College Basketball: California, Here I Come

“I have always been captivated by California,” sighed Lew Alcindor—and instantly broke the heart of every college basketball coach east of Los Angeles. The most sought-after high school player in the U.S. (TIME, Jan. 22), Alcindor, 18, stands 7 ft. 1 in. and weighs 235 Ibs.; over the course of three seasons at Manhattan’s Power Memorial Academy, he scored 2,067 points and pulled down 2,002 rebounds. He had scholarship offers from some 60 colleges, and when he made his choice last week, newsmen crammed the Power gym to hear the announcement. “I have chosen U.C.L.A.,” intoned Alcindor. “It has the atmosphere I wanted, and the people out there were nice to me.”

Coach Johnny Wooden’s U.C.L.A. Bruins have already won the N.C.A.A. championship two years running. Last month the Bruins flew Lew out to Los Angeles for a weekend, put him up in a two-room suite, drove him around town in a red Mercedes, fed him hamburgers, took him to a dance, a rock ‘n’ roll concert, and to Bel Air’s St. Martin of Tours Roman Catholic church.

Lew’s parents were dubious about sending their little boy to a school 2,500 miles away. But after a lecture from Lew on Los Angeles’ balmy climate and healthy attitude toward Negroes, they untied the apron strings. At U.C.L.A., Lew will get just what N.C.A.A. rules’ allow: room, board, tuition, and $15 per month “laundry money.”