Bill Hanzlik
Episode 223
8 MAY 2023
He was an NBA first round draft pick, being chosen 20th overall by the Seattle Supersonics, playing two seasons with them and then eight with the Denver Nuggets. During that time, he earned an NBA All-Defensive Second Team honor and would go on to serve as an assistant coach with the Charlotte Hornets and the Atlanta Hawks before becoming the head coach of the Denver Nuggets. He had played his college basketball at Notre Dame, helping lead the Fighting Irish to the Final Four, and was selected for the 1980 U.S. Men’s Olympic Team, although they did not compete due to the Americans’ boycott of the Moscow Games. Many years later he received a Congressional Medal of Honor created especially for those athletes. Present day he does pre- and post-game TV for the Denver Nuggets game broadcasts, and he is the CEO and Co-Founder of the Gold Crown Foundation, a non-profit whose tagline is, “Preparing kids for the game of life.”
Notable guest quotes:
“I grew up in the Catholic faith… my mom would cart us off on Sunday to go to church. The Catholic faith, she said, that’s what we were gonna do and that’s what we did.”
“I ended up going to a Catholic school called St. Ignatius… so that was part of building my faith.”
“I started my freshman year and part of my sophomore year still in Mobile (Alabama), went to McGill–Toolen Catholic High School there, before moving out west. So, all those were instrumental in my Catholic faith and how it just evolved.”
“The great thing about basketball, if you didn’t know anybody, you had a ball you went to a park or a gym you could play by yourself, you could play with one other person, two others, it was sort of the common ground that created a language that you talked with others with and made friends.”
“Everybody’s life sort of has this story to tell and somehow when you look back you go, ‘Oh, God had a plan in this! Okay, now I got what He was trying to tell me’.”
“My faith grew there. It’s great, every dorm had a chapel and Mass, and you became friends with, there was usually a priest assigned to each dorm, and you became friends with those. And then the basketball, before every game we had probably a 20-, 25-minute Mass.”
“It evolved. Like everything else in life, the struggles and the different things that go on, I think my prayer life grew and I realized what really is important in life. Yeah, it’s great playing in the NBA and all that going on, but that’s not what life’s about.”
“As we’d go to major cities around the country and play games, play other teams, especially on Sunday, I would try to go to the cathedrals and, I don’t know how many, there are thirty teams in the league, I probably hit 25 cathedrals in different cities and it’s just so interesting the different ones, and I would just do it on my own.”
“We serve about 18 thousand kids in sports and enrichment programs… We try to fill voids. And our mission statement is educating youth through sports and enrichment… We’re very big about life skills.”
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