By Lee Strawther
The Sporting Tribune
The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
For the past couple of years the basketball world has been in awe of the skill level of a certain seven-foot-three center that plays down in San Antonio. The youngster is so versatile he can play practically every position on the court. Truly a sight to see, but he wasn’t the first. You see, back in the mid-80s a big with guard skills showed up in Houston and began to change the way the center position was viewed and played.
Ralph Lee Sampson, Jr was born and raised on July 7, 1960 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and by high school he knew exactly what he was in store for as far as his future was concerned. He grew to 6-foot-7 inches by the ninth grade and over seven feet by his senior year at Harrisonburg High School. He averaged nearly 30 points, 19 rebounds, and 7 blocked shots in his final season and led the Blue Streaks to the state AA basketball championships in 1978 and 1979.
Sampson was a unanimous high school All-America selection, played in numerous post-season all-star games, and was even chosen to play for gold medal-winning Team USA in the 1979 Pan American Games.
He was not named national high school player of the year after his senior season, however, as that honor was awarded to another talented center, Sam Bowie. Sampson would later get the better of his counterpart in the Capital Classic all-star game that year which was dubbed the “Battle of the Giants”.
Following his stellar prep career, and with more scholarship offers than he knew what to do with, he chose to stay close to home and play just 50 or so miles away at the University of Virginia in Richmond. Under Head Coach Terry Holland he led the Cavaliers to an NIT title in 1980, a Final Four appearance in 1981, and an Elite Eight appearance in 1983.
He earned three Naismith Awards as the National Player of the Year, only the second athlete to do so, and is the only two-time Wooden Award recipient (1982 and 1983) for his exploits during his collegiate career.
The Houston Rockets selected Sampson with the first overall pick in the 1983 NBA draft and his impact was felt immediately. As a rookie, he averaged 21.0 points and 11.1 rebounds, made the All-Star Game, and was named Rookie of the Year.
With his size and agility, its was anticipated that Sampson would revolutionize the center position at the professional level, no slight to previous legends the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The Rockets went 29–53 his rookie season, which gave them the first pick in the 1984 draft. They selected fellow seven-footer Hakeem Olajuwon from the University of Houston and thus the ‘Twin Towers,’ as they were labeled, were born. Sampson ultimately made the biggest adjustment, switching from center to a seven-plus foot power forward and the rest was history.
At the time, Dallas Mavericks Coach Dick Motta said, “That front line, when history is written, when they’ve grown up, might be the best-assembled on one team. Ever.”
“He’ll revolutionize the game,” Houston guard John Lucas added regarding Sampson as a forward.
Sampson played four years in Houston before being traded to Golden State where he played from 1987 to 1989. He then spent three years in Sacramento (1989-1991) before a 10-game stint with the then-Washington Bullets in 1991–92.
Hampered by a series of knee injuries over the years, Sampson ended his playing career after participating in eight games for Unicaja Ronda of the Spanish League during the 1991–92 season, and for the Rockford Lightning of the Continental Basketball Association in 1994-95.
After his year in Spain, Sampson spent the 1992–93 season as an assistant to head coach Lefty Driesell at James Madison University before coaching the Richmond Rhythm, a minor league professional team in Richmond. In 2012, he joined the Phoenix Suns as a player development coach for one year, and finally in 1995 after 12 seasons of professional basketball and three knee surgeries, he retired as a four-time NBA All-Star and the 1985 NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player.
In 2010, he published a book, Winner’s Circle: The Ralph Sampson Game Plan; What Great Players Do Before, During and After the Game to help young student-athletes prepare for their future successes.
“There is a certain kind of person that never waits for greatness,” he once noted.
He not only said it, he lived it.