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The world of professional basketball lost one of its all-time greats with Thursday’s death of John Havlicek.
The Bridgeport, Ohio, native died at the age of 79 reportedly due to complications from Parkinson’s Disease.
Havlicek was a member of eight NBA championship teams with the Boston Celtics and was voted by the league as one of its top 50 players of all time.
Prior to that, Havlicek was a starter on the 1959-60 Ohio State University hoop squad that won the NCAA national championship.
One local man, however, remembers Havlicek as a teammate.
“He was five years older than me, but we played ball together in the summers,” said Rich Cencula, who owns Minit Lube.
Cencula is a native of St. Clairsville, where Havlicek would often play basketball and baseball pickup games during the summer.
“The park in St. Clairsville opened sometime in either 1958 or 1959,” Cencula remembered. “I was in high school and Havlicek was playing at Ohio State.
“He’d come back home during the summers and come over to our park to play in pickup games,” he said. “Sometimes, he’d bring (former Ohio State teammates) Jerry Lucas and Mel Nowell with him.”
The relationship was even closer between the Cencula and Havlicek families.
“His mother and my mother were neighbors and best friends in the small community of Tinkletown (in the Ohio Valley),” said Cencula. “Tinkletown is considered a suburb of Lansing.”
Lansing, Ohio, is the hometown of former Major League Baseball knuckleball pitching brothers Phil and the late Joe Niekro.
Cencula said Havlicek was always willing to teach younger players about the game of basketball.
“That was a big thing for a lot of us,” he said.
At times, Cencula would play on the same pickup team as Havlicek and on other occasions, he had the unenviable task of guarding the future Hall-of-Famer when on an opposing team.
“I was a lot smaller than he was,” said Cencula of the 6-5 Havlicek.
“He was great at getting the guy who was guarding him out of position,” he said. “He could really ‘juke’ you and make his own moves.”
Cencula recalled that Havlicek was also a great football player.
“He could really throw a football and I remember he had a tryout with the Cleveland Browns after he graduated from college,” he said.
Although most folks remember Havlicek as a standout athlete, Cencula said there was a more important attribute to the former Buckeye and Celtic.
“He was just a really nice guy,” said Cencula. “He was openly friendly toward everyone.”