Mr. Butch Lee made a pit stop yesterday at the Latino Sports 25th Annual Celebrity Basketball Game & Family Health Day yesterday at Orchard beach. Mr. Lee was visiting to New York to take his son, Mathew Lee to St. Peter’s University in New Jersey.
For those that don’t know much about Mr. Butch Lee we believe it’s important to know our sports history, especially our Puerto Rican sports history.
Younger Lee with Lakers. (Photo NBA)
Mr. Lee is a Bronx NewyoRican who attended Dewitt Clinton High School and is the first Puerto Rican and Latin American born athlete to be drafted and play in the NBA. Mr. Lee played for the Marquette Warriors and was named the most outstanding player in the 1977 collegiate Final Four when he led his team, to the school’s first national championship. Butch was drafted and traded to the Lakers during the 1979-1980 season, but unfortunately he only played eleven games as he had a serious leg injury that forced him out of the game for the season and eventually into retirement.
Butch Lee moved back to Puerto Rico where he played for a few teams and eventually became a respected head coach for several teams in the Puerto Rican National Basketball League (BSN).
However, this is the game that most Puerto Rican remember most:
“In 1974 Lee asked his coach Al McGuire to allow him to play for the U.S. Olympic basketball team. However, his coach had sent someone else and Lee went to Puerto Rico where he qualified for the Puerto Rican national basketball team. When Puerto Rico played against the U.S. in the 1976 Summer Olympics, Lee made 15 out of 18 field goals and scored 35 points. The U.S. still avoided an upset, defeating Puerto Rico by one point, 95-94.” (Source Wikipedia.org)
