Dom Amore: Hartford basketball icon Johnny Egan fighting off the harsh winter in Houston with his iron will

Hartford Courant (CT)

Near record cold temperatures, power outages and rolling blackouts. John Egan has been through quite a time in Houston. And that’s not even mentioning the COVID-19 pandemic.

“On Jan. 31, I turned 82 years old,” he says, just as plumbers arrive at the front door to look at his busted pipe. “I told my neighbors, ‘Don’t they know I’m in my 80s?’ This is a monster, man. I’m 80 years old. Come on.”

He laughs because what array of foes has yet been formidable enough to sink Johnny Egan? Sure, the icon of Hartford’s basketball history is 82, but even as he’s had to sleep with extra blankets lately, he rises early each morning, does a little yoga, picks up the basketball beside his bed and does a few drills with it, and then does pushups. After, that he does 35 finger-tip pushups, the exercise that strengthened the hands big enough to palm a basketball.

Sure, he is 82, but through a spirited conversation, you can almost feel him reach through the phone and poke one of those steel fingertips in your chest when he wants to emphasize his point. Maybe he couldn’t leap over Kristaps Porzingis or Karl-Anthony Towns and score the way he once did at 5-feet-11, against Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell — there are photos to prove it — but he’s irrepressible as ever. March comes in like a lion, and he’s a lion in the winter.

“I could stand under the basket, take one step and dunk it, and at 5-11, that ain’t easy,” Egan says. “They used to say, ‘Egan’s a freak.’ I used to float in the air. I could jump, and I’d float in the air a long time.”

We’re into March now, and March was Egan’s month long before they called it March Madness. That time he scored 36 points at the Boston Garden to complete Weaver High’s undefeated season with the New England championship, that was March 1957. That time he led Providence to the NIT title, which was then tantamount to the national championship, that was March 1961 at the old Madison Square Garden. The wild rides and celebrations, the month of March and its moments, it all belonged to Egan. And for those around here old enough to remember the kid from Branford Street, it all still does.

“I guess I really started to play when I was in the sixth grade,” he says. “I played against good competition, the older guys. We had Charlie Horvath as our coach [at Weaver], and he was an ex-Marine and a disciplinarian. We had Doc Hurley at Keney Park — big, strong Doc, nobody was going to mess with him, so no one really jacked around.”

Egan’s leaping and flying prompted his high school buddies to call him “Space,” which came easily enough to mind in the era of Sputnik. Weaver won state titles in 1956 and ’57. The culmination was the New England final against Lawrence Central Catholic on March 16, 1957, with Red Auerbach and Sam Jones from the Celtics looking on. Egan scored four points in the first half, 20 in the second, made two free throws with 4 seconds left to force overtime, then scored 12 more to clinch the 85-72 victory.

“We went to overtime, and this is miracle work, there was no 3-point line and we scored 20 points in three minutes,” Egan says.

When the team got back to Weaver, Egan, a Parade All-American, nearly had his suit ripped off by frenzied fans. “Those people were something else, man,” Egan says. “They just appreciated what we did. How’ya going to beat that? Storybook stuff.”

He went to a basketball camp with Bob Cousy, who told him he should go to Providence College. “’You could put ‘em on the map,’’ Egan says. “That was his statement to me. Pretty potent statement. And he was right on the money.”

After their campus visit, Egan’s father Patrick, who was born in Ireland, turned to him in the car and said, “Johnny me boy, I think this is the place for you.” And it was settled. Egan became a Friar.

“People don’t believe it, but we had to wear jackets and ties to class,” he says. “And freshmen had to wear a beanie. It said ‘Providence College’ on it.”

At Providence, where he teamed for a time in the backcourt with Lenny Wilkens, Egan scored 1,434 points in 80 games, 17.9 per game. The Friars reached the NIT semifinals in 1959, the finals in ’60. In the 1961 NIT, Egan dropped 34 on DePaul in the first round, then 23 against Niagara and 29 against Holy Cross in the semifinals. George Blaney, yes, that George Blaney had scored for Holy Cross to send that one to OT. Egan was held to nine points in the final, but Providence defeated St. Louis.

“They had busloads of people, and when we came back, they were just standing there, cheering,” Egan says. “It was amazing.”

Egan played in the NBA from 1961-72, making what is now called a “floater” his signature shot. Then he coached the Rockets to the playoffs in 1975.

“They talk about the old guys like us like we couldn’t do anything,” he says. “Huh? Are you kidding? I was the smallest guy in the league for 10 years. Believe this: I never had a shot blocked. I invented the alley-oop shot. When I played with the Lakers, [announcer] Chick Hearn labeled my shot the ‘alley-oop,’ and Russell couldn’t block it, and he could block anybody’s shot. Sam Jones told me once, ‘Russell told me you were the only one he couldn’t block.’ And when I was with the Lakers and Wilt was there, every now and then in practice, I’d have him stand under the basket and I’d say, ‘Try to block this,’ and he couldn’t.’ I had big hands. I could palm the ball. I’d take it off the dribble and continued the floater, the alley-oop shot.”

Egan, though, would still rather brag about his high school sweetheart and wife, Joan Grimaldi Egan, a cheerleader who became a standout in anything she tried later on, including golf, piano, art. “She went from one thing to the next to the next, and she always went to the top,” he says.

When he decided in 1976 he’d had enough of the basketball lifestyle, Joan wanted to settle in Houston, so plans to build a home overlooking Wethersfield Country Club were scrapped and Egan went into the insurance business.

Johnny lost the love of his life to ovarian cancer in 1998 at age 57.

“Wicked stuff,” he says. “She had it, and 14 months later, she died. It was brutal. It really was.”

He began going to a Starbucks near his home every morning, introducing himself to people. Soon he became mayor of the coffee shop, the leader of a group of regulars who chip in money and organize charitable work. Each Christmas, they reward the store’s hardworking staff. “We’ve got truck drivers, attorneys, doctors,” he says. “It’s a mixture, man.” This past year, he collected $6,500 at the door and everyone got $250.

During the pandemic, Johnny’s son and daughter have kept close watch, making sure he has groceries, getting him a treadmill and stationary bike so he wouldn’t risk going to his health club. He’s gotten both his COVID-19 vaccine shots. “A couple of weeks, I’ll be bullet proof,” he says.

He’ll still offer basketball lessons, mostly to youngsters. If you’re starting to think they just don’t make ‘em like Egan anymore, you’ll get no argument here. And probably none from him.

“It’s what winning does for you,” he says. “I tell the kids, you want to be No. 1. You don’t have to brag about it, but if you start bragging about it, you can tell the people, ‘It’s not bragging. It’s fact.’”

Dom Amore can be reached at [email protected]

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