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Net Gains
Towson University Hall of Famer Kurk Lee leads neglected teens to the basketball court and a better life
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After sitting out the 1987-88 season, that's exactly what he did. Over the next two years, Lee rewrote the Towson record books, averaging 25.7 points per game and becoming the first Tiger to score more than 700 points in a season. As a senior in 1989-90, he averaged 26 points per game, was an honorable mention AP All-American and led the Tigers to their first NCAA Tournament appearance. In his final college game, he scored 30 points in a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to top-ranked Oklahoma.
"He was probably one of the most intense competitors I've ever coached or been around, and not only in his athletic pursuits but in his personal goals as well," Meil said. "He's a very strong-willed individual who wants to win."
The loss to Oklahoma left Lee wanting more. After graduation he was invited to try out for the NBA's New Jersey Nets as an undrafted free agent. Figuring he had nothing lose, Lee went for it. He turned heads at the Nets' summer camp and was invited back to try out with the veterans in October.
On the final day of camp, he got the good news.
"My goal was always to play in the NBA," Lee said. "I had two good years at Towson, but everyone told me, 'You won't make it to the NBA because Towson's not a basketball school.' So when they told me I made the team, it was like a dream come true."
TRAVELING MAN
The dream faded quickly. As a free agent, Lee played sparingly with the Nets in 1990-91, averaging 1.4 points in just 48 games. Content merely with being in the league, Lee stopped working out once the season ended and was cut from the team the following summer.
"I lost focus," he said. "I didn't work out as hard to stay in the NBA as I did to get there. And being a free agent, you have to try out for the team every year. You don't have a guaranteed contract, so you have to work that much harder. I didn't realize that until it was too late."
Lee tried out for a couple of other NBA teams that summer before settling for the Continental Basketball Association, a smaller pro league that occasionally produces NBA-caliber talent. Over the next couple of years he bounced from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Oklahoma City to Rochester, Minn., with a brief stop in the Philippines thrown into the mix. He tried again to return to the NBA but was cut by the Miami Heat before the 1993-94 season started. Istanbul was next, followed by a stint with the CBA's Fargo-Moorehead franchise.
In 1995 Lee found the stardom he sought in Finland, where he landed a spot with Topo, a club team in Helsinki. The team won the Finnish basketball championship during each of Lee's first three years there, and Lee was named league MVP during two of those seasons.
But even that wouldn't last. The team went bankrupt in 1999 and Lee found himself back in Baltimore, where he played one year with the BayRunners of the International Basketball League. Brief stints with teams in Richmond, Va., Estonia and Finland followed before Lee called it a career in April 2002.
Back in Baltimore, his real career was about to begin.
NEXT PAGE: A sense of community
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