Bob Dandridge arrived at Norfolk State University in 1965 as a 6-foot-3, 160-pound relative unknown.
Four years later, he had grown into a legend — averaging 32 points per game as a senior on his way to a 13-year NBA career that included two league championships.
On Sunday, Dandridge’s status in the game was further cemented when he was among 16 selected for enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Dandridge’s fellow Class of 2021 inductees include former Virginia Union standout Ben Wallace, Chris Bosh, Chris Webber and Paul Pierce, coaches Jay Wright, Rick Adelman and Cotton Fitzsimmons, and WNBA stars Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson.
The class will be enshrined Sept. 11.
Dandridge, 73 and a Norfolk resident, told The Pilot’s Bob Molinaro in 2013 he wasn’t sure he’d get a call from the Hall of Fame.
“I think I’m deserving to be in the Hall of Fame,” he said. “Probably the people voting now are too young to recognize my name. So many things are out of our control. If it’s meant to be, it will be, but if not, I’m not going to leave this Earth bitter.”
Dandridge played in more than 800 NBA games, was a four-time all-star and was a member of two NBA championship teams: the 1971 Milwaukee Bucks and 1978 Washington Bullets. He averaged 18.5 points per game during his career and made eight playoff appearances.
But his basketball career blossomed at Norfolk State.
Dandridge, a Richmond native who attended Maggie L. Walker High School, remains Norfolk State’s all-time leader in single-season scoring average at 32.3 points per game (1968-69). He’s also fourth on that list at 26.2 (1967-68), second in career field goals made (332) and fourth in single-season points (808). His 1,664 career points are 14th all-time.
Dandridge helped the Spartans win the CIAA title in 1968 with a 25-2 record, and as a senior led NSU to a 21-4 record. He set a CIAA tournament record by scoring 50 points in a game.
Dandridge was a fourth-round pick (45th overall) by Milwaukee in the 1969 NBA draft.
A 6-foot-6 forward in the NBA, Dandridge was a key player on a Milwaukee championship team that included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) and Oscar Robertson. Then, as a member of Washington’s title team, he teamed with Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes.
“I take pride in being able to play with two superstars on two different teams,” Dandridge told The Pilot in 2013, “and still being an integral part of both those teams.
“I knew how to find a shot,” Dandridge added, “even though I may have been the third option in the offense.”
Dandridge averaged 20.1 points in eight playoff appearances — including four trips to the NBA Finals.
After his playing days, Dandridge was an assistant coach at Hampton University, where he earned his master’s degree in counseling. In 1999 he started the Dandridge Group, a nonprofit organization that teaches life skills to at-risk youth in Norfolk.
Between 1994 and ’98, Dandridge lived part-time in New York City working for the NBA Players’ Association. Dandridge also came up with the idea that players coming into the league needed guidance, leading to development of the NBA Rookie Transition Program, which has served as a model for other pro leagues.
“I consider that,” Dandridge said in 2013, “to be as great a contribution to the NBA as my basketball playing days.”
Dandridge is part of a 2021 Hall of Fame class that also includes someone who has been a Hall of Famer for 46 years: 11-time NBA champion Bill Russell, enshrined in 1975 as a player, has been selected again as a coach. Russell becomes the fifth Hall of Famer who will be inducted as both a player and a coach, joining John Wooden, Lenny Wilkens, Bill Sharman and Tommy Heinsohn.
Toni Kukoc was selected by the Hall of Fame’s international committee, and Pearl Moore — a 4,000-point scorer for Francis Marion of South Carolina in college — was among those selected for induction as well.
Also selected: former WNBA President Val Ackerman as a contributor, longtime director of Five-Star Basketball Camp Howard Garfinkel as a contributor and Clarence “Fats” Jenkins — whose teams in the 1920s and 1930s won what was called the Colored Basketball World Championships in eight consecutive years. Ackerman is a former Virginia Cavaliers player.
Jami Frankenberry, 757-446-2376, jami.frankenberry@pilotonline.com