Michael Sanders

Sport: Basketball

Induction Year: 2000

Induction Year: 2000

By Bob Tompkins

Mike Sanders is trying to get his son to take more high- percentage shots.

His 13-year-old son, Lamar, is a shooting guard who, Mike said, delighted in firing up three-point shots for his seventh-grade team this past season.

The elder Sanders knows about high-percentage shots. As a 6-foot- 5 junior center at DeRidder High School in 1977, he shot 74 percent from the field and led the Dragons to 41 straight basketball wins until DeRidder suffered its lone loss to Rummel 52-48 for the state Class 4A championship.

If that seems like a guy who beat the odds, Sanders fit such a mold through a career that took him to UCLA and later helped him through 11 NBA seasons.

“He had a mindset that he could always excel beyond the odds,” said high school teammate Dave Simmons. “If you told him he couldn’t do something, he’d prove you wrong.”It is that knack for beating the odds with high-percentage results during his career that led Sanders to a spot this year in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Sanders’ story of defying others’ expectations of him, he said, began in the sixth grade – his first season of playing organized basketball.

Demoted to the second team after the first five games, he rode the bench for the last two games.

“My coach gave the starters trophies, and he gave the guys on the second team a medal the size of a nickel,” recalled Sanders. “I was so disappointed.

“I went home and told my mother, and I went on the back porch and threw that medal as far as I could throw it because I felt I should’ve gotten a trophy,” he said. “Maybe that was the turning point in my drive to show people I was better than what they gave me credit for.”He surprised some by becoming a starter for the varsity team at DeRidder in his sophomore year, and he surprised even more by being a three-time all-state pick, a two-time Louisiana Prep Player of the Year and a third-team prep All-American.

Playing mostly center during his three prep seasons, Sanders averaged 27.3 points and 17.2 rebounds, and he shot 68 percent from the field.

Former coach Dale Skinner remembers Sanders missing two or three easy shots before halftime against Leesville, “and I was getting on him pretty good (at halftime) about his shot selection and such. Then the fellow who kept our scorebook told me Mike was 9 of 12 from the field, made 4 of 4 free throws, had three or four assists and five blocked shots. He hardly missed a shot, so when it did it stuck out in my mind.

“I told him, ‘You know, son, I’m proud of you. You’re a heckuva player. If you had a coach, there’s no telling how good you
could be.’ “Despite his excellent prep career, Sanders said he was not recruited by LSU until “the last minute,” and after he did look at the Tigers, “I didn’t feel I could fit in with the guys on the team at that time.”Kentucky recruited him heavily, including a personal visit from then-head coach Joe B. Hall, but Sanders spurned the Wildcats because of his worries about them being on NCAA probation.

That left UCLA, Texas-El Paso and New Mexico, which had former DeRidder player Marvin Johnson.

“When I visited UCLA and looked at their winning tradition, all those national championship banners were a really big deal to me,” said Sanders, who is currently the head coach of the Washington (D.C.) Congressionals of the United States Basketball League.

Sanders was probably the key player in UCLA’s drive to the NCAA championship game in his sophomore season (1979-80).

Although just 6-6, he was inserted in the lineup at center when the Bruins were 8-6, and the team won 14 of its next 17 games to reach the title game against eventual champion Louisville. Sanders was voted the MVP of the NCAA West Regionals.

UCLA’s co-captain for two years, Sanders twice made the All-Pac 10 teamHe finished his career 15th on the Bruins’ career scoring list (1,210), fourth in career games (109), eighth in field-goal percentage (53.8), ninth in free-throw percentage (77.3) and 17th in career rebounds (577).

A history major, Sanders got his degree in four years with an overall 2.7 grade-point average.

He later played with the San Antonio Spurs, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns, where he became a double-digit scorer for 41/2 years.

Sanders also sandwiched two stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers around a one-season stay with the Indiana Pacers before retiring after the 1992-93 season.