Every athlete eventually hits a ceiling in their playing career, most sooner than later.
Not Ron Brewer.
Brewer excelled at every conceivable level of a famed basketball career.
It began at an early age, playing as a third-grader on the six-grade basketball team at Howard Elementary in Fort Smith and was honed on the playgrounds on the north side of town.
He was also a midget league all-star in baseball for the Boys Club.
Brewer played on junior high teams at Darby when games against nearby Kimmons, which won the state junior high basketball tournament in 1971, featured packed gymnasiums.
At Fort Smith Northside, where those Kimmons and Darby players meshed together under the tutelage of legendary coach Gayle Kaundart, Brewer led the Grizzlies to an undefeated season as a senior in the 1973-74 season.
Right after the season was over, he finished second at the Class AAAA state track meet in the high jump. It was that leaping ability that helped Brewer reach heights few could ever imagine.
Northside's 30-0 basketball squad beat Sidney Moncrief's Little Rock Hall Warriors three times; twice during round-robin conference play and once for the Class AAAA state tournament title. In the 58-56 win at Hall, Brewer hit the decisive jumper with five seconds left. In the second meeting, Brewer scored 29 points in Northside's 73-56 win at Northside. In the state tournament, Brewer scored 21 points in the state championship game to lead Northside to the 57-45 win at Little Rock's Barton Coliseum.
In the Overall Tournament, Brewer scored a season-high 34 points in Northside's 68-51 win over Class AA champion Magnolia before leading Northside to the Overall championship with a 36-32 win over Conway and Marvin Delph also at Barton Coliseum in front of 10,515 fans. Conway was the Class AAA champion and was 28-0 entering the game.
"I had some great coaches, but the one who molded me was Gayle Kaundart. You don't realize that until you leave. Halfway, three-quarters of the way wasn't good enough for him. I was the point guard, so I was an extension of him. We'd do things over and over and over until he got his point across, and we didn't think anything about it," Brewer told the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette recently.
Brewer, Moncrief and Delph, of course, later teamed up at the University of Arkansas with the home-grown trio earning the famed nickname of 'the Triplets.'
Before joining the Razorbacks, though, Brewer and Kaundart teamed up one more time with both going to Westark Community College where the Lions went 32-4 in the 1974-75 season.
Eddie Sutton then recruited Brewer to the University of Arkansas, where the Razorbacks went 77-15 in three years.
As a senior, Brewer scored 647 points, which was second in single-season Razorback history behind only Martin Terry's 735 points in 1972-73, and led the Razorbacks to the Final Four in St. Louis, Mo., in 1978.
Arkansas lost to No. 1 Kentucky, 64-59, in the Final Four, but Brewer hit a silky-smooth turnaround jumper just inside the top of the circle at the buzzer to lift the Razorbacks to a 71-69 over Notre Dame in the third-place game.
"That was my go-to move to get a bucket," Brewer said in a Hawgs Illustrated story. "When I saw any part of (the defender's) body, I went the opposite direction. I was 6-4 and I could jump. When I elevated, they weren't affecting my shot. I either made it or I missed." Brewer was selected by Portland in the first round of the National Basketball Association draft as the seventh pick overall.
Brewer played in 501 games in the NBA, spanning eight seasons for six teams. He basically replaced, briefly, two of the greatest players in NBA history.
In Brewer's final season in the NBA, he was signed as a free agent by the Chicago Bulls on November 5, 1985, right after Michael Jordan broke his left foot three games into his second season. Brewer played four games for the Bulls before finishing out his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Earlier in his NBA career, Brewer stepped into the starting lineup in 1981 with the San Antonio Spurs for George Gervin, who missed three games due to a bruised thigh.
In those three games, Brewer averaged 41 points. On November 4, Brewer scored 39 points in a 128-102 win over Cleveland. Brewer was 15-of-25 shooting with four rebounds and four assists. Three days later, in a 103-96 win over the New York Knicks, Brewer scored 40 points with three boards, six assists and four steals. Finally, on November 10, Brewer scored 44 points in a 128-102 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. Brewer was 19-of-24 shooting with four rebounds.
Brewer was named the NBA's Player of the Week.
Only Brewer, Gervin, Moses Malone and Adrian Dantley had consecutive 40-point games that season.
Brewer retired averaging 11.9 points per game and with a career 82.4 free-throw percentage in the NBA.
He is a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith Hall of Fame, the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame, the Northside Hall of Honor and the Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club Hall of Fame.
At A Glance
RON BREWER
SPORT Basketball
SCHOOL Fort Smith Northside
CREDENTIALS Led Fort Smith Northside to a 30-0 record and the 1974 state championship. … Led the Grizzlies to the Overall state championship as well. … Helped Arkansas to the Final Four in 1978 along with fellow Arkansans Sidney Moncrief (LR Hall) and Marvin Delph (Conway). … Selected in the first round of the 1978 NBA draft by Portland, the No. 7 overall selection. … Father of Arkansas All-SEC guard Ronnie Brewer.
THAT’S WHAT HE SAID “That was my go-to move to get a bucket. When I saw any part of (the defender’s) body, I went the opposite direction. I was 6-4 and I could jump. When I elevated, they weren’t affecting my shot. I either made it or I missed.”
Sports on 06/03/2020