Ex-Gaels standout didn’t miss exit signs

After winning the 1957 Indianapolis 500, Sam Hanks pulled into Victory Lane, lowered his grease-stained goggles, kissed his wife, took a swig of victory milk -- and retired. It doesn't get any better than winning the Indy 500, Hanks figured. So he quit. It might have been the quintessential example of knowing when to say when.

Some guys know when to say when. A lot of guys don't.

Marvelous Marvin Hagler knew when to say when. He retired from boxing with his faculties intact and became a movie star in Italy. Muhammad Ali didn't.

Ted Williams knew when to say when. He hit .316 in his final major league season and a home run in his final at-bat. Willie Mays didn't. He finished his career with the Mets.

Jim Brown knew when to say when. He retired from the NFL after nine seasons and also became a movie star, making out with Raquel Welch. Brett Favre didn't. He thought about making out with a New York Jets sideline personality, whatever that is.

Matt Othick, the former Bishop Gorman and Arizona basketball standout, knew when to say when.

He was sitting in a hotel room in Yakima, Wash., preparing for a Continental Basketball Association game against a team called the Bighorns, Patroons or Lightning, because every CBA team was called the Bighorns, Patroons or Lightning. It was cloudy or raining, and Jerry Springer was on TV.

It was 1998 or 1999. Othick was 28 or 29. This is what happens when you spend a lot of time in the Super 8 in Yakima watching Jerry Springer. You forget what year it is and how old you are.

And you come to the conclusion there has to be something better than this.

Othick was telling me this story the other day over lunch. He told it so well that even I was getting depressed. You forgot the part about Nicolas Cage and the empty whiskey bottle, I told him.

"I had hit rock bottom," Othick says, laughing about it now.

From the time he was 3, when he would shoot baskets at halftime of Wichita State games where his dad, Buddy, was an assistant coach, Matt Othick had been groomed to be a basketball star. He was a two-time Nevada player of the year at Gorman. He teamed with his pal, the late Brian Williams/Bison Dele, to win the 1988 state title. They should have won a couple of NCAA titles during their years at Arizona, but something always seemed to get in the way. Such as UNLV, during the Larry Johnson years.

Arizona was ranked No. 1 during three of Othick's four years, when he averaged 8.2 points and sank 191 3-point baskets in 485 attempts for an impressive percentage of 39.4. He was so deadly beyond the arc that the UCLA guards would start guarding him in the Catalina Foothills north of Tucson.

Jerry Tarkanian still kicks himself for letting Othick get away. "We would have won a second national title if he was on the 1991 team," Tark has always said.

Othick stood 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed only 165 pounds. But he was as tough as an old Converse sneaker. If he had a dime for every NBA camp he attended ... well, he'd have a lot of dimes. Spurs, Suns, Pacers, Bullets, Trail Blazers. But save for the four games he played for the Spurs when Tark was coach in 1992-93, he always wound up with the Sun Kings, Racers, Fever or Cavalry -- CBA teams in Yakima, Omaha, Fargo and Oklahoma City.

Every year another NBA team would call. Every year Othick thought he could make it. One year he thought he did. Then Wally Walker, the Seattle general manager, and George Karl, the Seattle coach, had a disagreement. Then Othick found himself back in Yakima with the gray clouds. The silver linings were getting harder to find.

"I was devastated," he said. "That was the most devastated I ever was in my life."

So he quit. Not in front of multitudes, like Sam Hanks at Indy. But in front of a bolted down TV showing Jerry Springer.

Since retiring, Othick has worked in the land development business and the mortgage business and the investment business and in the movie production business with brother Trent. His dream is to get in the horse racing business. He has become pals with Mike Pegram, who won last year's Preakness with Lookin At Lucky. Pegram is part of a group trying to buy the Del Mar Fairgrounds and racetrack near San Diego.

Othick is 41 now, with a lovely wife, Kimia, and 2-year-old twins, Chase and Layla. Regrets? Sure, he's had a few. But he has only one about abandoning his NBA dream in the Yakima Super 8.

"The only time my wife has seen me play is on ESPN Classic, wearing booty-grip shorts," he said.

This is when Matt Othick usually gets up to change the channel.

You've got to know when to say when.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.