Sidney Wicks cannot imagine a more rewarding college experience than the one that ushered him into adulthood in the late 1960s and early '70s.
It was an era of tumultuous social change in the United States, and much of it took root on college campuses.
"It was probably one of the most critical times in our country's history," the former UCLA basketball star says from his home outside Wilmington, N.C. "There was student unrest, black awareness, a cultural and sexual revolution."
And in Westwood, of course, there was UCLA basketball, a dynasty under John Wooden that thrived amid the chaos.
"We had to deal with all these things going on outside our house while still taking care of business as student-athletes," Wicks says. "It was a great time to be in L.A. and to be a Bruin.
"We were very successful."
Wicks, arguably the greatest power forward in UCLA history, helped the Bruins win three consecutive NCAA titles, Nos. 3, 4 and 5 in their record-breaking run of seven in a row.
A sidekick to Lew Alcindor as a sophomore in the 1968-69 season, the 6-foot-8 Wicks jumped to the forefront as the Bruins' leading scorer and rebounder in his junior and senior seasons, bridging the gap between Alcindor and Bill Walton and earning national player-of-the-year honors in 1971. In his three seasons, UCLA was 86-4.
"It was the best of times," says Wicks, who will be honored along with other members of the Bruins' 1969 championship team Saturday at Pauley Pavilion. "My experience there as a player, as a student, as a person . . . was unbelievable -- topped by being around the greatest coach in the history of athletics."
Not surprisingly, Wicks was never able to replicate the experience during 10 seasons in the NBA.
The No. 2 pick in the 1971 draft, he was rookie of the year in his first season with the fledgling Portland Trail Blazers and made the All-Star game in each of his first four. But after averaging 24.5 points and 11.5 rebounds as a rookie, Wicks saw his scoring average decline in each of his next nine seasons, the last five with the Boston Celtics and then-San Diego Clippers.
When he retired in 1981, he had appeared in only nine playoff games -- only one of his teams made the playoffs and just two even had winning records -- and was generally regarded as having fallen short of living up to his enormous potential. As the late Stu Inman, a former Trail Blazers executive, later told the Portland Tribune, "I would have drawn the conclusion he would have had a much better career."
