Product Overview
When Mickey Crowe graduated from high school in the spring of 1975, he was an 18-year-old Wisconsin basketball legend. His 2,724 career points topped the state s all-time scoring list. His dazzling moves, rainbow jumpers and deluge of shots ball cocked behind his head and launched from all areas of the court had packed gyms and garnered national attention. He was a 6-foot-5 superstar with long hair and floppy socks, both worn in honor of his idol, Pete Maravich. Coached by the bark of a demanding father who some feel might have pushed too hard, Crowe seemed destined for a big-time college basketball career, a surefire headliner with the shooting skill and range to perhaps one day play professionally. Despite the intense attention and enormous pressure to perform, Crowe finished his senior season with 1,001 points and lead the nation in scoring average at 41.7 points. Then he disappeared. His college years were lived as a lost and troubled soul, nomadically wandering from campus to campus, in search of something anything that could return him to his glory-filled past. Drugs and alcohol became his closest friends. An obsession with a president led him to Washington, D.C., where he stood just yards away from the bullets of a would-be assassin as he witnessed one of the dark moments in United States history. Mental illness and depression cloaked a once-promising life that would only find comfort through years of self-imposed reclusion. Until now. Agreeing to a rare face-to-face interview, Crowe has decided to share his plight so it can be used as a cautionary tale while also serving his own need as a form of personal therapy. Crowe is no longer the state s scoring champion. His name, once front-page news, has been filed among the ghosts of Wisconsin sports history. He s a mythic figure who endured a tragic fall. But he has risen. And he has found peace.
