Warriors’ Myers recalls his 1st title — with UCLA
Somewhere in Warriors general manager Bob Myers’ San Francisco home, buried in a box deep in a closet, sits a special collector’s edition of Sports Illustrated from April 1995.
There on the cover is UCLA point guard Tyus Edney being hoisted off the ground by a teammate after his famous coasttocoast layup lifted the Bruins to a secondround win over Missouri in the NCAA Tournament. Given that Edney’s outstretched arms block the face of the player picking him up, few know that the 20yearold in the yellow warmup jacket became the architect behind an NBA dynasty.
“You can really only see my forearms, which is pretty appropriate for my role on that team,” said Myers, a seldomused sophomore for those 199495 Bruins who went 321 to win the program’s first national title in 20 years. “I wouldn’t have liked to have my face captured. It wouldn’t have been the right thing.”
Such humility is part of what made Myers the ideal walkon. On a team loaded with six future NBA players, Myers was content to toil behind the scenes. Now, as he approaches Friday’s 25th anniversary of UCLA’s 8978 win over Arkansas in the national championship game, Myers still has a tough time understanding why he was on that Bruins roster.
As a senior at Monte VistaDanville, he’d sent a highlight video his father put together to Division I coaches across the country. No one responded. Months removed from that setback, Myers was donning the uniform of one of the most storied programs in college basketball history.
If not for the people at UCLA, he reckons that he wouldn’t be what he is today: a twotime NBA Executive of the Year credited with assembling Warriors teams that revolutionized the league. The head coach during Myers’ first three years with the Bruins, Jim Harrick, helped Myers land an internship with a top sports agency out of college. Thanks in part to the social network he’d built at UCLA, Myers established himself as one of the NBA’s best agents.
Over the past eight years, as he shepherded the Warriors from league punchline to perennial contender, Myers often reflected on what had made those 199495 Bruins special: a mix of youth and experience, a teamcentered approach, a strong desire to win. One of his most vivid memories was made a year before the championship run.
His team down big at halftime to underdog Tulsa in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, forward Ed O’Bannon stomped into UCLA’s locker room, kicking trash cans as he screamed, “This is an embarrassment!” Myers — a mildmannered freshman — watched in awe. In that moment, he understood just how much winning meant to O’Bannon.
“For a guy like me, it was kind of like hearing the lion roar for the first time,” Myers said. “Even though we lost that game, that was, in my mind, the beginning of winning the championship the next year.”
Led by seniors O’Bannon, Edney and George Zidek, the Bruins opened the ’9495 season 60 before being upset at Oregon. It was enough to refocus UCLA, which, after finishing the regular season on a 20game winning streak, entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed.
By the time the Bruins hoisted the national championship trophy at Seattle’s Kingdome, Myers had logged only 32 minutes all season. Yet there he was appearing on the “Tonight Show,” riding on a float at Disneyland and shaking President Bill Clinton’s hand.
Those were surreal experiences for a player who hadn’t started on the Monte Vista varsity until his senior year. Myers’ only college offer when he finished high school was from Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, a twoyear school just a short drive from his parents’ Danville home.
An honorroll student, he chose to attend UCLA. One spring afternoon, on a campus visit with his dad, Myers stopped by the athletic office to inquire about being a student manager for the men’s basketball team. Steve Lavin — a 28year old assistant for the Bruins who had heard about Myers from Monte Vista coach Jeff Koury — encouraged Myers to try out.
A few months after telling Lavin, “I’m not good enough,” Myers beat out 40 hopefuls for a walkon spot. Long a selfdoubter, he guarded O’Bannon in practice and challenged students to pickup games at the Wooden Center, ever worried that Harrick would cut him.
As UCLA’s only walkon that season, Myers earned nearcult status on campus. Late in games, with victory no longer in doubt, he checked in to chants from the student section imploring him to shoot.
By his junior year, Myers had joined the rotation. His 20point outburst in a win over Oregon State was a career highlight. When Myers graduated and received no offers to play overseas, he was a bit disappointed, only because he knew he’d miss the adrenaline rush that comes from playing highlevel basketball.
Before hip surgeries ended his pickup career last year, Myers played at least two or three times a week. His goal is to get back into game shape soon. But if that’s not possible, Myers at least will have photos and magazine articles to remind him that he once was a championshipcaliber forward.
“Now having young kids, I’ve seen a lot of Disneyland parades,” said Myers, who will join his former UCLA teammates Friday on Zoom — a popular videoconferencing service — to reminisce about that memorable ’9495 season. “I tell them I was in one once, and they can’t believe it. But hey, there’s pictures. I can prove it.”