LH grad Gerard inducted into PGH basketball club HOF
Submitted photo
Laurel Highlands graduate Daniel “Gus” Gerard was inducted into the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Hall of Fame on Saturday at the Chartiers Country Club. Gerard (center) poses with Barry Taylor (left) and Ricky Coleman at the ceremony.
John F. Brothers
Former Laurel Highlands great Daniel “Gus” Gerard holds up his No. 35 basketball jersey after it was retired on Jan. 23, 2015, at Harold “Horse” Taylor Memorial Gymnasium. Gerard was inducted into the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Former Laurel Highlands, Virginia and ABA and NBA standout Daniel “Gus” Gerard was inducted into the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Hall of Fame at a brunch on Saturday morning at Chartiers Country Club.
It is the third Hall of Fame that Gerard has been enshrined in. He previously was honored by the Laurel Highlands Life Achievement Hall of Fame and the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame.
“I always like to say the older I get the better I used to be,” Gerard joked. “I’ve got more photos sent to me from sportswriters in cities I’ve played in college and pro and I’ve gotten more honors and inductions since I’ve been retired from basketball for so many years. So I like to always say the older I get the better I used to be and that’s a good feeling for people to remember.”
In late 2010, the PBC announced the formation of the Legends Division of the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Hall of Fame. This year’s class included Gerard, along with Tom Clements, Canevin High School and University of Notre Dame, Keith Tower, Moon High School and University of Notre Dame, Ron Stevenson, Langley High School and Duquesne University, Moe Barr, Penn Hills High School and Duquesne University, Oscar Jackson, Beaver Falls High School and Duquesne University, Gabe Jackson, New Brighton High School and Robert Morris University, Scott Nedrow, Ringgold High School and University of Pittsburgh, Jonathan Marshall, Clairton High School and Robert Morris Junior College and Penn State University, David Young, New Castle High School and Xavier University and Jason Matthews, St. Monica, California, and University of Pittsburgh.
Gerard had an outstanding high school career at Laurel Highlands. He garnered All-Section, All-County and All-State honors and was named to the prestigious High School All-America team. He also played in the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic on the Pennsylvania team that defeated the United States All-Stars, 110-98.
During his career at Laurel Highlands, Gerard scored 1,186 career points. Gerard was the subject of some intense recruiting after graduating from Laurel Highlands in 1971. He decided to play in the ACC at Virginia.
Gerard starred for the Cavaliers for two varsity seasons. He was second only to North Carolina State’s David Thompson in scoring his junior season and was named to the All-ACC second team as a sophomore and a junior. He averaged 14.8 points per game as a sophomore and 20.8 points per game and 10 rebounds per game as a junior. He decided to turn pro after his junior year, and signed a million-dollar contract with St. Louis of the ABA.
Hindsight is always 20/20, as Gerard looks back at his playing days.
“I believe every athlete at some point believes they could have done more,” Gerard stated. “There was a time in my life where my priorities got a little out of hand and I didn’t focus myself on my craft as well as I should have, but that’s all behind me now. It’s easy to look back and say I could have done more, but I’m blessed to have played the game of basketball for a long time and especially when I got to the professional level. To be able to play every night against the best players in the world, sometimes I just sit there and say, ‘man I’m part of this.’
“I think at that time there were 250 players in the NBA when I was playing basketball, and I think the population was about 250 million in the USA back in the 1970s. I was thinking, ‘God, I’m a small part of this huge country that gets to have a job where I get paid to play the game that I’ve loved since I was a kid.’ I was truly blessed to have the career I did.”
Gerard played seven seasons in the ABA and NBA and played in the ABA All-Star game in 1975-76. He bounced around to Denver, Buffalo, Detroit, Kansas City and San Antonio before retiring in 1981. In 446 career games, he tallied 3,765 points and grabbed 1,811 rebounds.
The pro lifestyle took a toll on Gerard, and he battled with drug and alcohol addiction during his pro career.
“I am in a good place right now,” Gerard explained. “You never really beat the demons when somebody is a recovering alcoholic or substance abuser. You really live day by day. I get a daily reprieve from all that based on my daily activities each day that I focus. Because I look at life that way now I go one day at a time.
“I’ve managed to put a lot of days together and I know that it’s not going to be a problem for me, but tomorrow I wake up and I start over with the same kind of attitude and focus towards recovery that I always have now for 24 plus years.
“It’s been quite a journey for me and I am in a good place. My wife and I do have a bar and restaurant, Gus’s Pub, here in Uniontown and I handle a lot of the food stuff and the restaurant stuff. I leave the booze stuff to the bartenders and everybody else here that’s involved, but I’m part of it. I feel blessed because I’m back in my home town and I’ve opened up a business where I’m employing eight or 10 people who I’ve given jobs to in this area where many people need jobs.”
Gerard is a retired drug counselor, but still tries to help when he can.
“When I got inducted into the Laurel Highlands Lifetime Achievement Hall of Fame it was such an honor for me because it wasn’t just about basketball,” Gerard stated. “It was about my life’s work after basketball and I still do that. My passion really is still helping people.
“I get calls just about every day from families or a mother or a dad or a brother or a sister of somebody who is suffering from substance abuse. They want to know what they can do and when I can direct them in the right way or meet with the family member whose suffering and counsel them. I am a retired counselor, but I still put on my counseling hat at times, unofficially. I do that or I refer them to where they can get help. That’s still my greatest passion in life because I can’t keep what I have gained unless I give it away, and one of my mentors, John Lucas, taught me that a long time ago.”
Looking back on his basketball career, Gerard is flooded with memories. But the relationships are what he remembers the most at this point.
“Tremendous relationships,” Gerard said. “Still friends with so many guys.”
As for the latest feather in his cap induction into Pittsburgh Basketball Club Hall of Fame.
“It is an honor,” Gerard said. “This whole area has been saturated with great, great basketball players throughout my life that I can remember. To be going into the same Hall of Fame with some of those guys is just a tremendous honor for me. One particularly sticks out in my mind, of course, Wil Robinson, and then Billy Knight from Pitt and Braddock High School, who I became friends with in the NBA. I could go on and on naming them all, but it’s just an honor a tremendous honor.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Monday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.