Nationality American Listed height 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) | Listed weight 210 lb (95 kg) Name Les Hunter | |
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Born August 16, 1942 (age 81)
Nashville, Tennessee ( 1942-08-16 ) High school Pearl (Nashville, Tennessee) College Loyola (Illinois) (1961–1964) NBA draft 1964 / Round: 2 / Pick: 9th overall | ||
Leslie "Big Game" Hunter (born August 16, 1942) is an American former professional basketball player. He played professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the American Basketball Association (ABA). Hunter attended Loyola University Chicago, where he was the starting center of the team that won the 1963 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship.
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Early life
Hunter was born in Nashville, Tennessee. A 6'7" forward/center, Hunter attended Pearl High School and Loyola University Chicago. At Loyola, he served as the starting center of the team that upset the University of Cincinnati in overtime to win the 1963 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. He and the other four Loyola starters played the entire game, without substitution. And a first-round Mideast Regional victory by Hunter and the Ramblers over Tennessee Tech, 111-42, remains a record margin of victory for an NCAA men's basketball tournament game.
Professional career
He was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the 2nd round (11th pick overall) of the 1964 NBA draft. He played for one season (1964–1965) in the NBA with the Baltimore Bullets.
He was drafted in the 1972 ABA Draft. Hunter spent six seasons (1967–1973) in the ABA with the Minnesota Muskies, Miami Floridians, New Jersey Nets, Kentucky Colonels, and Memphis Tams. Hunter scored 5,735 points in his professional career and was a two-time ABA All-Star. He played in the first ABA All-Star game in 1968 in Indianapolis.
Life after basketball
After retiring from basketball, Hunter moved to Kansas City in 1976. He owned a restaurant for ten years and now works as an instructor helping students who did not graduate take online classes to complete high school.
Awards and honors
On July 11, 2013, in the Oval Office of the White House, Hunter and former Loyola teammates John Egan, Jerry Harkness and Ron Miller met with President Barack Obama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the school's 1963 national championship. To date it remains the only NCAA Division I basketball championship won by a university from the state of Illinois. In September 2013, Harkness and the entire 1963 Loyola Ramblers NCAA Championship basketball team was inducted into the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame. The 1963 Loyola Ramblers were inducted in the College Basketball Hall of Fame in November 2013, making it the first team inducted into the Hall of Fame.