Gary Hooker played only one season at Murray State, but it was one many Racer fans will never forget. Hooker was a three-year regular at Mississippi State but followed Ron Greene to Murray for his senior season. That year saw Hooker score 18.6 points and grab 12.3 rebounds a game for the Racers, who went from a 4-22 team the year before to produce a 23-8 season, the best turnaround in the nation. Hooker and freshman guard Lamont Sleets led Murray State to the NIT quarterfinals, winning road games at Jacksonville and Alabama before falling in a two-point contest at Illinois. Below is a feature story written by Barry Forbis of The Paducah Sun as Hooker was sitting out his transfer season. -- TT

Respect for Greene drew Hooker to MSU

By Barry Forbis
The Paducah Sun
Feb. 11, 1979

MURRAY, Ky. -- Gary Hooker smiled as he recalled his first meeting with Ron Greene. "I was kinda scared. He was a big man. He was tough. I remember thinking, 'Man, we're gonna have some problems.'"

Gary Hooker grabs a rebound against Alabama in the 1980 NIT. (Paducah Sun photo)

They did. Hooker, probably the most talented athlete on Mississippi State's 1977-78 team, was a showboat and a goof-off. He clowned around during practice. He made faces at officials. He was often late for practice. He skipped classes, nearly flunking out his first two years.

Mississippi State Coach Ron Greene, on the other hand, was a strict disciplinarian and a firm believer in making his players hit the books as well as the boards.

Hooker was a street kid from Harlem, a skinny 6-foot-5, 180 pounder who went to Mississippi State for two reasons. To play basketball and to see green pastures instead of concrete. Hooker grew up on 125th and Amsterdam Avenue, three blocks from the Apollo Theatre where all the black performers have appeared. He began playing sports at age seven and narrowed his interests to basketball by age nine. His father bought him a basketball, a luxury for kids in his neighborhood, when he was nine, but it was stolen two days later. He never got another.

Greene, on the other hand, grew up in Middle America. A star at Gerstmeyer High School in Terre Haute, Ind., and later a three-year letterman at Murray State, Greene represented everything that middle class and middle age stands for. He was white, articulate, happily married, father of three with another child on the way. He even loved Oreo cookies.

Hooker and Greene were contrasting figures last year at Mississippi State. When the two clashed, Greene won. Hooker, a starter in his freshman and sophomore years under Coach Kermit Davis, sat on the bench in his first year under Greene.

"He didn't like it," said Greene. "He didn't like it at all. No player does. But he didn't pout. He tried to win his position back, which is what a great player will do."

Instead of making a new enemy, Greene won a new friend. "I respect him," said Hooker, "because he treated me as an individual."

Hooker's respect for Greene, and his desire to get his diploma his coach always pushed him toward, brought him to Murray State when Greene took the head coaching job last spring.

Hooker is on the sidelines now, sitting out the one-year waiting period for transfers. He's been doing some running, working out with the team and, for a change, studying.

After a workout Friday afternoon in the Sports Arena, Hooker reflected on his special relationship with Greene.

"He's been like a father to me," said Hooker. "He tells me not what to do, but how to go about it.

"He's been very good to me. He's more than just a coach. Any kind of problem I got I can go to him. This Christmas, I didn't have any funds to get home, and he said, 'Do you want to go?' He said, 'I'll loan you the money to get home if you'll pay me back when you get back.' So he put me on the bus, and I went back home to see my family."

While Hooker is away at school, Greene and assistant coach Steve Newton have become like family for him. "I enjoyed Starkville," Hooker said, "but when Coach Greene left I didn't know anybody but Coach Newton. And when he left, I thought I'd follow.

"Coach Newton went up into the ghetto and got me. He said I've got the ability and they could teach me how to use it. He could talk to my father, and that's something most people can't do. He told him I probably wouldn't be home for four years, but they'd take care of me."

Ron Greene teaches basketball. (Paducah Sun photo)

And just as Hooker can talk with his adopted family, he now can talk with his real family. "My father used to tell me what to do and how to do it," he said. "But last Christmas, he treated me like a man. Of course, Coach Greene had been doing that since I met him."

Greene said his approach to Hooker and the problems he presented was no accident. "I've had Gary Hookers most of my career," he said. "One thing I've learned about communicating with the black athlete is that with most of them, especially the city kids, you have to take a real honest approach. So many times they've been conned. They just don't trust anyone."

Hooker does trust Greene, and he has had a lot of confidence in Greene's ability to rescue Murray State from the throes of basketball mediocrity. "Coach Greene taught me a lot in one year," he said. "He doesn't talk about the whole game. He talks about bits and pieces. He talks about every little molecule, every little atom, and he builds on that through the year. Sometimes it takes a while, but you'll learn it.

"Now, I'm not a genius, but if anybody's got half the sense I got, they can learn as much as I did in a year. Coach Greene's not getting older; he's getting wiser.

"He can set up plays that will get you as close as you want to the basket. If you just run it, it will work. He can get you a good shot, but once the ball goes in the air, it's out of his hands. He can't put it in for you."

Hooker probably will be one of the men to "put it in" next year. At Mississippi State, he scored 1,144 points in his first three years, averaging 14.3 points a game. He shot 47.9 percent from the field, including a 56.1 percent average last year.

"I'm looking for a good season, No. 1 or No. 2 in the OVC," he said. "Maybe we've got a chance here to put Murray on the map. If Murray State does happen to win the OVC next year, maybe people are going to look at me and say, 'Hooker, you turned 'em around.'

"It's going to be my last year, and I've got to go out with a bang. If I can leave my heart and soul out here, that's what I'm going to do."

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