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Message: [QUOTE="BillSU, post: 1769253"] Did anyone know this? I never knew watching him drive, jump so high and score many points playing in Manley that there was an issue with Dave. Turns out he didn’t let it make a difference. Amazing! History for the newbies first. You want an immediate result - scroll down to Detroit. Contemporary Black Biography | 2007 COPYRIGHT 2005 Thomson Gale. [B]Dave Bing[/B] [B]1943–[/B] [B]Basketball player, business executive[/B] The image of the millionaire professional athlete is a familiar one. But Dave Bing, though he came from modest origins to become one of basketball's all-time greats and a wealthy man, matches none of the stereotypes. Bing's position as a leader of Detroit's business community and as one of the most successful African-American executives in the nation may owe something to his fame as an athlete, but much more to ambition, acumen, and hard work. Born on November 23, 1943, Bing grew up in a poor neighborhood in Washington, D.C. His family provided Bing with a solid foundation. His parents "had old-fashioned values," Bing explained to Rick Telander of [I]Sports Illustrated[/I]. Bing absorbed those values from his family and learned others, notably teamwork and long-term thinking, from his high school basketball coach. William Roundtree, the coach at Spingarn High in Washington, D.C., believed in teamwork above all. "If I'd had a different philosophy," Roundtree conceded to Telander, "David could have scored 40 points a game." As it was, Bing's statistics were conspicuous enough to get him named to the [I]Senior Scholastic[/I] High School All-America team and recruited by Syracuse University in 1962. Became Professional Basketball Player Already interested in business, Bing majored in economics and marketing at Syracuse. On the basketball court, he was an All-American, averaging 24.8 points per game over four years and setting a school scoring record that stood for more than 20 years. Never an exceptionally accurate shooter, especially at long ranges, Bing achieved his scoring prowess with his talent for getting past defenders and by taking many shots—sometimes 30 or more a game. At six feet, three inches, he was considered small for the National Basketball Association (NBA), but what a [I]Time[/I] correspondent called his "whippet-like speed and agility" as well as his extraordinary jumping ability made him the number two pick when the Detroit Pistons drafted him upon his graduation in 1966. Bing came to the Pistons as something of a consolation prize: the hapless Detroit team had finished the previous season in a last-place tie with the New York Knicks and hoped to revitalize itself by drafting University of Michigan star Cazzie Russell. When the team lost a coin toss with the Knicks, Russell went to New York and the Pistons had to "settle" for Bing. A year later it was obvious that the Pistons had no need to console themselves; Russell was still struggling to establish himself, while Bing was named Rookie of the Year and averaged 20 points a game, finishing 10th in the league in scoring. In his second season, Bing scored 2,142 points to lead the NBA, averaging 27.1 per game and several times shooting over 30 points. He was chosen to start in the All-Star game, the first of seven All-Star appearances, and almost single-handedly lifted the Pistons out of the East Division cellar for the first time in years. [B]He went on to become one of basketball's dominant guards, scoring 18,327 points in his 12 seasons—including 54 shot in a single game—and making 5,397 assists, enough to place him 24th and 12th, respectively, in the all-time rankings for those categories in 1991.[/B] In 1975 Bing was traded to the Washington Bullets, his hometown team, and though he was past his prime, he played in all 82 games of the 1975–76 season and was named Most Valuable Player of the 1976 All-Star game. He spent two years with the Bullets, then decided to retire from basketball in 1978 after a year with the Boston Celtics. When he left the game, the Pistons retired his number, 21, making him the first Piston to be so honored. clickondetroit.com December 2, 2015 [B]DETROIT[/B] - He served as Detroit mayor from 2009-2013 and played for the Pistons from 1966-1975. With most of his life in a high profile public position you might think you know everything about Dave Bing. There's just one big secret he hoped no one would find out until now. [B]"I'm blind in one eye," said Bing in an exclusive sit down interview with Local 4's Evrod Cassimy. "All I can see is light out of the eye. I can't make anything out." The former mayor managed a successful career not only in office but also on the basketball court with only one good eye. It all started when he was a kid. "I had an accident when I was five years old," he explained. "I was playing a game and fell on a nail and it hit me on the eye. We were a pretty poor family so you know, the insurance wasn't there to take me to the hospital. So the eye healed on its own and I've had blurred vision since I was five years old." Growing up playing baseball and then basketball was a challenge. "All I can see is light out of the eye. I can't make anything out," he added.[/B] But he never wanted anyone to know, especially his opponents when he played professional ball. "I didn't want anybody to feel sorry for me number one. And I was a competitor. I wasn't about to let my opponents know that I had this injury because they would take advantage of it and so I just kept it quiet. I didn't talk about it. When I had to go take eye tests sometimes I cheated because I would memorize some of the letters and so some of the doctors didn't know really." [/QUOTE]

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