Looking back on the storied career of local basketball great Gary Silc, it’s hard to believe that the future NBA draftee would eschew pretty much any involvement in sports until his early teens.
To suggest that the star athlete turned lawyer enjoyed a rapid ascension is far more accurate than one might imagine, in more ways than one. Growing up in the Sudbury downtown core, a stone’s throw from Alexander Public School, one of four children in the family (his sister, Linda Paul, still calls Sudbury home), Silc would experience potentially life changing alterations in the early 1950’s.
For starters, between grade eight and grade nine, he sprouted from 5’11” to almost his eventual height of 6’7”, with people soon connecting the dots to the sport that would open so many doors for the northern Ontario lad. At around the same time, surgery was performed on his right ankle, removing an abscess that thankfully left no long-term surviving impact on the man who would go on to run marathons and enjoy pastimes such as nordic ski and cycling well into retirement.
“Somebody must have encouraged me to go to the gym after that (surgery), because I hadn’t played any sports before,” said Silc. “I was having trouble just walking. I went to the gym, stood about three feet from the basket and missed everything. That summer, I started going to Bell Park, not far from where I grew up, and went there every day to shoot.”
“That’s where it started.”
By the time Silc was a senior with the Sudbury High Wolves, he had teamed with the likes of Conrad Jarrett, Ken Ross, Jim Hann, Barry Davidson, John Costigan, George Skirda, Harold Rose and others to transform the locals into a provincial powerhouse, falling in the all-Ontario finals to Windsor Assumption and Runnymede Collegiate of Toronto in back to back years.
A little-known recruit south of the border, Silc was scooped up by one-time Canadian Olympic Basketball coach Dr Paul “Doc” Thomas and the San Fernando Valley College Matadors in California in 1963. While success ensued both individually and as a team, the West Coast of the United States really wasn’t the proper fit for the talented young man.
“I hated the summers and weather in California,” said Silc, who continues to reside in Ironwood (Michigan), the area in which he practiced law for several decades, long after his playing days were done. “After my second year (in California), I decided I was going back home, with no plans to go anywhere else at all.”
Still, he had (thankfully) taken the time to pen a letter to a small handful of big name schools, trying to gauge any interest at the NCAA Division I level that might exist for his services. While Bradley bench boss Chuck Orsborn was interested, he could not justify the full year the transfer student would have to sit, referring him instead to friend and Northern Michigan head coach Stan Albeck, whose team competed at the time in the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics*).
*NAIA transfer rules required only a half semester off before being eligible to play
“I was very lucky that happened,” suggested Silc. Offered a full scholarship by the (Northern Michigan) Wildcats, the dominant centre/forward more than paid dividends, leading the team to the NAIA quarter-finals in one of his two seasons in Marquette, earning All-American honours and eventually inducted into the Northern Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
“My mindset was just to get an education,” recalled Silc. “I had no idea at all that basketball could lead to anything. I can’t even say how I learned that I was drafted by the (Detroit) Pistons.”
Selected in the eighth round of the 1963 NBA draft, the Sudbury native was coming off an MVP calibre season with coach Albeck and company, averaging 17.1 points per game and racking up 236 rebounds in just 25 games.
The now 81 year-old knew little, however, of the working of professional basketball. “There were so many interesting things that happened when I was down there (at the Pistons’ training camp), but one was the fact that I got autographs of all of the guys, a number of guys who made it to the NBA Hall of Fame,” said Silc.
A late cut with the team, he would play an exhibition game with Detroit, his jersey now proudly displayed in the home of his daughter, respected Illinois periodontist Jennifer Silc. Released by the Pistons, Silc signed on with the Wilmington Blue Bombers, traded mid-season to the Allentown Jets where he was part of an Eastern Professional Basketball League championship run with the Pennsylvania based crew.
That, however, was the end of the line, a decision for which Silc has absolutely no regrets, even to this day. “If I was going to Law School, I didn’t want to not make it because I was playing basketball, so I quit basketball completely,” he explained.
His overall fitness was maintained well after his playing days were done, Silc drawing upon the all-around athletic attributes that would see the big man run the fastest mile on the team at Northern Michigan (5:05), handling himself well, even in the sprints.
He did make his way back to the court, briefly, in his twenties, in Milwaukee, where he teamed with some former basketball acquaintances in Marquette to put together a squad that captured the Wisconsin AAU Championship three years running.
