On eve of NBA draft, yahoo remembers Bowie

The home page of yahoo.com on Thursday morning showcased a story on former college and professional basketball star and current Standardbred owner Sam Bowie as part of its “Where are they now?” series. With this year’s NBA draft taking place Thursday night in New York, the story focused on Bowie’s infamous selection in the 1984 draft coming out of the University of Kentucky, when he was the second overall pick by the Portland Trail Blazers—right ahead of Michael Jordan.

Although Bowie made the All-Rookie team his first year in the NBA, his career was plagued by injuries. The yahoo.com story told of Bowie’s NBA career that ended in 1995 as a Los Angeles Laker, and then talked about his career as a successful owner of Standardbreds. The story mentioned Bowie’s 6-year-old trotter Before He Cheats (and noted the name came from a hit Carrie Underwood song) and how the horse has “won Bowie hundreds of thousands of dollars.” (Before He Cheats is currently racing at Mohawk Racetrack in the Open Trot and has more than $600,000 in career earnings).

As for Bowie’s recognition in what yahoo.com called as “the greatest NBA draft bust ever,” the seven-footer said, “There’s a small part of you—and I think it’s human nature—that you want to man up, roll your sleeves up, dig your heels in and represent yourself. I personally feel elated that my game was to the point where someone thought of me worthy of the second pick, and I don’t feel I need to apologize by any means.”

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