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Forgot Fields' first name. Seems like he had pretty much a wasted career, mostly in the CBA. A shame. No, Benji Wilson was committed to DePaul. He was going to be a big splash for DePaul. He was described as "Magic Johnson with a jump shot." Who knows how long he would have been there, but surely he would have made an impact. And apparently a nice guy whose death was pretty much meaningless. What a tragedy.
“He is the best basketball player that I ever saw play basketball … including Michael Jordan,” former Illini Ervin Small said. “And that’s the truth.”
At Simeon, Small played alongside Wilson. Future Illini superstar Nick Anderson was set to do the same, having transferred to Simeon from Chicago’s Prosser High to join his pal Benji for the 1984-85 season.
Many Chicago hoops observers believe that Wilson would also have joined Small and Anderson for college in Champaign. And if he had it would have been in large part due to his close relationship at the time with Illini assistant and lead recruiter Jimmy Collins.
According to the News-Gazette story, no coach spent more time around Wilson than Collins, who first met the youth while working as a hearing officer for the Cook County Probation Department in the early 1980s. It wasn’t trouble with the law, however, that brought Wilson and Collins together – rather, the two were introduced by Collins’ daughter, Erica, who was Benji’s love interest as a ninth grader.
“He used to come by the house and shoot in the yard,” Collins said. “I grew very close to him, very close to his parents.”
So close that after Wilson’s death a shaken Collins skipped Illinois’ trip to the Great Alaska Shootout so he could spend time with Wilson’s family.
Another member of the Flyin’ Illini – Lowell Hamilton of Chicago’s Providence-St. Mel – believed that Wilson was indeed bound for Champaign, based on what Benji told him in the Fall of ’84.
“After I signed at Illinois, Ben called me and said, ‘Well, I guess I gotta sign with Illinois now, too,’ ” Hamilton said. “Not long after that is when he passed.”
The News-Gazette story reported that even Joey Meyer, DePaul’s basketball coach during Wilson’s high school heyday, believed that Benji was planning to pick Illinois over the Blue Demons and Bob Knight’s Indiana program that coming spring.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/10/...-flyin-illini/
Crisco, I was just about to post that link as well. Illinois was in my mind as long with Irwin Fletcher.
OK. I had heard that he was bound for DePaul, and that it was a huge blow to the program. In any case, a tragedy.