Ben Wallace
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4x NBA ALL-STAR
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2004 NBA Champion
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4x NBA Defensive Player of the Year
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5x All-Defensive First Team
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Led NBA in blocked shots in 2002
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Detroit Pistons all time leader in blocked shots - 1,486
Big Ben's Story
A former three-sport athlete at Central High School in Hayneville, Ben Wallace became the first NBA player from the draft era to enter the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame after going undrafted. Raised in the Lowndes County towns of Benton and White Hall, Wallace was the 10th of 11 children in his family and grew up with seven older brothers.
An encounter with NBA standout Charles Oakley at a basketball camp in Livingston provided Wallace with a mentor and led him to Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland for two seasons before completing his college career at NCAA Division II Virginia Union.
Wallace became a Division II All-American, but that didn’t get him into the NBA Draft. Wallace played briefly in Italy before joining the NBA’s Washington Bullets for three seasons. After one season with the Orlando Magic, Wallace was traded to the Detroit Pistons, and his Hall of Fame career ignited.
In his 16 NBA seasons, Wallace averaged only 5.7 points per game, and his highest single-season scoring average was 9.7. But Wallace excelled at the other end of the court in a way that few others have and made “Fear the Fro” as basketball catchphrase.
Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo are the only players in NBA history to be the league’s Defensive Player of the Year four times. Wallace won the award in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006. Wallace also was an NBA All-Defensive first-team selection five times.
Wallace led the NBA in rebounding twice and averaged at least 10.7 rebounds per game for seven straight seasons. In the 2001-02 season, Wallace led the NBA with 278 blocked shots.
Wallace was an NBA All-Star four times -- every season from 2002-03 to 2005-06 -- and played center when the Detroit Pistons won the NBA championship in 2004. Wallace was the epitome of Detroit’s Going To Work Era, and the Pistons retired Wallace’s No. 3 jersey in 2016.
- Written by Mark Inabinett | minabett@aol.com
“Life didn’t give me a chance from the start. I kept fighting. I kept winning. I kept succeeding... Life is not all about taking. Life is not all about conquering. Life is about competing.” - Big Ben
“I just want to say thanks to basketball. I just want to be honest with basketball. Basketball was not my life path. Basketball was just in my life path. I took basketball and created a path for those who helped me. I took, I received, I gave back. I laid a path. I laid a track. It should be easy to find. I was stuck in it for quite some time.” - Big Ben
