Everybody who knows at least something about the NBA saw its logo. This logo is also familiar to frequent visitors of online betting sites and to those who are involved in sports betting. However, almost nobody of these people knows that the person they see on this logo is legendary basketball player Jerry West.
Unfortunately, the New York Times reported that on June 12, the great basketball player died at the age of 86. This is sad news for the whole sports world because there are lots of positive and prominent events associated with this athlete.
For most basketball fans, Jerry West is known as a Los Angeles Lakers star. He played there during his whole professional career. One of the most prominent games that brought Jerry West fame was the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy. He led his team to victory as a captain and returned home with several gold medals. Many world publications highlighted this event. At that time, they were true heroes, and the name Jerry West was prescribed in the history of American and world basketball events.
The West’s bright performance has always made him desirable in all NBA teams. West became a member of the NBA All-Star teams twelve times during his career. However, the number of times he participated in NBA All-Star Games was 14. Due to these achievements, the athlete was included in the Basketball Hall of Fame. This happened 20 years after his incredible performance in the Rome Olympics. Sixteen years later, in 1996, Jerry West was included in the list of 50 greatest basketball players in the whole NBA history.
After Jerry West stopped his professional career as a basketball player, he has not left basketball as his field of occupation. Hence, he became a coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, a team that grew together with him. After three years of successfully leading the Lakers, he shifted his attention to the Memphis Grizzlies club and became their general manager. Due to his skills as a player and a coach, West managed to lead this team to the playoff for the first time in their history. It was in 2003.
However, Jerry West’s talent as a player and coach was not the only thing that made him a legend. It’s reported that West has become the face of the well-known modern logo of the National Basketball Association. This logo was introduced in 1969 for the first time. This was an annual NBA Guide magazine where the photo of Jerry West was published on the first page. The logo itself was designed by Alan Siegel, who took a photo of West leading a ball during one of the matches and converted this photo into an atmospheric logo. Even though this assumption was not officially proven and confirmed by the NBA, almost everybody believes that West’s silhouette is an emblem of this great sport. However, Siegel, the designer of the logo, confirmed in one of his interviews in 2010 that he used exactly Jerry West’s photo, which was taken during one of his games for the Lakers.
Many biographers have tried to understand Jerry West’s personality during the last several years. The majority of them underlined the former athlete’s complicated character. He was too focused on success and tried to do everything he and his team won in most games. And it was not fiction. When describing his life, West recognized that he was a complicated person with difficult twists in his life. Regardless of everything, Jerry West deserves several minutes to write about him and to remember this bright and hard-working person with a world-known name.
