Orlando Woolridge

Sport: Basketball

Induction Year: 2010

Induction Year: 2010

O, goodness, Woolridge was destined for Hall of Fame

By Roy Lang III

The Shreveport Times

Perhaps no one had a better view than Digger Phelps.

The former college basketball coaching star at Notre Dame and current TV analyst has seen Orlando Woolridge come full circle.

Phelps met Woolridge as a budding eight grader and soon recruited the Bernice native to Notre Dame out of Mansfield High School. After a successful career with the Fighting Irish, Phelps witnessed Woolridge as one of few to team up with both Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan on the NBA hardwood.

The lean 6-foot-9, 215-pounder was an integral part of the slam-dunk era. The sharp-shooting first-round pick (sixth overall) of the 1981 NBA Draft went on to play for seven teams over 13 seasons and averaged 16 points per game before retiring in 1994.

Now, Phelps has even seen Woolridge’s offspring start the cycle all over again.

Throughout the years, Phelps hasn’t been surprised at anything the Woolridge surname has accomplished.

“Orlando was a complete player,” said Phelps.

Only a trip out of the country will prevent Phelps from witnessing now-50-year-old Woolridge’s latest feat – induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, June 26 in Natchitoches. For more information and to purchase tickets to the Induction Dinner and Ceremonies, visit the www.lasportshall.com website or call 318-238-4250.

Superstar lineage, a confident game and obviously athletic prowess helped Woolridge get noticed early in Mansfield. Willis Reed, an NBA legend and also a Bernice native, paved the way to the University of Notre Dame.

“When I was coaching in (Madison Square) Garden at Notre Dame, Willis Reed was the GM of the Knicks,” Phelps said. “He told me, my cousin is a good player down in Mansfield.”

Good was putting it mildly.

Woolridge scored 3,036 points (22.0 per game) and grabbed 1,945 rebounds (14 per game) in his prep career, including averages of 21 points and 25 rebounds as a senior at Mansfield. He played his first three seasons at nearby All Saints High School.

He was the state Player of the Year as a senior, when he won his third straight all-district honor and was co-captain of the Wolverines. Woolridge had career highs of 52 points and 41 rebounds in high school. Across the Red River in rural Ashland, was another talented big man, 6-8 Ernest Reliford (later a standout at Northwestern State).

“He was for real,” remembers Reliford, a year younger than Woolridge. “He was a very versatile player for a high school kid.  He had all the tools… could jump, shoot, very athletic.  He was just an all-around great player who just worked really hard.  I would like to brag about playing against him.  That only happened once.  It was a good game, but they beat us.” 

After the Irish checked Woolridge’s grades and scores, the recruiting process began. Woolridge enrolled at Notre Dame in 1977.

“Willis and I are great friends,” Phelps said, “Willis Reed is the real reason we got Orlando at Notre Dame.”

Notre Dame advanced to the Final Four during Woolridge’s freshman season. However, “O,” one of five freshmen for the Fighting Irish, didn’t see playing time.

“We had a guy named Bill Laimbeer, does that ring a bell?” Phelps said. The Irish also had Bruce Flowers and Dave Batton.

“He wasn’t ready,” Phelps said. “With that front line in front of him, it wasn’t his turn.”

However, superstar upperclassmen and stout classmates couldn’t keep Woolridge at bay for long.

Woolridge averaged in double-figures in scoring during his final three seasons at Notre Dame. As a senior captain in 1980-81, he averaged 14.4 points and six rebounds per game while leading the Irish to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in his four years. He is also one of 50 Notre Dame players to notch at least 1,000 career points, totaling 1,160 points and 500 rebounds in 190 games.

“He just kept growing,” Phelps said. “And with confidence he became a better player. By the time he was a senior, he was a first-round draft pick.”

Woolridge had plenty of memorable moments at Notre Dame. He sank a couple of clutch free throws with 19 seconds left in double overtime to defeat DePaul. He also corralled a loose-ball rebound and nailed the game-winning shot to beat No. 1 Virginia.

“Ralph Sampson is the (Virginia) center and we’re playing in Rosemont Horizon,” Woolridge said in a recent interview. “We’re down by one with 5 seconds left in a nationally-televised game and the clock’s tickin’. (Kelly) Tripucka gets a shot, it goes in the corner, I run out and catch it, shoot it from 3-point land — boom! – it’s in, we win. Upset Virginia, the No. 1 team in the nation, and I did that.”

The Chicago Bulls selected Woolridge in 1981 and he subsequently enjoyed a 851-game career and averaged more than 20 points per game during four seasons.

 “You get a guy ready for four years and he’s ready to play and survive in the NBA,” Phelps said. “That’s what’s missing with one-and-done guys these days.”

Before long, Woolridge was joined by rookie Michael Jordan.

During Jordan’s rookie season (1984-85), Woolridge averaged 22.9 points/game and the duo averaged more than 51 points per game.

Woolridge says the Jordan moment that stands out came during the 1986 playoffs when the Bulls faced Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics in the first round.

“Before the game, Jordan was saying he had migraine headaches,” Woolridge said.

“And we’re sitting there going, ‘You can’t have headaches now, we got the Celtics!’ He said, ‘Well I’ll try, see if I can’t focus.’ He goes out, sets the playoff record and scores 63. I told him, ‘I’m gonna hit you in the head before every game if you’re gonna play like that!'”

It may come as a surprise, but Woolridge doesn’t rank Jordan among the three best dunkers in basketball history.

“Dominique Wilkins, Shawn Kemp and Dr. J,” he said.

Woolridge wound up as a teammate to Magic Johnson with the Los Angeles Lakers from 1988-90.

Woolridge came off the bench under coach Pat Riley and ranked fifth in the league with a 55.6 field-goal percentage during the 1989-90 season.

Woolridge was eventually reunited with Laimbeer as a member of the Detroit Pistons.

“Laimbeer’s the type guy that you really want to go to war with,” Woolridge said. “I mean he’s a guy that’s gonna put it all out there on the line, he’s gonna give you 150 percent of his effort, but he’s gonna do it in such a jerk way, OK? But you can’t help but to give him his respect. Here’s a guy who couldn’t jump, couldn’t run very fast, had a 13- , 14-year (NBA) career, has championship rings, and also as a coach in the WNBA has championship rings. So I gotta give props to my alumni brother.”

Following his NBA retirement, Woolridge tried his hand at European hoops. He then entered the coaching fraternity with the L.A. Sparks of the WNBA (1998-99). His most recent coaching stints came in the ABA and now he runs basketball camps in Houston.

One son, 6-8 Renaldo Woolridge, currently plays for the University of Tennessee Volunteers. Another son, 6-2 Royce Woolridge, will play for Kansas next season.

“We were doing College GameDay at Tennessee and I’m just rolling my eyes,” Phelps said. “Renaldo looks just like him. He reminds me so much of “O.”

Orlando has two other accomplished offspring:  Zach Woolridge played basketball and graduated from the School of Engineering at Princeton in 2008, and Tiana Wooldridge is a rising senior basketball prospect at Harvard Westlake School in North Hollywood, Calif