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PHOENIX (AP) -- Ray Meyer had just been hired as head basketball coach at DePaul 63 years ago when he was introduced to a 6-foot-10 student with thick glasses who had never played the game.
``I saw George Mikan,'' the 91-year-old Meyer recalled, ``and I saw my future.''
Mikan was the future of basketball during the next decade, too.
He became the sport's first big star, a man whose popularity and talent nurtured the fledgling pro game until the likes of Bill Russell, Bob Cousy and Wilt Chamberlain arrived.
Under Meyer's tutelage, Mikan became a two-time college player of the year. A half-century ago, no one had seen someone that tall with such agility, tenacity and skill.
When Mikan died Wednesday night at a Scottsdale rehabilitation center, 18 days shy of his 81st birthday, he was remembered as a towering figure who literally transformed the game.
``George was a giant among men in the early days of the NBA,'' said Boston Celtics president Arnold ``Red'' Auerbach, who coached against him. ``He was one of the greatest players of all time. He was the first player in the league to really be an imposing and intimidating figure on the court.''
Mikan's death also brought attention to his last great cause, a fight to boost the meager pensions given to those who played in the NBA before 1965.
``His hope was that he would be alive when the collective bargaining was reached and a decision had been finalized on the pre-65ers and their surviving families,'' his son Terry told The Associated Press. ``He gave his heart and soul to that effort. He wrote numerous letters to the parties, requested them to take it under consideration.''
Mikan ``literally carried the league'' in its early years, Cousy said. His reward was a $1,700 per month pension, his family said. His wife of 58 years, Patricia, will get half that much now that he's died.
Speaking after his Miami team beat Detroit in a playoff game Thursday night, Shaquille O'Neal offered his condolences and said he wanted to pay for the funeral.
``Without No. 99, there is no me,'' O'Neal said.
Terry Mikan said he appreciated O'Neal's offer but said it would be up to his mother whether to accept it.
``It just speaks to what Shaquille is all about,'' Terry Mikan said. ``He had a bond with my dad. They were close friends.''
A private memorial service is planned in Scottsdale on Monday night. At some unspecified date, a public ceremony will be held in Minneapolis, where Mikan's ashes will be interred, Terry Mikan said.
Despite Mikan's long battles against diabetes and kidney ailments, Meyer said he was shocked to hear of the death of his lifelong friend, who was remembered as a rugged competitor on the court and a ``gentle giant'' off it.
``He had the most positive attitude you ever heard,'' Meyer said. ``Never once did he feel sorry for himself. He was a great basketball player, but I think he was a better human being. He was fun to be around. He loved people.''
Pro basketball was a minor, struggling sport when Mikan arrived, with games played before small crowds in places such as Fort Wayne and Rochester. But when the big guy came to town, the crowds grew.
``He was looked on as sort of a freak because of his size,'' Cousy said. ``But he was athletic and nimble. It's a different time today with the athletic big man. But in those days, he was the only one. That was the kind of attention George got. He was what the league needed: an attention getter.''
In December 1949, when Mikan's Minneapolis Lakers came to New York, the marquee at Madison Square Garden read ``Geo. Mikan vs. the Knicks.''
``George Mikan truly revolutionized the game and was the NBA's first true superstar,'' NBA commissioner David Stern said. ``He had the ability to be a fierce competitor on the court and a gentle giant off the court. We may never see one man impact the game of basketball as he did, and represent it with such warmth and grace.''
In his early college days, Mikan would simply swat away any shot above the rim, leading the NCAA to institute the goaltending rule. The NBA doubled the width of the free-throw lane to ease Mikan's dominance inside. Slowdown tactics used against him -- his 1950 Lakers lost 19-18 to the Fort Wayne Pistons in the lowest-scoring game in NBA history -- eventually led to the 24-second shot clock.
Mikan led the Minneapolis Lakers to five league titles in the first six years of the franchise's history.
He led the league in personal fouls three times and had 10 broken bones during his playing career. He averaged 23.1 points in seven seasons with Minneapolis before retiring because of injuries in 1956. Mikan was the league's MVP in the 1948-49 season, when he averaged 28.3 points in leading the Lakers to the title.
``Ed McCauley was our center. Eddie was 6-9, but weighed about 185 pounds where George was probably 250,'' Cousy recalled. ``When we'd walk down the street in a group, Eddie would brush against a pole or big tree and say `Excuse me George.' Even to someone close to his height, George seemed humongous.''
Mikan coached the Lakers for part of the 1957-58 season, and was commissioner of the American Basketball Association in 1967, introducing the 3-point line and the distinctive red, white and blue ball.
His last years were difficult. His right leg was amputated below the knee in 2000. He underwent kidney dialysis three times a week for the past five years, his family said. He was moved to the rehab center last weekend after spending six weeks in the hospital for treatment of a diabetic wound on his leg.
In addition to his wife, whom he met when both were students at DePaul, Mikan is survived by his sons Larry, Terry, Patrick and Michael; daughters Trisha and Maureen, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A statue of Mikan taking his trademark hook shot was dedicated at the Target Center in Minneapolis in April 2001 at halftime of a Timberwolves-Lakers game. He appreciated that the pioneers of the game were getting at least some recognition.
``We were in hiatus a long time, the old-timers,'' Mikan said at the time. ``They forgot about us. They don't go back to our NBA days.''
AP sports writers Rick Gano in Chicago and Dave Goldberg in New York contributed to this report.
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