Athletes - Bob Love

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Bob Love

	Athletes - Bob Love

Robert “Butterbean” Love (born December 8 1942, in Bastrop, Louisiana) is a former professional basketball player who spent the prime of his career with the NBA's Chicago Bulls. A versatile forward who could shoot with either his left or right hand, Love now works as the Bulls' Director of Community Relations.

Early Years

After starring at Indian Springs in Birmingham, Alabama, Love played basketball for Southern University, where he also became a brother of Kappa Alpha Psi. He earned All-America honors in 1963, and in 1965, the Cincinnati Royals selected the 6’8” forward in the fourth round of the 1965 NBA Draft. Unfortunately, Love failed to make the team, and instead spent the 1965-66 season in the Eastern Basketball League. After averaging over 25 points per game, Love earned the EBL Rookie of the Year Award and gained enough confidence to try out for the Royals once more. He made the team on his second attempt and played two seasons for the Royals, largely in a reserve role. In 1968, the Milwaukee Bucks selected him in the NBA Expansion Draft and traded him to the Chicago Bulls in the middle of the 1968-1969 season.

Love and the Bulls

Love flourished while playing for Dick Motta’s Bulls. In 1969-1970, he became a full-time starter, averaging 21 points and 8.7 rebounds. The following season he averaged 25.2 points, appeared in the NBA All-Star Game for the first time, and earned All-NBA Second Team honors. Love appeared in two more All-Star games in 1972 and 1973, and he would average at least 19 points and six rebounds every season until 1976-1977.

Post-Basketball

Love retired in 1977 with career totals of 13,895 points and 4,653 rebounds. Unfortunately, he suffered from a serious stuttering problem, which prevented him from finding meaningful employment after his playing days were over. Eventually, however, Love found a benefactor to pay for speech therapy classes, and in 1993 he returned to the Chicago Bulls as their director of community relations. In recent years, Love has also become a popular motivational speaker.

Trivia

His #10 jersey was the second jersey number to be retired by the Chicago Bulls. (Jerry Sloan
’s #4 was the first.)
His 1995 wedding ceremony to Rachel Dixon took place at the United Center.
He wrote a book, The Bob Love Story: If It’s Gonna Be, It’s Up to Me (ISBN 0809225972), in 1999.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Bob Love ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Bob Love; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay