LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — I don’t remember why I needed to interview Junior Bridgeman. I only remember that I did.
This was in the pre-cellphone days. Somebody provided his number. I called, spoke to an assistant and left a message.
Bridgeman called back. He always called back.
He told me he’d be happy to talk. Just meet him at Wendy’s in eastern Louisville. I knew he owned a string of fast food restaurants. But I asked if there was a local headquarters for his growing restaurant empire.
When I arrived, I went to the order counter and told an employee I had an appointment with the owner, Junior Bridgeman. The person behind the cash register nodded and pointed toward the drive-through window.
“He’s right there,” the person said.
And Bridgeman was indeed right there, working the drive-through line, handing out food, drinks, napkins and kind words.
After the hectic lunch rush ended, Bridgeman joined me in the dining room for our conversation. I had to discard my first question with several new first questions:
Why are you working the drive-through window? Did a bunch of workers call in sick? Is this part of your routine?
I remember Bridgeman laughed with that quiet, disarming laugh that was one of his many gifts. It helped him build immediate rapport with everybody he encountered.
Yes, it was part of his routine. He tried to work the drive-through restaurant at different restaurants during lunch hour several times a week.
Bridgeman was committed to asking customers what they liked — but also what they didn’t like — about their dining experience. He wanted to understand what worked and what did not work so he and his management team could work on necessary changes. He wanted to observe his employees in action so he could help them succeed.
On Tuesday, when I heard the jarring news that Bridgeman, 71, died while appearing at a fundraising event for the Boy Scouts in downtown Louisville, my mind raced through all my memories of him:
His stellar basketball career that took him from East Chicago (Indiana) Washington High School to the University of Louisville to the NBA, where his peers demonstrated their respect by voting him the leader of their Players Association.
His dazzling business career that saw him rise from a guy who never earned more than $350,000 in a season to a billionaire business titan who was welcomed into the NBA as part-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.
His perpetual investment in the Louisville community as a philanthropist and servant, enhancing UofL, the Kentucky Derby Festival, Southeast Christian Church and the Muhammad Ali Center.
I mentioned those places on television Tuesday. Then I remembered several more that I had forgotten: The West End School and Simmons College of Kentucky. Local businessman Paul Perconti said Bridgeman and Darrell Griffith were the first two people he got on board when he started the West End School in 2005.
“Junior was a great listener,” Perconti said. “He never rushed you through any conversation. He wanted to know what you thought. And if he said something, he did it.
“I had a running joke with him. If I wanted to talk to him, I would text him and say: ‘Call me when you’re open.’ He would get back to me in eight seconds or less.
“I finally said, ‘Junior, how can you have nothing to do? You’re a billionaire.’”
I’m certain there are more stories like that. Many more.
Of course, there were more. His final act was serving the Boy Scouts. That added another emotional footnote to Bridgeman’s legacy because when I read several profiles of Bridgeman on Tuesday. I learned that when he was growing up in northwest Indiana, he wanted to join the Boy Scouts, but his family could not afford the $1.50 initiation fee. They say you should never meet your heroes, because you’ll probably be disappointed. Junior Bridgeman was one of my heroes. He never disappointed me.
I’ve never heard from anybody that he disappointed. There was Shaquille O’Neal on television fighting back tears while explaining that he tried to model his post-basketball career on Bridgeman. There was Magic Johnson opening his heart about Bridgeman on Twitter. Former UofL head coach Kenny Payne, one of Bridgeman’s closest friends, texted and simply said: “We lost an angel.” Former Indiana star Quinn Buckner texted about his boundless admiration for his former NBA teammate.
There were all the stories about Bridgeman’s work as a mentor to NBA players. He was determined to help as many as possible transform into a successful financial life after basketball. Rick Pitino knew that and routinely invited Bridgeman to talk to his players about the world beyond basketball at UofL.
There was John Lucas, the former NBA star and coach, calling into Jerry Eaves’ local radio show Wednesday morning. Lucas famously battled substance abuse issues throughout his career.
Lucas said when he returned from a rehab program while playing with the Bucks, the team assigned him to room with Bridgeman.
“And the Reverend (Lucas’ nickname for Bridgeman) took care of me,” Lucas said.
In my email box, I found another story that touched me as much as a statement from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver or any community leader or politician. It came from Dr. Stephen Regan, a local radiologist.
This is what he wrote:
“I, for a while, had a golf membership at the UofL course (in Simpsonville). Playing solo one day, I caught up with a twosome.
“Junior was one of the players. They invited me to join them. Just a regular guy who happened to be worth hundreds of millions at the time, about 25+ years ago. Not a pretentious bone in his body.
“Tragic loss for the Louisville community.”
Tragic, indeed. This one hurts. This one leaves a hole. This one turned me upside down.
Here’s why: Bridgeman grew up in East Chicago, Indiana. Until I was 13, I grew up about 7 miles away, on the west side of Gary, before our family moved to Merrillville.
The East Chicago Washington Senators rampaged through Indiana high school basketball during the 1970-71 season, determined to win the state title they believed they were denied in 1970 when they lost a sectional game to city rival East Chicago Roosevelt.
ECR went on to win the 1970 state title. Washington believed the title should have been their title — and would have been their title if Bridgeman’s older brother, Sam, had not broken his foot and missed the state tournament.
Junior and I always nodded on that one.
That 1971 East Chicago Washington team is always talked about as the best high school team Indiana has produced. It was a team that tore through an ambitious schedule that featured games against teams from Terre Haute, Gary, Anderson, Warsaw, Valparaiso, Kokomo and Michigan City — as well as double-figures state finals victories over Floyd Central and Elkhart.
Twenty-nine games. Twenty-nine wins.
All five starters earned Division I scholarships. Two players — Pete Trgovich of UCLA and Tim Stoddard of N.C. State — went on to start for NCAA champions. Bridgeman helped take UofL to the 1975 Final Four.
Bridgeman was great, but also greatly under appreciated. He was an Indiana all-star who didn’t get the high level scholarship offer that he wanted until after the end of his senior season. Imagine. He did not call a press conference and sit at a table with five baseball caps. He signed with Louisville after the Cards hired Denny Crum. Crum was familiar with ECW because he recruited Trgovich, but not Bridgeman, to UCLA.
That would have dented the ego of some players. It didn’t dent Bridgeman’s ego.
But just as Bridgeman learned about what worked and what did not work while working the drive-through windows at Wendy’s, he also learned more than basketball while playing for East Chicago Washington. Like all of Northwest Indiana, East Chicago was an industrial, steel mill town, a melting pot of children of immigrants and families that migrated from the South.
The basketball teams at ECW routinely featured Greeks, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Croats, Armenians, Puerto Ricans and Blacks. Bridgeman learned to forge productive relationships with teammates from every background. Consider it his first business management class.
He also learned that it did not matter who got the credit as long as the team succeeded. Any player that averages better than 13 points over a dozen NBA seasons could average more than 25 points in high school. Bridgeman averaged 17 points and 16 rebounds — on 11 shots per game.
On Tuesday night as I chased Junior Bridgeman memories on the internet, I found a picture from the Indianapolis Star of the East Chicago Washington team after they beat Elkhart for the state title in Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
There was Stoddard and reserve Howard “Tree” Williams kneeling in the centet of the front row with the championship trophy. There was Trgovich, tucked between Stoddard and coach John Molodet
There was point guard Ruben Bailey with a net draped round his neck. There as Darnell Adell, the other starting guard, with both arms raised overhead. There was Alex Kountoures, a sophomore who got mop-up minutes, flashing his index finger.
And in the back row, with his maroon No. 34 jersey obscured, was Junior Bridgeman, out of the spotlight, with his soft, disarming smile, the hero who never disappointed.
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