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Thursday, May 1, 2008
Wesley Cox
Greater Louisville, KY
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The U of L star from Male High School looks forward to retirement and options for another round of basketball
It’s not hard to find the man who was the 18th pick in the 1977 NBA Draft. Wesley Cox, the man who led Male High School to the 1971 Kentucky State Championship and the Louisville Cardinals to the 1975 Final Four goes to work every day in the Jefferson County attorney’s office in downtown Louisville.
If all goes well, Cox says he’ll retire in December after 27 years in local government. That would open up his options, which could include coaching college basketball. He smiles at the thought of retirement and the choices available to him then.
“I want to do other things,” he says. “I wouldn’t mind doing something at U of L. I just don’t want to get stagnant.”
He wears a t-shirt and hat that, like him, have a few miles on them. A big man who smiles often through a salt-and-pepper beard, he speaks softly. Cox says he never expected to get drafted after his All-American career at U of L. Playing with legends like Rick Barry and Robert Parish, he made around $100,000 a year in two seasons with the Golden State Warriors, and finished his playing career during a year in Italy.
A first-round NBA draft choice today will sign a contract worth more than $1.5 million. Cox, though, says he never thought of basketball as a career, and earned his sociology degree from U of L in 3 ½ years with an idea toward a life outside of basketball.
“I never wanted to be known as a basketball player,” he says, elaborating that as a father, he never told his three sons about his basketball exploits. But he never totally gave up on basketball. Fifteen years ago he helped start a basketball league for young kids in the West End.
“The idea was to use basketball to get kids off the street; to use the Christian experience for good. The real victory is when a young man accepts Christ,” says Cox, who has coached 14-and-under and 11-and-under teams.
A few years ago, one of the opposing churches in the league featured a young, quick guard he knew pretty well-–a young man named Wesley Cox-–the fifth. Cox V’s team beat Grandpa’s team, and he has continued on to improve his skills in high school.
Today Wesley Cox V is a rising senior at Ballard, where he made All-Region Honorable Mention as a junior. He doesn’t have his grandfather’s size, but Cox is a solid player, and his grandfather thinks he could make it in college.
Cox V’s father, Wesley Cox IV, never played much organized basketball. He became a father shortly after graduating from Fairdale High School, and today works in the same building as his father for the Jefferson County attorney.
“He’s quick, a good shooter,” Cox IV beams when asked about Cox V the player.
Cox III, when asked about his grandson, says he could become a college prospect. “He’s got to understand his size (5-11), and he’s got to know how to use his size.”
That’s something Cox III knows a lot about. He claims to have been the smallest center, at 6-6, in Division I basketball in the mid-1970s. But Cox was chiseled and tough. And he arrived at U of L ready to go in the first year that freshmen could play on the varsity.
“Coach (Denny) Crum told me he was going to get a seven-footer. Then he told me he had good news and bad news. The bad news was he didn’t recruit a big man, but the good news was I could play my first year.”
Bio: Rick Redding is a Louisville freelance writer and he runs the website The 'Ville Voice (http://thevillevoice.com). He is the editor of the HSSTM Web site.
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