]. Could score, defend, rebound, and was all about winning. ... Not particularly outspoken. ... He wanted to do the right thing and win."
      Tommy Gregory, a reserve forward who often teamed with Peek and had to guard him in practice: "I remember him as a hard-working player, good around the hoop and a good rebounder with a good mid-range shot. He was a tough, unselfish player."
     Peek led Tech in rebounding both of his seasons, and averaged 17.4 points a game as a junior and 14.1 the next year on a balanced team that went 20-8 overall and 11-1 in the conference (Gulf States).
     As a senior, he was the steady center who could be dominant, but sometimes it was excitable 7-foot freshman Charlie Bishop who had the big games.
     Part of Peek's role was as a mentor to Bishop, working on moves around the basket for the inexperienced rookie.
     "Coach Robertson told Richard when he came to Tech that he hadn't coached players that big," said Carole, "so Richard was sort of an assistant. He helped devise some of the drills for the center.
     "He really loved playing for Scotty Robertson."
        He did not love playing for Norm Sloan -- "Stormin' Norman" -- at Florida.
     Richard had starred at Pensacola's Escambia High School (later Emmitt Smith's school), and his size and ability made him a prime recruit for the Gators, who'd never had much success in the sport.
     After a year on the freshman team, he lettered on the Florida varsity as a sophomore -- a 12-10 team, 6-8 in the SEC (tied for ninth in a 12-team league). And he wasn't happy.
     Sloan was the coach and, said Carole, "Richard didn't like the players he was with. He was his own person, and there was so much mischief going on." So he looked to transfer.
     The connection to Tech was Escambia coach George Hill, who was friends with Tech first-year assistant coach Don Landry. Escambia, in Peek's years there, had played against Landry's St. Aloysius (New Orleans) teams two years in a row.
     So when Hill called Landry asking if Tech might be interested in a 6-11 center, the answer was "sure." "I knew what a good player he was," said Landry, and Robertson had Peek come to Ruston for a visit.
     "They wined and dined him at a ranch there," Carole recalled, "and he was a big hunter and fisherman. He saw that area was good for that."
     It was a fit, along with Robertson's promising program.
---
      More from his teammates:
      "Richard and I were close; we were roommates [on the road-game overnight stays]," said Barmore, the future Hall of Fame women's basketball coach. "We umpired kids' baseball games together one summer. Can you imagine a 7-foot guy squatting behind home plate?"
      "He knew how to handle the ball, and knew how to pass it," said Jon Pat Stephenson, the starting small forward in Peek's two seasons. "He could handle a lob pass than the other two [centers, Bishop and Watson]. We beat a lot of teams with those lobs."
     Barmore and Stephenson each remembered one Peek move with the ball in the low post. "He would dip his left shoulder and spin back the other way," Barmore said. "He'd leave guys guarding him just standing there."
      "He made that look easy," Stephenson said, "and he'd have a layup or a dunk."
     Pruett: "As I recall, his points were mainly in close, certainly inside 10-12 feet, although he was not a great leaper. An excellent college player, but maybe not quite agile enough or strong enough for the NBA.
     "Kind of the classic big man of that era -- and our best big guy while he was there. I only got to play with him one year. He was definitely the key player added -- from outside our area -- in making us a championship team.
      "He was really a nice person, kind of quiet, easy to be around, although I was only around him (and his wife) at basketball-related times."
     "He was a very mild guy, he was very coachable," said John Whitmore, a sophomore on the 1966-67 team. "He fit in perfectly with the guys who had been around for a couple of years, and he was a very skilled post player."
     "Richard was a great player -- strong, focused and could do it all," said Terry Ewing, a reserve forward who played one season with Peek and practiced against him two years. "He was very much a team player, but when he got the ball around the bucket he knew how to finish.
    "I got six stitches in practice when I wasn't quick enough to avoid his powerful elbow. Richard was a true gentleman who played hard but always played clean."
    Ewing recalled that he worked with Peek "one summer painting land lines around tracts of timber for Ewing Timber. The men who worked for my Dad laughed that they had never seen markings on the trees that high up. We became very close during that time and he was a special friend."

     Gregory: "I think it was [Southwestern Louisiana's] Elvin Ivory that dunked on him one night. Next trip down the floor, Richard returned the favor with that quick spin move down low that he had.
     "... He was a great teammate and I really enjoyed playing with him. Won't ever forget seeing him folding up into his green VW bettle that he and Carole drove."
---     

Richard Peek (33) with the 1967-68 Dallas Chaparrals;
in front are Shreveport's Charles Beasley (12) and player-
coach Cliff Hagan (16); beside Peek, John Beasley (44).

     He was drafted by the NBA's Baltimore Bullets ... in the 15th round, 148th player picked in 1967. Slim chance, so he opted to try the new American Basketball Association, the new team in Dallas.
     The first Chaparrals -- forerunner to the now San Antonio Spurs -- were led by former University of Kentucky and St. Louis Hawks star Cliff Hagan (who was the player-coach) and included two players named Beasley -- Charles, from Shreveport (Fair Park) and SMU, and John, from Linden, Texas (near Texarkana) and Texas A&M.
     Peek was a reserve, averaging 4.6 points and 3.9 rebounds a game in 51 games. His averages were 5.4 and 5.3 for eight playoff games.
     But one season was it. Before the next season, he was traded to the Kentucky Colonels, then traded again. Failing to make an ABA regular-season roster, he was asked to play in Italy. He refused.
     And while he missed the game for a while, said Carole, "his knees were so bad; he hyperextended one knee three times, and his back hurt all the time. He was real unhappy [in the pros]."
---
     His basketball career done, he looked for a new career.
Tried stockbroking, but it was a bad time -- and he didn't have that much money to invest. Tried selling insurance; didn't like it. He then went to work in a sporting goods' store, in the guns department; he had hunting expertise.
     One day a few Dallas firemen came in, and he asked about their jobs. It was intriguing, and they told him the department was hiring.
     He applied -- and one problem: He was too tall; they didn't have clothes to fit him. He offered to pay for custom-made clothes; he wanted that job.
     They hired him, and he stayed for more than three decades. "He really loved that job," Carole said.
     But not all of it at first. Trained originally as a paramedic, "he became insensitive after a while because he saw so many bad things," his wife said. "I told him he needed to ask out of that part of it."
     His height was a plus in that his reach sometimes was a great help in putting out fires. But, as you'd expect, the danger was great, too.
     "I don't know how many times he was in the hospital with burns and injuries," Carole recalled.
     And there was a day when a Hunt mansion in Dallas was burning, and two of the men in Richard's company died. Richard was missing and his captain was about to head to the Peek residence to tell Carole ... when he was spotted sitting under a tree, overcome by heat and smoke inhalation.
     But he was always one to stay physically fit. "He loved to be very active," Carole said. "He was not lazy."
     He was a fisherman; he was in a bass-fishing club. He was a hunter -- duck hunting, quail, deer ("but mostly he liked shooting photos outdoors," said Carole). He liked mountain climbing, backpacking, rafting, skiing -- in southern Colorado; he was a runner (and convinced Carole to run with him). He lifted weights regularly.
     He was -- picture this -- a 6-11 rugby player for the original team of the Dallas Harlequins, one of the area's first and most prestigious clubs. "He was always beat up," said Carole. "I remember the keg parties; they sang all those songs."
     To help his ailing knees, his doctor advised him to get a bicycle, so he became an avid biker for a while. And then he was a real "biker" -- a motorcycle enthusiast who, with a friend, made numerous rides from Dallas to Daytona Beach, Fla., for the annual Motorcycle Week, and then continued on to Key West, and made the return trip. That's a long haul.
     Because of his length, "custom-made" applied, too, to his bicycle and his BMW motorcycle. His son Michael now has that BMW.
     Finally, in the years out in East Texas, he had a tractor to keep him busy on their piece of land. But the good times ran out with his health issues.
     Carole Peek still lives in Whitehouse and has some treasured souvenirs: A red-white-and-blue ABA ball, a ball from Louisiana Tech, and Richard's first fireman's helmet, an old-timer made of leather. 
     "He was very grateful (for his life) and very sweet," Carole said.
      He was, as those of us at Tech then knew in those days and today, a wonderful player and a wonderful person.
     Next: Charlie Bishop, a gentle giant

Fifty years ago, a championship team and season

      (Second in a series)
     One reason the 1966-67 Louisiana Tech basketball team was special to me, other than the friends: It was the first conference championship team I experienced in my four years (fall 1965-spring '69) at Tech.
     That 1966-67 team was my sophomore year. The only other Tech team to win a conference championship in those years was in golf of my senior spring, the last of many championships for legendary athletic director/football and golf coach Joe Aillet.
     Great as the football tradition was -- and is -- at the university, not even Terry Bradshaw, in his breakout junior season, could deliver a title (he did with the 1969 Bulldogs, but I had graduated). 
     Great as the Tech baseball tradition was, we missed a championship by a half-game in my freshman year, losing both ends of a final-day doubleheader after winning six consecutive doubleheaders.

Charlie Bishop and Richard Peek, back row, left side. Bob Watson ducked
out of this photo. (from the Shreveport Journal game story)

     So basketball provided the big thrills in many ways in that 1966-67 season, remembered for our "Triple Towers" at center -- Richard Peek, Bob Watson and Charlie Bishop.
     But that team had so much more ... and we thought from the start of practice this would be a great season. It was.  
     We had two veteran guards who could flat-out shoot -- senior Leon Barmore (you might have heard of him, as a women's basketball coach chosen to the Basketball Hall of Fame) and junior Jimmy Pruett, back after a redshirt season (knee injury).
      The other starter was senior small forward Jon Pat Stephenson (6-foot-3), the team's most versatile, fastest and all-around best athlete.
      The bench was strong, led by two juniors -- rugged 6-7 forward Tommy Gregory and tenacious defensive star Malcolm Smith (6-4). In many of the key games, they were on the floor at the finish.
      All five of those players, like Bishop, were from Louisiana. Two other top reserves were guards -- senior Billy Ray Stokes (Yazoo City, Miss.), a junior college transfer in his second year at Tech, and true freshman Wayne Smith (Tishomingo, Okla.) in his only year at Tech.
      Three key factors in this team's success: (1) the big guys, Peek and Bishop as a devastating low-post combo; (2) great balance, all five starters averaged scoring in double figures -- Barmore 15.6, Bishop 14.6, Peek 14.1, Pruett 11.4, Stephenson 11.1; and (3) solid defense -- if you played for Coach Scotty Robertson, you had to play defense ... or you'd sit.
---
       The season began with a victory against a "major" -- at Texas A&M. But December was rough, with four consecutive losses (none all that close) to SEC teams, and a tournament loss to Morehead (Ky.) State in Shreveport.
       Then came 17 victories in the next 19 games -- and an 11-1 record (and championship) in the Gulf States Conference, an all-Louisiana league with bus road trips and longstanding, strong and often heated rivalries.
       No rivalry then, and for the next few years, was more intense than Tech vs. Southwestern Louisiana -- USL. Coach Beryl Shipley had one of the first integrated programs in the Deep South, maybe the first, and Shipley had gone far to recruit very talented -- and many suspected, well-financed -- players.
        This USL team was the first of that program's powerhouse era, which included a couple of NCAA Tournament Division I bids and -- eventually -- a "death penalty" handed out by the NCAA for a large number of rules violations.
        Frankly, we did not like those guys. There was an arrogance about the Ragin' Cajuns. So beating USL twice was the highlight of the season, the difference between first and second place.
        In the first meeting, the first game of 1967 (Jan. 4), Tech won 72-66 on USL's floor. I won't forget that score, hopefully; I remember looking at the scoreboard afterward at old Blackham Coliseum in Lafayette and thinking: This is a huge win.
        But the second meeting, a month later in Ruston, was -- in reality -- the conference championship game. We were tied for first place, and Memorial Gym (which seated 5,000) was crammed to the rafters with about 6,000 fans. It was one of the tightest, most tense games I can remember. I've rarely been more nervous about a game -- and I was just keep statistics.
        Our fans went crazy often that night, especially on dunks by Peek and Bishop which shredded USL's vaunted, stretched 1-3-1 defense. Barmore had 22 points, Bishop had 20 and Peek had 14 rebounds.
        Tech 80, USL 78. Beautiful. Good Guys beat the Mercenaries.
        (I have told people for years: In my four years at Louisiana Tech, this game and victory were topped in athletics only by the Terry Bradshaw-to-Ken Liberto, 82-yard touchdown pass in the final 25 seconds to beat Northwestern State in the 1968 State Fair Game in Shreveport.)
        The GSC title clincher came a few games later by beating another hot rival, Northeast Louisiana, at Memorial Gym. And with a final 19-7 regular-season record came an NCAA Tournament (College Division) invitation -- a first for Tech.
---
        So it was off to the four-team Midwest Regional in Bloomington, Ill., where Illinois State was the home team. It was a plane trip (rare for Tech teams in those days), but without Bishop and Wayne Smith because freshmen were ineligible for College Division postseason play and in Division I, period.
        Without Bishop, the opening-round game was a challenge because North Dakota (19-5 record) had a gangly 6-8 forward/center who was setting all sorts of school records and, we heard, was a hot NBA prospect. His name: Phil Jackson.
        Yes, that Phil Jackson -- two NBA championships as a player (New York Knicks), a record 11 rings as a head coach, and currently running the Knicks.
        The North Dakota coach was Bill Fitch, who 14 years later coached the Boston Celtics (with Robert Parish) to an NBA championship. Fitch's assistant, Jimmy Rodgers, also went on to become a Celtics' head coach.   
        Jackson played well against Tech (21 points, 9-of-13 from the floor), but he didn't dominate. Fact is, Jim Hester -- future New Orleans Saints tight end -- was the Sioux's top scorer with 22. But Tech's balance -- five double-figure scorers, led by Barmore (20) and Stephenson (18), and one near-miss (Gregory had eight) -- led to an 86-77 victory. Peek had 13 points, 10 rebounds.
       That set up a game against Illinois State for a trip to the College Division final eight.
        In the consolation game the next night, Jackson had 52 points against a school named Parsons. The regional title game that followed wasn't pretty for us.
        Illinois State won in a rout and our wonderful season (20-8 record) was finished. So were the college careers of our seniors, including Peek and Watson.
        Bishop remained at Tech for three more seasons and he wasn't a great star, but he starred in many games. Tech basketball played on -- for 50 years, and the women's program founded in the mid-1970s became more of a national power than the men's program.
         Life had just really started for those of us at Tech then, adulthood -- hard as some of us fought it -- and careers awaited. But we had those sweet memories of that basketball season.
         (Next: Bob Watson, big man in town) 

   

A long-ago basketball team that hit the heights

     (First in a series)
     They were our "Triple Towers" -- a basketball team with, if you can imagine, three (nearly) 7-footers.
     It's only been 50 years ago, just a short passage of time. But the memories of the 1966-67 Louisiana Tech University team are clear to those of us who were there.
     It was a championship team, the first Tech team to play in an NCAA Tournament (College Division).

photos from Shreveport Journal, 1967

     And it had that huge front line -- 6-10 senior Bob Watson, 6-11 senior Richard Peek and 7-foot freshman Charlie Bishop. 
     That was unique then ... or in any season. Opposing teams weren't necessarily intimidated, but they took  notice. It had to be one of the country's tallest teams.
     A friend recently suggested I write about those big guys, and that season, and -- to be honest -- although I stay in touch with several of the players from that team, I was not current with the three centers.
     To my dismay, as I began to research, I found on the Internet that Richard Peek, the only one of the three to make a professional regular-season roster, died two years at age 70. Then the news came that Charlie Bishop had died in Ruston -- home of Louisiana Tech -- on Valentine's Day at age 68. 
     I also found a story from May 2014 that Bob Watson was retiring after 29 years as the superintendent of schools in El Dorado, Ark. He still lives in that city, about 53 miles and one hour directly north from Ruston.
     Peek was from Pensacola, Fla., a metropolis compared to the hometowns of Watson (Logan, W.Va.) and Bishop (Summerfield, La.).
     In 1966-67, they were part of a classy, unselfish team -- the best team in our little part of the world. The big guys were fun to watch; the whole team was. 
     These Bulldogs played hard, they were competitive -- and they were smart players. They reflected the head coach, Scotty Robertson. 
     They were serious about winning, but there was lots of joking and laughter. It was a close-knit, friendly, happy bunch, even the team managers and one student sports information assistant/statistician/would-be sportswriter. 
---
     Watson arrived first, coming to Tech in 1964 as a transfer from home-state West Virginia University, where he spent part of one year. When he became eligible to play for the second semester of the 1964-65 season, he became the tallest player in Tech's long basketball history.
     He joined a team that was talented but lacked any significant height. And he was an immediate sensation, although that would not last.
     Peek arrived a few months after Watson and sat out a season as a transfer. He also originally had stayed in his home state, going as a heralded recruit from Escambia High School to the University of Florida, where he had played for two seasons (one on the freshman team, one as a varsity letterman).
     Peek was a starter from the start for Tech in the 1965-66 season, averaging 17.4 points a game and leading the team in rebounding. He basically replaced Watson, who had been ill and never regained a regular spot.
     A team with no seniors showed promise late in the season, going from a 6-9 record to eight victories in the final 10 games, including the memorable comeback from six points down with 21 seconds to play against Centenary (the "Donnie Henry punch game," subject of a previous blog piece: 
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-punch-line-what-finish.html).
      So the only starter not returning for the 1966-67 season was shooting forward George Stone, who opted for a pro baseball career (and made the majors).
     His starting replacement: Charlie Bishop. We went from 6-foot-3 to 7 feet. Prospects for this team were promising.
     Bishop was a true freshman in the fall of 1966, a much sought-after recruit by Robertson (about to enter his third season as head coach at Tech), a player with size that had rarely -- maybe never -- had been seen in North Louisiana. He had some ability, he'd averaged close to 30 points a game for his Class C (smallest classification) school, but he was a raw college prospect.
    Charlie wasn't shy, he was willing to work, eager to learn and Peek -- quiet, reserved, determined and a polished, skilled offensive player with strong moves around the basket -- was a mentor.
    Fans loved them, especially their dunks off lob passes from the wings or guards, as Robertson installed a double low-post offense. That helped beat a lot of teams.
    Watson was the roughest of the three centers and while he played mostly in a mop-up role, the home fans loved him, loved his spirit. He was a crowd favorite. He was all arms and legs, and jerky motion, and action always picked up -- one way or the other -- with him on the floor.
---

    Peek was drafted by an NBA team, but played with the Dallas Chaparrals the next season, the first season of the American Basketball Association. Two trades and a hurting body convinced him to stop playing ball.
    Watson graduated with a BA degree in Education, then earned a masters' degree in Speech and moved into a 45-year career as an educator/administrator.
    Bishop played three more seasons at Tech and started 97 games in his college career. He was Tech's No. 4 career scoring leader (1,398 points) when he finished, he made all-conference, and his 11.5 per-game rebound average is still fourth on the all-time Tech list (Peek is No. 5 at 10.3).
    Bishop had a shot at the NBA, but a knee injury spoiled that, and basketball was soon over for him.

Bob Watson

     A little-known secret, as I remember it: None of our "Triple Towers" were 7-footers then. Not even Bishop.
     Watson was a hulking 6-10, kind of a stooped figure at times. We listed Peek at 6-11; the next year the Chaparrals made him a 7-footer. His widow, Carole, says he actually was 6-10 1/2.
     And Charlie was listed as 6-11 in high school. Measured before his freshman season, he was 6-11 3/4. Close enough, said Scotty Robertson, let's round it up. So he was listed as 7 feet. Maybe he grew into that.  
    Here is a thought I had: Not many fireman were as tall as Peek (that was his occupation for 33 years in Dallas); not many school superintendents were as tall as Watson; not many industrial mechanics were as tall as Bishop. They were -- pun here -- in the upper echelon of their professions.
     I can tell you for sure that those three big guys were all popular and friends with their teammates.

Charlie Bishop

     Subsequent three blog pieces will tell of the lives of our "Triple Towers." They each had interesting and what I consider rich lives -- careers, many interests, families they were proud of (and families proud of them). They had to deal with tragedy -- a son killed, a spouse's death, and for Peek and Bishop, debilitating health issues in later years that led to their deaths.         
     Louisiana Tech has had many outstanding men's basketball teams, before and after -- 21 conference champions. The 1966-67 team wouldn't make my top five of Tech teams, maybe not even top 10 (when Tech moved to Division I, the schedule got tougher and the talent got better).
      But this isn't an objective sportswriting piece. That "Triple Towers" team in 1966-67 were my guys -- and they still are.
      (Next: A championship team and season)