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You are looking at the most famous photograph of any Northern Illinois University student-athlete in the 116-year history of the institution – James Arthur Bradley in all his 19-year-old exuberant glory, standing in the middle of a DeKalb cornfield under a boundless blue sky.
In my memory, no other image comes close. For many reasons.
Oh, you mean, the Sports Illustrated cover? No, that’s the local “urban myth” that has surrounded this iconic photo for decades. In reality, it was on page 73 of SI’s “College Basketball Preview” issue – dated Nov. 19, 1971, with North Carolina State’s Tom Burleson actually featured on its “Year of the New Giants” themed cover.
“As high as an elephant’s eye are 6-9 Jim Bradley, Northern Illinois, and the good XL-66 DeKalb corn,” SI stated then. “Teams traveling to DeKalb, Ill., this winter had better think in terms of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘North by Northwest.’ That’s the picture in which Cary Grant is strafed by a loaded crop duster. (NIU) has a 6-9 duster named Jim Bradley and everybody, but everybody, is saying he is the finest sophomore in the Midwest ...”
In a pre-ESPN and pre-internet sporting world, the national exposure was unprecedented, particularly for a Northern Illinois athlete who had yet to play a single minute or score a varsity point at the NCAA level. No wonder the town, the students, and the Chick Evans Field House faithful all went hoops ga-ga (seven sellout SRO crowds for 11 home dates, all-night lines for student tickets, etc.) for that memorable 21-4 Midwestern Conference championship season in 1971-72.
When SI, the sports media establishment at the time, showcased Bradley and an emerging Huskie program entering only its fifth Division I season, and with one of the well-quoted Al McGuire’s figurative “aircraft carriers” on the roster, well, look out Bill Walton and UCLA, this Tom Jorgensen-coached NIU group projected into the Sports Illustrated’s pre-season Top 25 for the first and only time.
In only two varsity campaigns, Bradley shattered the NIU record book by producing 1,134 points, 824 rebounds, 46 point-rebound double-doubles, etc., in 49 appearances – I typed “etc.” because at the time, the NCAA did not require member schools to keep individual assists and blocked shots, believe it or not.
Imagine Bradley’s career numbers in those categories.
A two-season All-American, the future Northern Illinois Athletics Hall of Famer (induction class of 1983) led the Huskies to a convincing 85-71 success over No. 5 Indiana and coach Bobby Knight as a sophomore with 24 points and 20 boards.
In 2000, Bradley was selected on the NIU Centennial All-Century Team and, to no one’s surprise, as the Player of the Century. In 1974-75, he was a key reserve on the ABA champion Kentucky Colonels with stars such as Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel and Louie Dampier.
“Of all the players I’ve coached, Jim Bradley was the best,” said Jorgensen, who would later be a full-time NBA scout before his passing. “God, was he good. At 6-10, he could do anything. Jim made the Northern Illinois program. I had the pleasure of coaching Cazzie Russell and Bill Buntin at Michigan and Jim was as talented as either of them.”
Bradley had over 300 scholarship offers – including from every Big Ten Conference program and UCLA – after leading East Chicago (Ind.) Roosevelt High School to the Indiana state championship and a 28-0 record in 1969-70. An unanimous First-Team All-Stater and prep All-American, Bradley would be named on Tony Hinkle’s 10-man all-time All-Indiana team with Johnny Wooden, Rick Mount, Bobby Plump, George McGinnis and Oscar Robertson. Talk about a Hoosier prep Who’s Who.
Since all NCAA freshmen were not eligible for varsity competition in that era, Bradley played on maybe the nation’s best intramural hoops squad with future Huskie teammates Dan McDowell (6-6), Bob Patterson (6-10), and Clarence Patterson (6-5).
Why NIU? “First of all,” Bradley told the Northern Star in 1971, “I looked at the players alongside me. And after I visited Northern, I realized that I didn’t want to go too far from home. So this is my ideal place.”
Former Northern Illinois player and assistant coach Art Rohlman explained Bradley’s appeal with two words.
“Talent and charisma,” recalled Rohlman, who played for the Huskies during 1967-71. “As a star player, Jim had plenty of both. When he was playing, he really enjoyed himself, the game. It showed. And he had that great smile.”
Award-winning Sports Illustrated photographer Heinz Kluetmeier captured Bradley with his lens and 1/500th of a second shutter speed. All the years I’ve looked at that picture I’m just amazed. It’s not a mere snapshot, it’s art, it’s a portrait with the essence of Bradley the player, the person. The cornfield location? Kluetmeier’s idea. “It was just symbolic of NIU’s environment,” he said.
According to Getty Images, the SI session with Bradley took place Thursday, Oct. 14, 1971, in an area, ironically, pretty close where the NIU Convocation Center is located now. Some of the unpublished Kluetmeier shots have the high-rise residence halls and the west side of Huskie Stadium in the far background.
Jorgensen, assistant coach Emory Luck, and sports information director Bud Nangle were at the shoot.
“It was a perfect day for me and Jim,” Kluetmeier said with distinct and detailed memories from nearly 45 years ago. “As soon as I met him and NIU’s basketball support team, I knew it would be a terrific shoot as the photos attest.
“Photographers often are only as good as their subjects allow them to be and that day allowed me to be very good, thanks to Jim. He was fun, engaged, and unassuming. He soared above the nearby cornfields unfettered by gravity and flashing that great smile.
“To this day, Jim reminds me of ‘Magic’ Johnson, whom I photographed at the same age and, more recently, of Kris Dunn (Providence College’s 6-foot-4 junior All-America guard) who I just photographed. I wish all my assignments were as wonderful as that great day with Jim, a perfect day on NIU’s campus.”
Bradley was certainly in exceptional company. Some of Kluetmeier’s other subjects include Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Vince Lombardi, Paul Hourning, Steve McQueen, Evil Knievel, and Secretariat. A professional photographer since working for AP at age 15, Kluetmeier has over 125 Sports Illustrated covers to his credit.
Maybe his best-known SI work was the March 3, 1980, issue celebrating the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s triumph over the Soviet Union which remains the only Sports Illustrated cover to run sans caption because, as Kluetmeier said, “everyone in America knew what happened.” Kluetmeier also worked at Time and Life magazines.
Funded by private donors and located in the south lobby of NIU’s Convocation Center, it will be unveiled as part of Winter Homecoming festivities at noon on Saturday The ceremony is open to the public with either women’s or men’s basketball game tickets. Doors will open at 11:45 a.m. The display includes previously unpublished photos from the SI Bradley shoot.
Among the VIP guests for the unveiling and, in his first visit to NIU, will be Jamahl Fitzgerald, the son of Jim Bradley, who lives on the west coast.
The story ends on a bittersweet note. In 1982, Bradley, 29, was trying out for the NBA Portland Trail Blazers and was murdered in an alley in that city. The case is still unsolved.
Issel commented this way: “I think Jim Bradley was as talented a player as I ever saw. I mean talent-wise, I would put him in the class of the Julius Ervings and David Thompsons of the world.”
Praised McGinnis: “On a given night, Jim Bradley can be better than me. He can be better than Julius Erving.”
Two summers prior to his death, one of Bradley’s ex-NIU teammates, Billy “The Kid” Harris, was torching the opposition in the Chicago Summer League and eliciting comparisons from the crowd.
I was there and this is what I heard that evening from a fan.
“Billy’s cool, but he’s not the best. Jim Bradley was the best. He was the first ‘Magic.’”
Yes, No. 24 was.
• Mike Korcek is a 1970 graduate of NIU, and was the school’s head sports information director from 1984-2006. His historical perspective on NIU athletics appears periodically in the Daily Chronicle. Write to him at sports@daily-chronicle.com.