SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA---The wonder of NCAA basketball is to get a sneak peek at some of the future stars of the NBA. All do not pass the test of the Association, but that does not dilute the thrills they gave in college arenas for one-to-four years of service.
One of the names that I remember from the countless thousands is Brian Williams from the University of Arizona. It's just a name of many because he didn't do much to separate himself from the rest of the NCAA, or his Wildcat teammates, but he is a part of my hoops watching history. His time at UA has been chronicled as a combination of NBA potential, and eccentricity that bordered on schizophrenia.
It was almost Maryland's burden to bear and the chance to have the best chance at NCAA greatness since the Len Bias days, but after one year at College Park he decided to hook up with old friend and Las Vegas high school teammate Matt Othick at Arizona. It was just that easy for him because his interpersonal alliances were stronger than any bond he could ever establish to one particular college campus.
Othick tells about the time he came back to the room they shared as roommates, and found that B-Dub, as Brian Williams was known as, had acquired a nude mannequin, and said that it was there because it was a work of art. Also there were pieces of brick strewn around the room, and those were deemed as artifacts.
Being 6-11 and left-handed were two gifts Williams used for college basketball dominance. So much that he parlayed a successful, but rocky career at Tucson into an NBA job, winning an NBA title with the Chicago Bulls in 1997.
Williams' NBA career won't get his name, whether it's Brian Williams, or his later incarnation of Bison Dele into the Hall of Fame, but when he put his mind to it, he could be as successful on an NBA floor as he was in the NCAA's.
Fortunately, or not, depending on one's view of how someone else who had the opportunities that Bison Dele had, should live their life, his passions were always elsewhere. If it were not for the one-man circus named Dennis Rodman, Dele would have gone far and beyond the call of "weirdness" on the Bulls team.
Suddenly he was Bison Dele who played two seasons in Detroit, and left over 30 million on Joe Dumars' executive table at Pistons' headquarters in Auburn Hills, and called his NBA career as over. The natural world he spent time embracing, would now get his full attention.
Dele is his original African name, while Bison, while a Cherokee name and part of his heritage, is a combination of Brian and Carson, two names he embraced once upon a time. Bison Dele is the name of the man the FBI fears was the tragic victim of another Cain and Abel story.
Family members reported Dele, his girlfriend Serena Karlan, the boat's captain, Bertrand Saldo, and his brother Miles Dabord, formerly known as Kevin Eugene Williams were missing after setting sail from New Zealand on Dele's boat, Hakuna Matata, a song and phrase from "The Lion King".
The boat had returned and was in Taravao, a town in Tahiti. Three of the four sailors had not come back with the ship, which was painted over and renamed Arabella, prompting a manhunt for Dabord, who was already wanted for stealing his brother's identity, and as the prime suspect in the possible murder of the other three passengers.
Dabord had tried to use his younger brother's identity to buy $152,000 worth of gold on September 5, but was released before the authorities had any idea the other three would be reported as missing.
If they are not found on the boat, which seems highly unlikely, they may never be found because of the deep nature of the waters off the Tahitian coast.
At that point there are only memories. The worst he ever could be accused of is giving his Arizona coach Lute Olson a few mistakes, and giving the rest of the world too many different answers on the meaning of his new name, Bison Dele.
All the rest of what Brian Williams brought into this world was a man who was large in physicality, as well as his knowledge and hope of the world around him. He spent large sums of his NBA money for environmental endeavors, and embraced Mother Nature with a GI Joe kung-fu grip. He swam and surfed in her seas, and whatever explanation he gave for his new name, it was always relatable to nature.
He also showed that living life his way wasn't dictated by how he fell into pay scale for marketable post-men.
Bison Dele won't be terribly missed by the NBA community, but his mission in life will. Eccentricity means a lot to many people, but if taking care of the world is being eccentric, then the word has taken on an entirely new wonderful meaning, hence, the world has lost one of its more unusual examples of how to love and live.
cubefour sports
Please send your comments to me at: walik@blackathlete.com. 9-17-02
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