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'Good memories' Hometown joins NBA in mourning Bobby Phills
Posted: Tuesday January 18, 2000 08:17 AM
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Bobby Ray Phills III perched on his Uncle Dwayne Phills' shoulder, a Charlotte Hornets jersey with the number 13 on it hanging loosely on his tiny body as he looked down into his father's coffin. The 3-year-old son of the Hornets guard, who died in a car crash this week, leaned forward, raised his right hand and waved a final goodbye as Dwayne slipped a Bible into his older brother's coffin. "He's alive. He's alive with me. He's alive with his friends and family," Dwayne Phills said. Teammates and friends said goodbye to Phills, who was killed when he lost control of his car after drag racing with a teammate. The Hornets, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks were honorary pallbearers at Phills' funeral Sunday in his hometown. "He was what life was all about," said San Antonio's Avery Johnson, Phills' teammate at Southern University. "This is a time to remember all the great things about him. We're all going to miss him." Phills was killed instantly Wednesday morning when he lost control of his speeding Porsche and it crashed head-on into another vehicle. The 30-year-old player left behind a wife and two children, 3 and 1. Teammate David Wesley, who was speeding alongside Phills when the crash took place, remembered his close friend. "I have a lot of good memories," Wesley said, his voice shaking. "Our friendship was always there. I'll miss him all the time. The only bad memory I have is the accident. It's the toughest thing I've ever gone through because we all love Bobby." Phills' wife, Kendall, gave a mostly upbeat speech about her husband, though she had one regret about the morning Phills died. "I didn't tell him I love him," she said. But she said of the man she met when she was 14-years-old, it was one of the few times in their marriage she hadn't. "I was lucky to have him as my husband, my protector, the captain of my ship, my eternal soul mate," she said. "Until we meet again Bobby, I'll always love you." The celebrities were far outnumbered by hundreds of people who remembered Phills growing up in Baton Rouge, going to school with them at Southern University Laboratory School or making spectacular plays in the arena where his coffin stood at midcourt. "I always called it the Bobby Phills Show. Now this is the last Bobby Phills Show. And this is the place it should be," said Jewel Jefferson, 73, who once led cheers for Phills during his college career. State Senator Cleo Fields read a proclamation and a letter of condolence from the governor. Southern University Chancellor Edward R. Jackson announced that the school will retire Phills' number next month. "I started following him when he was in high school," said Rev. Louis Hamilton Sr. "I was at every game and bought he and his mother a meal after them. See all these people. They all knew Bobby one way or another and they all loved him. He never forgot where he came from or got too big for us." Mourners began filing into the Felton G. Clark Activity Center on Southern University at 11 a.m. For over two hours, a steady line of people crossed the basketball court, which was circled by a wall of flowers and pictures of Phills and his family. Many had children with them. All seemed to have special stories. "I went to Glenn Oaks High School and we played him three times," Patrick Lewis said. "They whipped us pretty good twice, but we beat them once. It was the high point of our season." Michael Washington wept openly as he remembered the man he once matched up against in pickup games on Baton Rouge playgrounds and high school gyms. "He always beat me, always," Washington said. "He'd beat you in a game, he'd beat you at horse. You name it, and he'd beat you at it. But he never humiliated me. That was the thing about him. He was always a really good guy."
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