The Battle of Baskets

In the dressing room before the game, the young giant laced and unlaced his size 13 gym shoes until they were tied just right. He shrugged off sportwriters' questions about his scoring intentions that night, concentrated on taping on a pair of eyeglasses that gave him a Harold Lloyd look. Then George ("Mike") Mikan of the Minneapolis Lakers, the hottest player in pro basketball this season, straightened up to his full 6 ft. 10 in. and answered the reporters: "This is just another game."

The record 8,475 fans who jammed Philadelphia Arena last week seemed more keyed up than Mike Mikan. Their hero was 27-year-old ex-Marine Joe Fulks of the Philadelphia Warriors, who was just 19 points behind Mikan for the scoring lead of the Basketball Association of America. Most Arena-goers were rooting for Joe to overtake and pass Mikan, but it was not the night for it.

Tireless and amazingly agile for his size, Mikan kept wearing down fresh men sent in to guard him. He gobbled up rebounds from both backboards, made blind passes on the fast break, fed the ball to his teammates from his pivot slot. When the game was over, the Lakers had won a close one (78-76), and Mike Mikan had added 30 more points to his season's total (1,091) while Fulks was picking up 23.

Because of such players as George Mikan, pro basketball is gradually taking on a big-league glow. The Basketball Association of America is a twelve-city circuit, playing to enthusiastic crowds from Manhattan's Madison Square Garden to St. Louis' Arena. Its stars get paid as much as $17,500 for a 20-week season. Like Mikan, most of the big-name basketball pros come out of topflight collegiate ranks.

Mikan himself had thought of studying for the priesthood, but dropped the idea about the time he graduated from Chicago's Quigley Preparatory Seminary. The late Coach George Keogan of Notre Dame looked him over as a basketball prospect, but decided that he was too awkward. He decided on a pre-law course at Chicago's De Paul University. There, Coach Ray Meyer made him shadow-box and skip rope until Mikan panted: "What do you want, Coach, my blood?" Short, husky Coach Meyer is still hard to satisfy. Says he of Mikan: "He'd be great if he were nine inches smaller." His size sets Mike apart, even among pro basketball players. At home he requires a specially-made 7-ft. bed and an elongated reclining chair. His appetite is prodigious. He has occasionally been known to consume a dozen eggs at breakfast, polish off two steaks after a game.

Now 24, Mikan plans to play pro basketball for another three years or so, then perhaps take up politics. Basketball, he says, is too tough a game to play forever: "I want to keep the rest of my teeth--I've lost four already."

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