BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY David Maurice Robinson (born August 6, 1965) is a retired American NBA basketball player, who played center for the San Antonio Spursfor his entire NBA career. Based on his prior service as an officer in the United States Navy, Robinson earned the nickname "The Admiral".
Robinson is a 10-time NBA All-Star, the 1995 NBA MVP, a two-time NBA Champion (1999 and 2003), a two-time Olympic Gold Medal winner (1992, 1996), a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (2009 for his individual career, 2010 as a member of the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team), and a two-time U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame inductee (2008 individually, 2009 as a member of the 1992 Olympic team).[1] He is widely considered one of the greatest centers in both college and NBA history.[2] To date, Robinson is the only player from Navy to play in the NBA.
Early life
David Robinson was born in Key West, Florida, the second child of Ambrose and Freda Robinson. Since Robinson's father was in the Navy, the family moved many times. After his father retired from the Navy, the family settled in Woodbridge, Virginia, where Robinson excelled in school and in most sports, except basketball. He was 5 feet, 9 inches tall in junior high school so he tried his hand at basketball, but soon quit. Robinson attended Osbourn Park High School in Manassas, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., where Robinson's father was working as an engineer after retiring from the Navy.
By his senior year in high school he was 6 feet, 6 inches tall, weighed 175 pounds, and had not played organized basketball or attended any basketball camps.[3] When the coach added the tall senior to the basketball team, Robinson earned all-area and all-district honors but generated little interest among college basketball coaches. Robinson scored a 1320 on the SAT, and chose to go to the United States Naval Academy, where he majored in mathematics.
College basketball career and military service
David Robinson is widely considered to be the best basketball player in Naval Academy history.[4] He chose the jersey number 50 after his idol Ralph Sampson. By the time he took the court in his first basketball game for the Navy Midshipmen men's basketball team, he had grown to 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m), and over the course of his college basketball career he grew to 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m).[5][6] He began college with no expectations of playing in the NBA,[3] but in Robinson's final two years he was a consensus All-America and won college basketball's two most prestigious player awards, the Naismith and Wooden Awards as a Naval Academy first classman (senior). Robinson played his first three years for the Midshipmen under Paul Evans (who left Navy to coach at Pitt) and under former University of Georgiainterim Head Coach Pete Herrmann during his senior season. Upon graduation, he became eligible for the 1987 NBA Draft and was selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the first overall pick; however, the Spurs had to wait two years because he had to fulfill his active-duty obligation with the Navy.
Robinson was 6 ft 8 in when he was admitted to the Naval Academy, two inches above the height limit, but received a waiver from the Superintendent of the Academy. Robinson considered leaving the academy after his second year, before incurring an obligation to serve in active duty. He decided to stay after discussing with the Superintendent the likelihood that his height would prevent serving at sea as an unrestricted line officer, hurting his naval career, and might make it impossible for him to be commissioned at all. As a compromise, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman placed Robinson in a program for trainingcivil engineers for the Naval Reserves that reduced his active-duty obligation to two years. After graduating from the Naval Academy, Robinson became a civil engineering officer at the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia.[5] He was regularly featured in recruiting materials for the service. Despite the nickname "Admiral", Robinson's actual rank upon fulfilling his service commitment was Lieutenant, Junior Grade.[7]
NBA career
Because he had not signed a contract, NBA regulations stated that Robinson could have reentered the draft after his naval service.[3] Although there was speculation that he might choose not to sign with the Spurs[8][9] Robinson agreed to move to San Antonio for the 1989-90 season, but the Spurs agreed to pay him as much as the average of the salaries of the two highest-paid players in the league each year, or release him to free agency.[3]
The Spurs had spent the second half of the 1980s as an also-ran, bottoming out in 1988–89 with a 21-61 record,[10] the worst in franchise history at the time. While it was widely thought that the Spurs would become respectable again once Robinson arrived, no one expected what happened in his rookie season. Robinson led the Spurs to the greatest single season turnaround in NBA history at the time[11] (a record the Spurs themselves broke in 1997-98, after drafting Tim Duncan, which was then broken by the Boston Celtics in the 2007–08 NBA season). The Spurs leaped to a record of 56–26 for a remarkable 35 game improvement. They advanced to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs where they lost in seven games to the eventual conference champion Portland Trail Blazers. Following the 1989–90 season, he was unanimously named the NBA rookie of the year, and subsequently Sega produced a game featuring him entitled David Robinson's Supreme Court.[citation needed]
The Spurs made the playoffs seven more seasons in a row. Robinson also made the 1992 US Olympic Dream Team that won the gold medal in Barcelona.[citation needed] During the 1993–94 season, he became locked in a duel for the NBA scoring title with Shaquille O'Neal, scoring 71 points (breaking George Gervin's single-game franchise record of 63) against the Los Angeles Clippers to win it.[12]
Robinson went on to win the MVP trophy in 1995, and in 1996 he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History.[13] Still, from 1991 to 1996, Robinson was thwarted in his quest to claim the one prize that had eluded him: an NBA title. During that span the Spurs were eliminated from the playoffs by the Warriors, Suns (twice), Jazz (twice), and Rockets. The loss against the Rockets was particularly painful for Robinson because it occurred in the Western Conference Finals with Robinson playing head-to-head against his chief rival, Hakeem Olajuwon. By his own admission, Robinson was outplayed by Olajuwon in the series, their only meetings in post-season play.
Early in the 1997 season, Robinson's dreams of becoming a champion seemed to vanish when he hurt his back in the preseason. He finally returned in December, but six games later broke his foot in a home game against the Miami Heat, and ended up missing the rest of the regular season. As a result of the injury to Robinson and other key players (most notably Sean Elliott, who missed more than half the season), the Spurs finished the season with a dismal 20–62 record. However, his injury proved to be a blessing in disguise.[according to whom?] Despite having only the third-worst record in the league, the Spurs won the NBA Draft Lottery—and with it, the first pick in the next year's NBA draft. They used that pick to select Tim Duncan out of Wake Forest University, who was, after a few years, the final key to Robinson's quest for an NBA title.[citation needed]
Champion
Before the start of the 1998–99 season, the NBA owners and NBA commissioner David Stern locked out the NBA Players' Association to force negotiations on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. This lockout lasted for 202 days, well into the regular NBA season, before an agreement was finally reached.[citation needed] After playing a truncated 50-game season, the Spurs finished with an NBA-best record of 37–13, giving them the home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
The Spurs blitzed through the first three rounds of the NBA playoffs, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers, and Portland Trail Blazers by a combined record of 11–1 to reach the NBA Finals for the first time ever.[citation needed] In the Finals, the combination of Robinson in the post and second-year, 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m) Tim Duncan proved overpowering, the Spurs beat the underdog New York Knicks in five games to become the first former American Basketball Association team to win an NBA title. Duncan was named Finals MVP.[14]
Robinson and teammate power forward Tim Duncan were nicknamed "The Twin Towers" (before the September 11 attacks).
Champion again[edit]
Robinson announced he would retire from basketball after the 2002–03 season.[15]
On June 15, 2003, in the finale to Robinson's career, the Spurs won another NBA title with an 88–77 victory over the New Jersey Nets in Game 6 of the 2003 NBA Finals. Turning back the clock, Robinson scored 13 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in his final game for the Spurs.[citation needed] He and the year's regular season and NBA Finals MVP Tim Duncan shared Sports Illustratedmagazine's 2003 Sportsmen of the Year award.
Robinson averaged 21.1 points per game, 10.7 rebounds per game, 3 blocks per game, and 2.5 assists per game over 987 games in his NBA career. Also, he is one of only a very small group of players to have scored over 20,000 career points in the NBA, as well as being one of only four players to have recorded a quadruple-double[11] (with 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, and 10 blocks against the Detroit Pistons on February 17, 1994).
He is also one of the only five players to record more than 70 points in a single game (with 71 points against the Los Angeles Clippers on April 24, 1994.[16] Only Elgin Baylor (71 points), Wilt Chamberlain (70, 72, 73 twice, 78, 100 points), David Thompson (73 points), and Kobe Bryant (81 points) have scored more than 70 points in a single game.[17]
Robinson is also noteworthy for his harmonious relationship with Tim Duncan. Sportswriter Chris Sheridan noted that it was rare for someone like Robinson to have welcomed and mentored Duncan as willingly as he did.[18]
International career[
David Robinson was a member of the United States men's national basketball team at the 1986 FIBA World Championship, the 1988 Summer Olympics, 1992 Summer Olympics, and the 1996 Summer Olympics. He won the gold medal at all games except the 1988 Summer Olympics, where he won a bronze medal.
Personal life, philanthropy and business[edit]
Robinson married his wife Valerie (Hoggatt) in 1991. They have three sons, David Jr., Corey and Justin. He readily identifies his religious affiliation as Christian.[19] Corey Robinson attends Notre Dame and is a member of the football team, playing wide receiver.[20]
In 2001, Robinson founded and funded the $9 million Carver Academy in San Antonio, a non-profit private school named for George Washington Carver to provide more opportunities for inner-city children. In 2012, the school became a public charter school and its name changed to IDEA Carver. Robinson continues to be a very active participant in the school's day-to-day activities.[21][22][23]
In 2011, Robinson earned a Master of Arts in Administration (with concentration in organizational development) from the University of the Incarnate Word to better "understand how businesses work and how to build them.".[24]
Robinson is the co-founder of Admiral Capital Group, founded to "combine an interest in private equity (with) a desire to make a positive social impact with the overall goal of creating a long-term sustainable business." Its portfolio is over $100 million in worth and now includes nine upscale hotels and office buildings across the U.S. as well as Centerplate, one of the largest hospitality companies in the world, and Academy Sports + Outdoors, a sports, outdoors and lifestyle retailer with over 160 stores.[25][26]
Beyond his founding of Carver Academy, Robinson is well known as a philanthropist. Robinson and business partner Daniel Bassichis donate 10 percent of their profits to charitable causes.[24]
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