STARKVILLE — While he continues to wait to see which NBA team will need a 6-foot-11 center later in the season, Erick Dampier was honored Saturday at his alma mater before the Mississippi State men’s basketball team’s 56-52 victory against the University of Alabama.
Dampier, who was a significant member of the 1996 Final Four team and was the 10th overall selection by the Indiana Pacers in the 1996 NBA draft, was recognized at center court before the game Saturday afternoon as a part of MSU’s 100 years of basketball season-long promotion.
Dampier still lives in Jackson, and is working out in hopes that he will get a call from a NBA team franchise soon. He played in 51 games and
averaged 2.5 points and 3.5 rebounds in 16 minutes a game for the Miami Heat last season. The 15-year NBA veteran said this year was his “first Christmas season with his family since he turned professional.”
“I think I can play another two or three years if I still healthy and keep my body in shape,” Dampier said.
Dampier was a member of a highly publicized Miami team that included LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh that went to the NBA Finals. Miami lost to Dampier’s former team — the Dallas Mavericks — in six games.
“It really wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be,” Dampier said of
playing with James, Wade, and Bosh. “LeBron is an exceptional player, and to see him every day in practice was a treat because I’ve never seen anyone with the talent he has.”
Dampier, along with walk-on teammate David Rula from the Final Four squad, was a significant financial contributor to the new Mize Pavilion that serves as MSU’s basketball practice facility and houses the coaches’ offices.
Dampier, a former Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity member at MSU, said he was approached by the Rula family and MSU administration a few years ago. Dampier joked all he had when he played at MSU was a recreational gymnasium affectionately known as “the Tin Gym.”
“The Rula family came to me and talked it over with me and thought it would be something good to do for the team and university,” Dampier said.
Dampier was highly recruited to MSU out of Lawrence County High School in Monticello by current head coach Rick Stansbury when he was an assistant under Richard Williams.
“He’s come so far as a person,” Stansbury said. “His basketball is well documented, but if you see the maturity of him as person, the confidence he has communicating, that’s what’s impressive now. If you
would’ve told me he would carry himself with the maturity he does 18 years ago when we found him in one of those little gym in New Hebron, I would’ve never believed you.”
Dampier also said he worked out with MSU junior center Renardo Sidney on campus last season while the former McDonald’s All American was trying to get back into some form of playing shape.
With MSU ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 and sporting a 15-3 record, the comparisons are being made to the Bulldogs 1996 squad.
Dampier, with a smile and laugh, ended that talk with a half-hearted challenge.
“I think it’s two totally different teams, but they have the talent, too,” Dampier said. “You can take the ’96 team and get those guys together and we’ll come play them now and we’ll still beat this (MSU) team.”
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