Jimmy Wilkins (basketball player)

Jimmy Wilkins
Player information
birthday	August 27, 1947
place of birth	San Jose (CA), USA
date of death	January 6, 2012
Place of death	San Jose (CA), USA
position	Point guard
college	San Diego State
NBA draft	1972 , 157. Pick, Portland Trail Blazers
Clubs as active
1970–1972 SDSU Aztecs ( NCAA ) 1973–1975 SSV Hagen 1975–1978 USC Münster
Clubs as coaches
1975–1978 USC Münster ( player-coach )

Jimmy Wilkins (born August 27, 1947 in San José , California , † January 6, 2012 there ) was an American basketball player . After completing his studies, Wilkins could not assert himself in the US professional league , the NBA, with the highest endowment , and then played in the German basketball league , where he immediately became German champion in 1974 with SSV Hagen . After winning the cup in 1975, he was a player-coach at USC Münster for three years before he returned to his home country and later worked there as the purchasing manager of an information technology company. Wilkins, who was married to a German and also coached a local school team, died of complications from a heart attack at the age of 64.

Career

Wilkins studied among other things at the San Diego State University , for whose university team Aztecs he played in the then Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA) in the NCAA . The PCAA and its members officially belonged to Division I from 1970 and thus the most competitive class of the NCAA. Until Wilkins' end of studies in 1972, however, no championships were reached in this conference. In the 1972 NBA Draft , Wilkins was selected in the eleventh round as the 157th player of the Portland Trail Blazers. He did not succeed in the episode to earn a place in the squad of the NBA team.

In 1973, Wilkins went to Germany and joined the first division team of the game and sports club (SSV) in Hagen in Westphalia . The club had previously been champions of the North Group in the top division of the Basketball Bundesliga in 1972/73 , but was eliminated in the second round before reaching the semi-finals of the German championship. With Wilkins, SSV Hagen was again winner of Group North in the 1973/74 season and this time was able to move into the finals of the championship against defending champions USC Heidelberg . Here they won both games, with Wilkins being his team's top scorer in both finals , and secured the club its first and only championship. In the following season 1974/75 you retired as the defending champion again in the intermediate round and had to leave the USC Heidelberg and MTV Wolfenbüttel to move into the semi-finals. Wilkins was injured at the end of the season and was represented by his compatriot "Pinky" Smith, which is why he was only marginally involved in the Hagen team's cup victory a few weeks later.

After his injury, Wilkins did not return to SSV Hagen and in 1975 he became the player-coach of the regional division USC in Münster , with whom he rose in 1976 to the 2. Basketball Bundesliga Group North, which had been created a year earlier . Wilkins, who was already very popular in Hagen, met his German wife Susanne in Münster, with whom he returned to his Californian homeland in 1978 after the end of his active career as a basketball player. His son Dominik (* 1988) followed in his father's footsteps and, after completing his studies, also switched to basketball in Hagen and Dorsten on the outskirts of the Münsterland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Axel Gaiser: Basketball players mourn the idol Jimmy Wilkins. DerWesten.de , January 8, 2012, accessed February 5, 2013 (obituary). 
2. ^ San Diego State 2012-13 Season Men's Basketball Media Guide - History. (PDF (631 KB)) San Diego State University , November 5, 2012, pp. 173ff. , accessed on February 5, 2013 (English, "Letterwinners" - as Wilkens, Jimmy). 
3. ↑ 1972 NBA Draft. Basketball-Reference.com, accessed February 5, 2013 (list of selected players). 
4. ^ Peter Wittig: Flying high USC Heidelberg - Basketball: 1973/74 season. (No longer available online.) USC Heidelberg , archived from the original on December 9, 2012 ; Retrieved February 5, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ The basket makers. Spiegel Online , November 18, 1974, accessed on February 5, 2013 (reproduction of an article from the print edition 47/1974). 
6. ↑ Dominik Wilkins. (No longer available online.) Statistics.Basketball-Bundesliga.de, formerly in the original ; accessed on February 5, 2013 (player profile on statistics pages of the basketball national leagues (as of 2013)).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.