LeRoy Gardner Jr., 61; Playground Basketball Legend Became Figure in College Football Scandal
Scott Brady
He led his St. Paul Central team to the state tournament and had a
long career at the U.
By PAT PHEIFER, Star Tribune
Last update: September 6, 2008 - 6:49 PM
There's no doubt that LeRoy Gardner Jr. was a playground basketball
legend. And it's become community lore that as a freshman at St. Paul
Central, he led a group of buddies to victory over Elgin Baylor and a
team of Minneapolis Lakers in a pickup game at Oxford Park.
Gardner later humbly claimed he was just an "average" player at the
University of Minnesota, but friends and family members said he had
the integrity of a leader on and off the court.
He eventually made his career at the university, becoming a counselor
and adviser, a teacher and a mentor.
Gardner, 61, of Golden Valley, was diagnosed with lung cancer last
February and died Saturday at Our Lady of Good Counsel in St. Paul.
Gardner, the son of a pastor, played for Central from 1962 to 1965 and
helped take the team to its first state tournament berth in years. He
scored 41 points in a region semifinal and 33 points in a consolation
title game, said his eldest son, Frank.
He was the first black man born and raised in Minnesota to receive a
full basketball scholarship at the U, his son said. Gardner earned
undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology at the U.
He was an academic adviser in the athletic department when he was
caught up in the scandal involving NCAA rules violations in the late
1980s. Football coach Lou Holtz, Gardner said, had given him $500 for
a football player.
Frank Gardner said his father was told "point-blank to lie," but when
the time came to talk to NCAA investigators, he told the truth.
"That was not my father's character," Frank Gardner said. "He was not
a flawless character, nobody is, but lying and stealing were two
things he did not do."
Al Nuness, a former Gopher teammate with Gardner, agreed: "Even in the
darkest shadows of the Lou Holtz thing, LeRoy held true to his story,
and it cost him for a while at the U.''
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