Tyrone “Muggsy” Bouges says the last visions of his friend and one-time teammate Reggie Lewis will always be engrained in his memory.
Bouges was a guard for the Charlotte Hornets on April 29, 1993, when his team faced Lewis and the Boston Celtics in the first round of the NBA’s Eastern Conference playoffs.
Lewis, in his first year as the Celtics team captain, came out ready to play. He scored 17 points in just 13 minutes on 7-of-11 shooting. But, Lewis would not finish what he started. A short time later in the game he collapsed on the court of the famous parquet floor of the Boston Garden.
It would be his last game. Less than three months later — 15 years ago today to be exact — Lewis collapsed again and died during an off-season workout on a basketball court at Brandeis University. He was just 27 years old.
Even after 15 years, Bouges can’t believe Lewis, who teamed with him at Dunbar High School in Baltimore during the early 1980s, is gone.
“It was just sad to see it happen, especially being there playing him in what turned out to be his last game,” Bouges said. “Reggie was just calm, cool and collected and you didn’t know until you looked at the scorebook that he had 30 points.”
Lewis’ death eventually was attributed to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a structural heart defect that is often linked to the deaths of young, seemingly healthy athletes.
The death of the 6-foot-7 small forward came just as he seemed ready to join the NBA’s elite. Lewis averaged 17.6 points in his career and 20.8 points a game over his final two seasons. He made his lone all-star team in 1992.
The spotlight was something Lewis never sought. He actually came off the bench at Dunbar when the Poets captured their mythical national championship in 1983 with a team that also included Bouges and fellow former NBA player Reggie Williams.
“It was unbelievable,” Bouges said. “It was a team that no team like it has been assembled since then. Just the personal relationships we had with each other made it more a special team.”
Lewis then went on to play college ball at Northeastern University in Boston before the Celtics selected him with the 22nd pick in the 1987 draft. That draft also included Bouges and Williams, who were picked by the Washington Bullets and L.A. Clippers, respectively.
Once with the Celtics, Lewis was again a complementary player on a roster that included current Hall of Famers Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish.
“Reggie was a humble guy,” Bouges said. “The type of talent he had was something special. His humble nature allowed him to come off the bench instead of being a starter. That bettered our team.”
But when Bird retired in 1992, it was Lewis who the Celtics turned to with hopes of winning a 17th NBA title.
Unfortunately, his death helped accelerate the downturn of the once proud franchise, which struggled to keep pace with teams like Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls.
The Celtics languished at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings for years until finally winning the NBA title this season. Ironically, another former Dunbar player – guard Sam Cassell – was on that team.
Lewis’ death also came just seven years after the death of Len Bias, the one-time University of Maryland superstar who died of a cocaine overdose less than 48 hours after being selected by the Celtics with the second pick in the draft. Coincidentally, there was speculation that the damage to Lewis’ heart damage was due to cocaine use, although that theory was never proven.
But for Bob Wade, Lewis’ high school coach, any speculation regarding his death cannot undo all of the good Lewis did in his life or diminish his legacy since his death.
Lewis’ No. 35 jersey is now retired by the Celtics and his name lives on today off the court through his Reggie Lewis Foundation, which is based in Massachusetts.
“Reggie’s legacy for young people coming up is to never give up. He was the sixth man on our team,” said Wade, who is now the supervisor of athletics for Baltimore City Public School System. “But when the opportunity was given to him, he took advantage of it and used it to give back to the community.”
Ron Snyder is a staff writer with The Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]
