Dwayne Schintzius

Dwayne Kenneth Schintzius (October 14, 1968 – April 15, 2012) was an American National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball player. He was born in Brandon, Florida and attended the University of Florida, where he helped lead the Florida Gators men's basketball program to its first three NCAA tournament appearances as an all-conference center. Schintzius was selected in the first round of the 1990 NBA draft (24th overall) by the San Antonio Spurs, but chronic back problems reduced his effectiveness, and he played for six different NBA teams over ten seasons in the league, mainly as a reserve player.

Dwayne Schintzius

Schintzius before a Florida basketball game in 2011
Personal information
Born	(1968-10-14)October 14, 1968 Brandon, Florida
Died	April 15, 2012(2012-04-15) (aged 43) Tampa, Florida
Nationality	American
Listed height	7 ft 2 in (2.18 m)
Listed weight	260 lb (118 kg)
Career information
High school	Brandon (Brandon, Florida)
College	Florida (1986–1990)
NBA draft	1990 / Round: 1 / Pick: 24th overall
Selected by the San Antonio Spurs
Playing career	1990–2003
Position	Center
Number	24, 42, 33, 55
Career history
1990–1991	San Antonio Spurs
1991–1992	Sacramento Kings
1992–1995	New Jersey Nets
1995–1996	Indiana Pacers
1996–1997	Los Angeles Clippers
1999	Boston Celtics
2001–2002	Mobile Revelers
2003	Brevard Blue Ducks
Career highlights and awards
Fourth-team Parade All-American (1986)
Career NBA statistics
Points	587 (2.7 ppg)
Rebounds	536 (2.5 rpg)
Assists	93 (0.4 apg)
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com
Medals Men's basketball Representing  United States FIBA U19 World Championship 1987 Bormio National team

Off the court, Schintzius was known for his distinctive mullet-style haircut that he called "the lobster", his sometimes abrasive behavior, and his performance as a Russian basketball player in the 1996 comedy film Eddie. In 2009, he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. After treatment and a brief remission, died from complications of the disease in 2012.

Early years

Schintzius was born in Brandon, Florida, a suburb of Tampa.[1] He attended Brandon High School,[1] where the seven-foot center played for the Brandon Eagles high school basketball team.[2] Together with teammate Toney Mack, Schintzius led lead the Eagles to a Class 4A state runner-up finish as a sophomore, and another Final Four berth as a junior.[3] As a senior, he averaged 21.1 points and 17 rebounds per game,[3] was a finalist for Florida's Mr. Basketball award, and was recognized as a high school All-American by McDonald's and Parade magazine in 1986.[2]

College career

Schintzius received athletic scholarship offers from many top college programs. Unlike most top Florida high school basketball prospects up to that point, he chose to stay in-state and attend the University of Florida, where he played for the Florida Gators men's basketball team from 1987 to 1990 under head coach Norm Sloan.[4] Schintzius started at center for the Gators beginning early in his freshman season.[4] By the end of his junior season (1988–89), he had led the Gators in scoring, rebounding, and free-throw percentage over at least one full season.[4] He also set the program's record for blocked shots, and at the end of his junior year, his season blocked shot totals ranked first, second, and third in school history.[4]

The Gators had never been invited to the NCAA basketball tournament in over seven decades of basketball. However, they made the field during each of Schintztius's three full seasons with the program and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in 1987.[4] During his junior year, the Gators won their first-ever regular season Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship.[4] Schintzius was recognized as a first-team All-SEC player after that season and was included on multiple All-American lists.[4]

However, Schintzius' college career was marred by disciplinary problems.[5] He occasionally clashed with Coach Sloan, including one instance in which he refused to re-enter a game with a minute left during his sophomore season.[5] He also had minor incidents with opposing players, fans, and mascots, and with others off the court.[5][6]

During his junior season, Schintzius allegedly heard a rude remark from a sidewalk while riding in a car outside of Gainesville nightclub and stormed after the offender wielding a tennis racket.[5] Schintzius later apologized and was not charged with a crime, but the university's office of student affairs found him guilty of violating the student code of conduct and suspended him for four games.[5]

After returning from that suspension, fans in opposing arenas occasionally threw tennis balls onto the court, presumably taunting Schintzius for the incident. In January 1989, Florida traveled to Nashville to face the Vanderbilt Commodores in a crucial SEC matchup.[7] Losing 72–70, Florida turned the ball over with only one second left on the clock, seemingly sealing a loss. But at that point, someone in the Memorial Gymnasium home crowd threw a tennis ball onto the court. Referee John Clougherty immediately called a technical foul on the Commodores, and Schintzius, who led the Gators in free throw percentage that season, hit both free throws to send the game into overtime.[7] He then scored the Gators' first seven points in the extra period and Florida won the game 81–78. Florida went on to capture the program's first SEC regular season championship, beating Vanderbilt by a single game.[7][8][9]

Sloan was forced to resign before Schintzius's senior season of 1989–90 and was replaced on an interim basis by former Tennessee coach Don DeVoe. Schintzius was not happy with this turn of events and skipped DeVoe's first practice with the team along with fellow star Livingston Chatman.[10] Soon after, he was suspended for alleged involvement in a fraternity house fight.[10] DeVoe told Schintzius that in order to rejoin the basketball team, he would have to improve his off-court behavior, maintain his playing weight (he weighed almost 300 pounds at one point), go to class consistently, and get rid of his distinct mullet-style haircut, known as the "lobster.".[5][10] In a statement released January 25, 1990, Schintzius claimed that he had done all these things, but was nonetheless quitting the team due to conflicts with his new coach.[10] The statement read, in part:

No one can argue that Coach Sloan and Coach Towe (Monte Towe, Sloan's assistant) were easy to play for, and to them you had to accept the coach as the absolute authority and their word as final; but that does not mean I must sail under the authority of Captain Ahab. If you can play for Coach Sloan, you can play for almost anyone, almost anyone.[10]

Without Schintzius, the Gators lost sixteen of the seventeen games to end the season and missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since the year before his arrival.[11]

Schintzius remains the only player in SEC history to amass more than 1,000 points, 800 rebounds, 250 assists and 250 blocks.[12] He still holds Florida's career record for blocked shots (272), and is ranks sixth among the program's all time scoring leaders with 1,624 points.[4][12]

Professional career

Despite his personal issues, Schintzius was regarded as a good NBA prospect due to his performance on the court. The San Antonio Spurs selected him in the first round (twenty-fourth pick overall) of the 1990 NBA Draft.[1] He injured his back during his rookie season and was traded to the Sacramento Kings for Antoine Carr on September 23, 1991. He later revealed that Spurs general manager Bob Bass disliked his mullet haircut and told him to cut it, which he did.[13] Schintzius then sent Bass the shavings in an envelope.[13] The Kings waived Schintzius during the 1991–92 season, and the New Jersey Nets signed him on October 1, 1992.

Schintzius' NBA career was severely hampered by injuries, particularly chronic back problems. He had several surgeries for a spinal disc herniation and often missed long stretches of playing time as he moved from team to team, mostly serving as a reserve center.[14][15] He spent three seasons with the New Jersey Nets, a year with the Indiana Pacers, and then a year with the Los Angeles Clippers.[1] After missing the entire 1997–98 season due to injury, he played sixteen games with the Celtics in 1998–99 before retiring from the NBA.[1] In eight NBA seasons, he appeared in 217 regular season games and started thirty-three of them.[1]

He later came out of retirement to play in the minor leagues, and appeared in thirty-five games for the Mobile Revelers of the NBA's Development League in 2001–02.[1] He last played for the Brevard Blue Ducks of the United States Basketball League (USBL) in 2003.[14]

Off the court

Schintzius played Ivan Radovadovitch, a fictional Georgian player for the New York Knicks, in the 1996 comedy movie Eddie, which starred Whoopi Goldberg as the team's female coach.[14] Several other actual NBA players were also featured as members of the Knicks and other real NBA teams in the film.[14] He later appeared in local commercials.[14]

At the trial of his former New Jersey Nets teammate Jayson Williams, he testified that he witnessed Williams kill his own dog with a shotgun.[16]

Illness and death

In November 2009, Schintzius was diagnosed with a chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, a rare and often fatal form of the disease.[17] With a bone marrow donation from his brother Travis, he underwent bone marrow transplantation at the Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa on January 12, 2010.[17] The procedure was considered a success,[18][19] but Schintzius struggled through several difficult rounds of chemotherapy until being declared cancer-free in July 2010.[17]

In early 2012, Schintzius continued to suffer from complications, and a second bone marrow transplant was required.[20] On April 15, 2012, Schintzius died at the Moffit Cancer Center from respiratory failure; he was 43 years old.[21]

See also

• List of Florida Gators in the NBA

References

1. Basketball-Reference.com, Players, Dwayne Schintzius. Retrieved April 16, 2012.
2. Bob Hill, "Schintzius Could Make a Big Difference," Sun-Sentinel, p. 1C (November 20, 1986). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
3. Joey Knight, "Tampa Bay's All-Century Team: No. 61 Dwayne Schintzius Archived 2012-03-07 at the Wayback Machine," The Tampa Tribune (October 30, 1999). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
4. 2011–12 Florida Gators Men's Basketball Media Guide Archived May 1, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, pp. 74, 76–77, 79, 82, 84, 90, 132–133, 146, 151, 153–154, 157, 159–160, 162, 163, 164, 166 (2011). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
5. Curry Kirkpatrick "Much ado about a 'do: The long and short of it is that mangle-maned Dwayne," Sports Illustrated (January 16, 1989). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
6. King, Bill (January 26, 1990). "Schintzius's Career Always Interesting". The Gainesville Sun. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
7. Mark Bechtel, "Fanatics at Work: Ten Most Intriguing Things Thrown on the Field," Sports Illustrated (May 4, 2006). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
8. Kevin Brockway, "Former Florida center Dwayne Schintzius dies at 43 Archived 2015-06-20 at the Wayback Machine," The Gainesville Sun (April 15, 2012). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
9. "Fans throw Vanderbilt for a loss". The Associated Press. January 26, 1989. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
10. "Basketball; Schintzius Walks Out And Slams the Door," The New York Times (January 27, 1990). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
11. Hays Carlyon, "Gators great Dwayne Schintzius, 43, dies of leukemia," The Florida Times-Union (April 15, 2012). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
12. Antonya English and Alexandra Zayas, "Former Florida Gator, Brandon High basketball star Dwayne Schintzius dies at 43," Tampa Bay Times (April 15, 2012). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
13. Joey Johnston, "As baseball's trade deadline nears, anxiety rises," The Tampa Tribune (July 24, 2011). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
14. Chris Harry, "All Grown up Dwayne Schintzius shows a softer side than he did 20 years ago when he stormed onto the basketball scene at the University of Florida," South Florida Sun-Sentinel, p. C1 (March 14, 2007). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
15. Shaun Powell, "Former NBA big man Schintzius fights cancer, ghosts of past," NBA.com (October 19, 2012). Retrieved April 17, 2012.
16. "Former Net renews claim that Williams shot own dog Archived 2007-04-02 at the Wayback Machine," CourtTV.com (May 5, 2004). Retrieved March 16, 2007.
17. Joey Johnston, "Former NBA, UF center Schintzius grateful to be alive Archived 2010-08-26 at the Wayback Machine," The Tampa Tribune (July 13, 2010). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
18. Kurt Helin, "ProBasketballTalk: Dwayne Schintzius fighting for life," NBC Sports (February 19, 2010). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
19. Joey Johnston, "Ex-UF star, NBA player Dwayne Schintzius battling cancer," The Tampa Tribune (February 17, 2010). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
20. Joey Johnston, Bay area native, UF star Schintzius dead at 43," The Tampa Tribune (April 15, 2012). Retrieved April 16, 2012.
21. Michael DiRocco, "Dwayne Schintzius dead at age 43," ESPN (April 15, 2012). Retrieved April 16, 2012.

External links

• Career statistics and player information from NBA.com, or Basketball-Reference.com