The Wright way to live life

Two nights before the highest scoring game in Steve Wright’s Boston University basketball career, he went to see his old coach in the hospital. It was Dec. 7, 1978 and Roy Sigler, the man who had recruited him and coached him for two years at BU, was getting ready to undergo a risky eye surgery.

Wright and his teammate and best friend, Glenn Consor, headed to see Sigler despite his own wishes to keep some space from his old players. Sigler still remembers the visit as an example of how special a person Wright was, but he also can’t put out of his mind how shocked Wright was to see his coach in serious condition.

“I heard that he looked like he was going to throw up when he saw me,” Sigler said. “Maybe I inspired him or maybe he was able to block it right out of his mind, but his next game was just incredible.”

On Dec. 9, the lanky 6-foot 9-inch junior, nicknamed “Slim” by his teammates, was hitting almost all of his shots. Wright poured in 42 points in a losing effort at the University of Connecticut, despite thinking about Sigler’s surgery.

Wright’s unflappability was on display on that December night more than 25 years ago, but it was never stronger than when he was fighting for his life in a battle with cancer that spanned the past two years. Wright succumbed to Acute Lymphocyte Leukemia one month ago, on Dec. 22, 2003, at the age of 45.

Wright’s jersey with the number 33 hangs under glass at Case Gymnasium to honor his many basketball achievements in his four years as a player at BU from 1976-80. But those who knew him well appreciate Steve Wright’s achievements beyond the basketball court.

“He was a person of very high character,” Sigler said. “I couldn’t have had a better kid. He was always going to work hard. He was a great kid and he always went to class. He was the type of kid that typified what being a basketball player at BU was all about.”

Wright’s coach at BU for two years after Sigler was current Louisville University Head Coach Rick Pitino. He shared the same feelings for Wright that Sigler had.

“This was the most special man I’ve seen in quite some time. I was very lucky to have known him,” Pitino said in a statement. “His attitude was always great and it got more positive as his suffering got worse. Not one time did his attitude let down.”

Many across the BU community who were there in the late 1970s echo the feelings Sigler and Pitino have for Wright. But as Sigler recalled, it was almost by accident that Wright attended BU. It was his teammate, Mike Owens, at Albert Einstein High School in Maryland that Sigler really wanted when he went on a recruiting trip the day after Thanksgiving in 1975.

“I went primarily to see Owens, but his high school coach said we weren’t going to get him,” Sigler said. “Owens ended up going to Virginia and playing on the same teams as Ralph Sampson.”

Sigler’s focus then shifted to Wright, a 6-foot 6-inch sharpshooter who only weighed 165 pounds at the time.

“I told the coach we wanted him and he looked at me like I was crazy,” Sigler said. “But I could tell he could shoot, he could run and he was a tennis player, so you could tell he had balance.”

After BU’s season was over, Sigler went and saw him in the quarterfinals of the Maryland state championship.

“I was rooting hard against his team,” he said. “If they won that game they would’ve played their next game at Cole Fieldhouse in Maryland and I didn’t want any other coaches to see him, because no other coaches had made him an offer.”

When Wright came to the Charles River campus in the fall of 1976, he joined up with the kid he had met on the recruiting trip who was going to be his roommate. Consor remembered the impression Wright had made on him as a fellow recruit the year before.

“My first impression was that he was very quiet,” Consor said. “He was almost saintly, but he was totally unflappable and he never got mad. Anger just wasn’t a part of who he was. We never once had a fight, in all the years I knew him.

“We were best friends from the day we met on a recruiting trip in high school,” Consor said. “We were roommates the whole time we were at school.”

Consor, a point guard, and Wright, a shooter whose favorite shot on the court was from the corner, brought that chemistry onto the court during the first year. Despite BU’s 7-19 record, Wright shined. He was named the team’s Most Valuable Player after averaging 10 points per game. Sigler was getting just what he expected out of his freshman star.

“He had the ability to shoot the ball, and with that size no one could stop him when he was playing primarily away from the basket,” he said. “He was also a very smart player.”

Wright’s sophomore season was more of the same. He averaged 12 points per game, but again the team finished below .500, going 10-15. After the season, Sigler was dismissed and Pitino was brought in.

Wright’s game rose to new levels during his junior year, and with it came newfound team success. He averaged 20.8 points per game as the Terriers went 17-9 on the year. And once again, he was named the team’s MVP. The sky seemed to be the limit for Wright as he prepared for his senior season.

“Starting the season off, he was one of the top-ranked seniors in the country,” Consor said.

But before Wright’s senior season, he suffered a knee injury. He played through it all season, despite a noticeable limp. He was still able to lead BU to a 21-9 record and a trip to the National Invitational Tournament, its first postseason bid in 21 years. He averaged 19.8 points to go along with six rebounds per contest that year, bad knee and all.

He finished his career among the all-time leaders at BU in several categories. His career field-goal percentage of .522 for a total of 1,641 points puts him fourth all-time in program history in scoring.

And soon after the year ended for the Terriers, the awards came pouring in. Wright was named to the All-Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference team and once again, MVP of the Terriers. The senior, a business administration major, was also recognized as an Academic All-American.

“Steve was really able to juggle academics, athletics and a social life more than anyone else,” Consor recalled. “We all looked up to him.

“If he hadn’t hurt his knee his senior year, he would’ve been a 10-12 year NBA player,” he added. “He had such a tremendous feel for the game.”

Although he struggled with the knee injury, the Boston Celtics still selected him in the eighth round of the NBA Draft in 1980. Wright never tried out for the Celtics, however, instead opting to play overseas for two years with Consor. The pair spent one year in Belgium and another in Spain, before they both headed back to the United States, where Wright began his career in accounting.

Over the next 20 years, Wright settled down in Silver Spring, Md., where he married his wife Julie and had two boys, Kevin and Sean. He was inducted into the BU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988.

In December of 2001, Wright received the news that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He immediately began undergoing regular chemotherapy treatments.

“His reaction, even initially, was how he dealt with everything,” said Consor, who remained friends with Wright to the very end. “He was level-headed, calm and poised.”

Wright, with the help of his wife Julie, set up a web site through an organization called Caring Bridge. The site allowed Wright to post journal entries on his progress with the disease and it also allowed friends, family and former classmates to post messages as well.

But in August of 2002 came more bad news – the cancer had relapsed and now he had leukemia. Wright underwent a bone marrow transplant in November of 2002, around the time Sigler heard on the ESPN telecast of last season’s BU-Stanford University season opening game that his former player was battling cancer. Sigler contacted Wright, and much like Consor, was surprised to hear Wright in good spirits.

“His attitude through the whole ordeal was one of great courage. He never got down,” Sigler said.

Sigler wasn’t the only former coach who was keeping in touch. Wright sent Pitino a letter on his progress this September. The letter touched Pitino enough that he read it to his current basketball team at the University of Louisville twice – once in September, and once just recently after hearing that Wright had died.

“[I read it] because we’re trying to constantly teach what gets you down and what doesn’t,” Pitino said in the statement. “To me, this was the most courageous thing I’ve seen in a while.

“I tell my players that this letter – what’s in there – that’s courage,” he added. “What we’re doing – that’s fun.”

Wright’s legacy extends beyond being the inspiration for Louisville’s 13-1 start or being honored through BU with a basketball academic award named after him. It goes beyond the 617 field goals he hit as a player. It resonates in how people remember him away from the basketball court. It’s something that Consor summed up best.

“He won’t just be remembered as a great basketball player at Boston University,” he said, “but as a good person, a righteous person and a sweet guy with a sense of humor.”