Hampton University basketball legend Rick Mahorn basked in pride and relief during his jersey retirement ceremony on Jan. 16, 2023.

Mahorn left Hampton in 1980. It took the university 43 years to properly recognize his stellar career.

“About damn time,” Mahorn thought as he watched the curtains reveal his No. 44 jersey in the rafters.

“I don’t look at my status. I’m just a regular guy that went down there and did something, and didn’t realize what I was doing both as a basketball player and as a person. I’ve had records there – one got broken – ever since they inserted the three-pointer. But if I ever shot three-pointers back then, nobody would’ve ever caught them.”

Any aspersions Mahorn had for the university for dragging its feet on the ceremony melted away when he saw the “44” with all the other championship banners. That number carries weight in the Mahorn family, and it doesn’t just belong to Rick.

“The shining moment for me [at Hampton] was that I received the number 44,” he said. “That’s the number my brother had when he was in high school and also in college. It’s kind of like fate that I got the number 44. It stayed in the family.” 

Owen, the “basketball star” of the Mahorn household, played at Fairfield University. He convinced his younger, uninterested brother Rick to stay in basketball and helped him get into shape. 

The persuasion worked. While Rick was a dominant defensive end in high school (with offers from Big 10 and Pac 10 schools), he decided to focus on basketball and enrolled at Hampton Institute.

Despite his 18-year professional career, Mahorn never dreamt about making the NBA. The education major wanted to become a principal of his alma mater, Weaver High School in Hartford, Connecticut. He left Hampton without his degree in 1980 but eventually returned and finished the work. The jersey ceremony doubled as an opportunity for President Darrell Williams to present Mahorn with perhaps his greatest individual achievement: a college degree.

“The NBA was never an option,” he said. “The option in my family was to be the first to graduate from college. When I got my degree, it gave me chills. That was my main goal, to go to school. My mother always said, ‘Just complete the job.’ That was something I could tell my mother as an angel looking over me, ‘This is what I came to school for.’

“I didn’t go to school to play basketball.”

Mahorn wound up being a pretty good basketball player.

“As a freshman, I believe he averaged 6.6 points per game, which is quite a few,” said Assistant Athletics Director and lifelong friend Mike Ballweg. “He was also a really good ball-handler, and I thought at the time that this guy could become a really good player.

“I didn’t know he’d become that good a player.”

The former Pirate accrued a treasure trove of accolades during his four-year college career. The first and only Hampton player to be drafted into the NBA, Mahorn was a three-time All-American and was the 1978-79 CIAA Player of the Year.

Mahorn also leads the school in most rebounds (career, season, and single game). For 40 years, he was the all-time leading scorer until Jermaine Marrow took the title in 2020. 

As he took off in college, NBA scouts began sniffing around the Hampton Roads area. Since Hampton was a Division II school then, questions arose on whether Mahorn could compete at the Division I level, much less the pros.

Those questions didn’t last long.

Mahorn faced off against North Carolina center and future San Antonio Spur Rich Yonakor at an All-Star tournament. He caught the ball at the elbow, elbowed Yonakor in the chest, and rose up for an easy jump shot.

“Well, if he’s doing this against a UNC player, that’s pretty good,” Ballweg thought as he watched the game.

Minutes later, Mahorn repeated the same sequence: catch, elbow, score. Again, Yonakor hit the deck, gasping for air.

“That’s when I realized Mahorn could actually play in the NBA,” Ballweg said.

The Washington Bullets selected the Hampton Pirate in the second round of the 1980 NBA Draft. Throughout the process, Mahorn couldn’t believe he was in the pros.

“I never knew I was in the NBA until I was three years in the NBA and realized I was playing professional basketball,” he said.

Mahorn idolized Willis Reed growing up, but ironically, one of his greatest mentors in the league was Wes Unseld, one of Reed’s eastern conference rivals. Unseld taught the rookie how to operate in the league. Mahorn’s other mentor, Adrian Dantley, showed him how to “take care of yourself, take care of your family, and to be professional.”

Dantley and Mahorn played together on the “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons, a team renowned and reviled for its physicality. In 1989, the Pistons won their first NBA championship.

“The NBA never had the type of physicality that we had,” Mahorn said. “It made us a cohesive group that we wanted everybody who was on the same agenda. We had one agenda: win a championship. As Malcolm X said, ‘By all means necessary.’”

Mahorn retired in 1999 but quickly jumped back into basketball as a coach, per recommendation from legendary Pistons coach Chuck Daly. Following a stint with the Atlanta Hawks, Bill Laimbeer, one of his closest friends (the second half of the McNasty and McFilthy duo), invited Mahorn to help coach the Detroit Shock of the WNBA. 

“People always try to divide women and men,” Mahorn said. “Women know how to play basketball just as well. This is in all walks of life – women are capable of doing things that men can do, and vice versa. These young ladies went out there to perform at a high level and we entrenched our attitudes as physical players.”

Mahorn remained in Detroit, helping out with the Pistons while also coaching the Aliens in Ice Cube’s Big 3 basketball league. He still keeps tabs on Hampton basketball and has become more of a fan now than ever before.

“I talk more smack to these other people that I know up here in Detroit that went to Tennessee State, Howard, North Carolina A&T,” he said. “I rep my school. I talk more shit now than when I was playing.”

Hampton stumbled with the jersey retirement, but Mahorn doesn’t mind. He wouldn’t change a thing.

“If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it twice, again, three times.”