Jerry C. Grote (born December 28, 1940) is an American retired

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player. He played one season for the

Los Angeles Lakers The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Lakers play their ...

of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA).

College career

Grote, a 6'4 guard from Cantwell High School in

Montebello, California Montebello (Italian for "Beautiful Mountain") is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located just east of East Los Angeles and southwest of San Gabriel Valley. It is an independent city. east of downtown Los Angeles. It is ...

, played collegiately at Loyola University in Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount). Grote made a splash in his first year of eligibility, averaging 14.2 points and 6.7 rebounds per game and winning

West Coast Athletic Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting of ...

player of the year Several sports leagues honour their best player with an award called Player of the Year (POY) . In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award. Association football In association football, this award is he ...

honors as a sophomore. He followed that up by averaging 12.6 points and 4.9 rebounds and leading the Lions to the 1961 WCAC title. In Grote's senior year, he averaged 13 points per game and was named second team All-WCAC. He finished his career with 1,011 points – scoring his 1,000th point in his final collegiate game.

Professional career

Following the close of his college career, Grote was drafted in the fourth round (28th pick overall) of the

1962 NBA draft The 1962 NBA draft was the 16th annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on March 26, 1962, before the 1962–63 season. In this draft, nine NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball playe ...

by the

St. Louis Hawks The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays its home games at ...

. However, he opted to play for the

Long Beach Chiefs The Long Beach Chiefs were an American basketball team based in Honolulu, Hawaii (1961–62) and Long Beach, California (1962–63) that was a member of the American Basketball League. History The American Basketball League played one full sea ...

of the American Basketball League. Grote averaged 7.5 points per game in 24 contests for the Chiefs in the 1962–63 season. In the

1964–65 NBA season The 1964–65 NBA Season was the 19th season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Boston Celtics winning their 7th straight NBA Championship, beating the Los Angeles Lakers 4 games to 1 in the NBA Finals. Season reca ...

, Grote played for the Los Angeles Lakers. He appeared in 11 games and scored 14 total points.Jerry Grote NBA statistics
accessed September 16, 2011

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grote, Jerry 1940 births Living people American men's basketball players Basketball players from California Guards (basketball) Long Beach Chiefs players Los Angeles Lakers players Loyola Marymount Lions men's basketball players St. Louis Hawks draft picks Sportspeople from Montebello, California