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Bill Wennington is a big man with a lot of big memories from a spectacular career on the hardcourt.
The Montreal native, who was enshrined into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame last night, was a member of the Chicago Bulls teams that won NBA titles in 1996, 1997 and 1998. He also led St. John's University to a berth in the 1985 NCAA Final Four.
But the seven-foot centre said yesterday that one of the biggest highlights of his career was helping the Canadian team win the 1983 World University Games in Edmonton against a highly favoured American team that included future NBA stars Charles Barkley and Karl Malone. A year later, the Canadian team finished fourth at the Olympics.
"That was a tremendous experience," said Wennington, now a Bulls radio colour commentator. "The chemistry on those teams was so good, it was incredible."
Joining Wennington in the Hall last night was former teammate Gerald Kazanowski, also a member of the famed 1983 and 1984 national squads.
During a 10-year career on the national team, Kazanowski was one of the most dominant frontcourt players in Canadian history, representing his country at two Olympic Games (1984 and 1988), three world championships, three University Games and one junior world championship (1979).
After graduating from Victoria in 1983 with a degree in economics, Kazanowski was drafted in the seventh round by the Utah Jazz and played from 1984 to 1992 as a professional in Spain, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Argentina and Mexico.
Both players credit longtime national coach Jack Donohue, who passed away from cancer in 2003, with making them great players, but also preparing them for life after basketball.
"He saw the big picture in everything," said Kazanowski, who runs his own financial planning company in Victoria. "He taught us that basketball was very important, but it was not the only thing that we were interested in."
Wennington said that his coach in Chicago, Phil Jackson, taught many of the same philosophies and tactics as Donohue during the Bulls' glory years.
"I thought I was ahead of everybody else in those days because I had been coached by Jack," he said.
Wennington was a five-year veteran of the national team. He was selected 16th overall by the Dallas Mavericks in 1985 and played six years in Texas before moving on to Sacramento and Chicago.
Toronto businessman John Bitove, who founded the Raptors basketball club in 1993, received the inaugural Dr. James Naismith Award of Excellence.