By Harry Minium
I remember seeing most of Old Dominion University’s best greatest basketball players perform, but I didn’t’ see Leo Anthony, perhaps the best of them all, because he played before my time.
So I’m relying on the memory of William “Carroll” Creecy to explain how Leo managed to scored so many points.
Anthony was a scoring machine. From 1958-59 through 1960-61, he poured in 2,181 points for the old Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, a record that would stand until 1980 when it was broken by Ronnie Valentine.
Ronnie, it should be noted, played a lot more games than Leo.
No one has come close to Anthony’s 26.6-per game scoring average, or the 31 points per game he averaged as a senior, which he finished off with a 60-point effort in a 128-61 victory over Lynchburg College in his final game.
He was once named an All-American, twice named Virginia’s Player of the Year and was an all-state choice four times. His jersey No. 5, the first retired by ODU, hangs from the rafters of the Ted Constant Center.
“When Leo scored all those points, there were no three-pointers,” said Creecy, who attended the Norfolk Division and became close to Anthony when they were freshman. “And he shot what would today be a lot of three pointers.
“What made Leo so good? Leo had a quick release, and was just so much quicker and faster than other players. He would drive to the basket before a defensive player could react. He got fouled a lot and rarely missed foul shots.
“And did he ever want to win. I never saw anyone who wanted to win more than Leo. He just outworked everyone.”
Anthony was also a terrific baseball player for the Norfolk Division He played shortstop and had one of the state’s best double-play combinations with second baseman Kirkie Harrison.
Interesting stat: Anthony never missed a game in his four years at the Norfolk Division, in basketball or baseball. He must have played a lot of games in pain.
Anthony loved athletics. A Bronx native who attended Granby High, where he played under the legendary Lefty Driesell, he coached basketball and golf his entire career after graduating from the Norfolk Division
He won four golf state championships at Princess Anne. No one has counted how many basketball and golf matches he won, but surely, it was much more than 1,000, and perhaps closer to 2,000.
“The lessons he taught me in basketball, that if you work hard enough in practice the game comes easy, really stuck with me throughout my golfing career,” said former PGA great Curtis Strange told Lee Tolliver at The Virginian-Pilot.
“I would run through a wall for him.”
Anthony passed away recently having never lost his love for ODU basketball or high school athletics.
A memorial service for Anthony will be held Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at London Bridge Baptist Church, 2240 Potters Road in Virginia Beach.
Cassie Smith, Anthony’s daughter, said she’s been overwhelmed with the outpouring of praise and sympathy from hundreds of people.
“I know people loved my Dad and that he touched a lot of lives,” she said.
Cassie said she was “Daddy’s little girl,” and there was good reason. Her Mom passed away when she was 14. He played the role of both parents for her.
“Dad and I became very close,” she said. “He was an incredible father and an incredible man.”
He surely touched the life is his grandson, Cassie’s son, Jaden Gibson.
At Anthony’s wake on Wednesday night, Jaden wore an ODU sweatshirt and hat and a pair of shorts, one with a Monarch logo and the other with the numeral “5.”
“Jaden said he would wear a suit on Sunday,” Cassie Smith said. But underneath will be an ODU basketball shirt.
Leo often took Jaden to ODU basketball games and rarely missed games at the Constant Center.
Antony with grandson Jaden at an ODU basketball game.
“I talked to Leo at almost all of the basketball games and enjoyed his insight not only into what was going on with the flow of the game, but with the growth of the University,” President John R. Broderick said.
“He truly cared a lot for Old Dominion.”
Anthony took Jaden to ODU’s basketball camp, where he hit it off with assistant coach Bryant Stith.
“It was so neat to watch the connection they made,” Cassie said. “They really clicked. Jaden inherited the love of ODU sports from his grandfather and that’s something he will never lose.”
He inherited something else as well. While they were going through their Dad's belongings, Cassie and her brothers found books with clips from practically every newspaper article had ever been written about him. Jaden has been knee-deep reading about his grandfather ever since.
I’m sure there will be humorous stories and tall tales told about Anthony on Sunday, so let me get things started with a few that I heard.
In 1969-70, Princess Anne’s Ricky Michaelson, who would go on to play at ODU, was in an unbelievable battle with Booker T. Washington’s Roy Ebron for the state scoring title.
Ebron scored 82 points in his final game and Michaelson, coached by Anthony, needed more than 100 points in his final two games.
Michaelson scored 40 points against old Cradock High. Ebron was in the stands at PA as Michaelson played his final game against Wilson.
Skeeter Whitlow, who played for Anthony the previous season, asked Anthony what was going to happen that night.
“We’re going to give the ball to Ricky and he’s going to score 70 points,” Anthony responded.
Almost. Michaelson scored 69 points, and finished with an average of 39.6 points per game. Like the records Anthony set at ODU, no one has come close to breaking Michaelson’s high school scoring record.
Whitlow recalls another game against Maury played before a sellout crowd at the old Norfolk Arena. Antony had been an assistant for coach Teddy Bacalis at Maury, so you’d assume they were friends.
They were, except on the court, where both hated to lose.
Cassie Smith in front of her father's picture at the Constant Center after she graduated from ODU.
It’s been lost to history exactly what caused it, but Maury star Craig Lieder and PA forward Bob Gerloff, who was a monster football player, exchanged elbows, and then someone took a swing at someone else.
Both benches erupted, fans poured on the court and Anthony and Bacalis were angrily exchanging pleasantries at mid court.
Both teams were led back into the locker rooms, and when they returned, state policeman with German shepherds were in every corner.
I asked Jack Baker, then a Maury star who played at ODU and was a long-tie Maury coach, if it’s true the Commodores won.
“Of course we did,” he said.
Princess Anne got a police escort out of the downtown area, Skeeter said.
Baker said he got to know Anthony both as a coach and at ODU reunions held by Monarch coach Jeff Jones.
“He was the nicest guy in the world,” Baker said. "He loved to coach and he loved the players he coached."
Creecy’s business, Sales Systems, long sponsored a team in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, which matches college stars in a beauty pageant of sorts for NBA scouts.
“Leo coached our team for about 15 seasons,” Creecy said.
“But he wanted to win so much that when he didn’t win, he got depressed.”
Winning, of course, doesn’t matter at the PIT. College players are there to be scouted, not to milk the clock.
It got to the point where Creecy relieved Anthony as coach and asked him to sit in the stands “so he could enjoy the games like everyone else.”
But not before Anthony introduced Creecy to a then relatively unknown player from Southeastern Oklahoma State.
“Leo said, ‘he’s the nicest young man. He’s so polite. He’s going to go far.’ “
That nice young man was Dennis Rodman, who would star in the NBA but whose personae has changed over the years. He is covered with tattoos and nose rings and went to North Korea and palled around with Dictator Kim Jong-un.
“Dennis Rodman thanked us for having him at the tournament and seemed like the nicest, down to earth person,” Creecy said. “Goes to show you what fame and money can do to you.”
Fame never affected Anthony. Creecy said that while Anthony was the big man on campus at the Norfolk Division, he never showed it.
“He was just one of the guys,” Creecy said. “He never acted like he was a star athlete.
“I never heard him say a bad word about anyone.”
Cassie Smith said her father’s health deteriorated in recent years from congestive heart failure.
“But he was stubborn in his ways,” she said. “He wanted to live life the way he wanted to. It was a struggle for us to realize, ‘this is who he is.’ He wasn’t going to change.
“Death was something he was open about. The last two days, he was accepting where he was.”
He passed in Virginia Beach with Cassie and sons Greg and Michael by his side.
“He affected the lives of thousands of kids who played for him,” said Whitlow, a former corporate executive and coach who lives just outside of Buffalo, N.Y.
“He set a standard of excellence for our team that affected all of us, from the way we played, to the way we dressed off the court to the way we wore our uniforms.
“I only played for him for one season and he’s among the most influential people in my life.
"We've lost a very good man.”
Indeed we have.
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu