Bob Love

In May, Novelchick, the little one and myself are going to Seattle for a vacation. Novelchick loves it there and I have never been, so when AirTran announced their new service there, I jumped at the opportunity to use my AirTran credits for some free flights.

The flagship Nordstrom's is in Seattle. This reminds me of the story about Bob Love. Bob Love was a basketball player for the Chicago Bulls in the 70's, who also happened to be a severe stutterer. He played his college ball for Southern University where he was a friend of my academic advisor (the wonderful Dr. Harold Joseph) at Clayton State University where I received my undergraduate degree in Accounting. This is where I first heard Bob Love's story.

Bob Love played with the Chicago Bulls in the 70's. He led the team in scoring 7 times, something of an accomplishment considering his teammates included Jerry Sloan, Norm Van Lier and Chet "the Jet" Walker. After a bad back forced him out of the NBA - an injury serious enough that doctors told him he might never walk again - his wife left him, saying as she walked out the door, that she "did not want to be married to a cripple and a stutterer." Though he recovered physically, he found few attractive job opportunities. He eventually landed a job as a busboy at Nordstrom's in Seattle. You can imagine what an embarrassing time in his life this was - from former NBA All-Star to a middle-age busboy. However he performed his busboy duties to the best of his abilities which attracted the attention of a Nordstrom executive, who offered to pay for Love to undergo speech therapy.

As time went on, Love was able to attain a great deal of fluency. Love became fluent enough that in the early 90's, the Chicago Bulls called and offered him the position of Director of Community Relations. In the years since then, he has become a very highly paid promotional speaker. The Bulls retired his jersey in 1994 (he is the second leading scored in their history - behind some Jordan guy) and Love got remarried in 1995 (during halftime of a Bulls - Spurs game).