NCAA News Archive - 2008

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Princeton retires Kazmaier’s, Bradley’s numbers


Princeton will retire the number 42, worn by Tiger legends Dick Kazmaier (left) and Bill Bradley (right), across all sports later this month. Princeton photos.
Oct 13, 2008 10:02:06 AM


The NCAA News

Princeton will retire the number of former student-athletes Dick Kazmaier (football) and Bill Bradley (basketball) later this month. Both wore the number 42, which hasn’t been issued in decades in either sport.

The school will officially retire the number across all sports October 24.

Kazmaier still holds six individual records at Princeton and is second all-time in touchdown passes and yards per rush. After graduation, he attended Harvard’s business school and spent three years in the Navy.

Bradley, considered by some to be the greatest athlete in school history, led his team to Ivy Group championships all three varsity seasons and reached the Final Four in 1965. Bradley holds the points record and the top 11 single-game scoring records in school history. He studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar after graduation and played in the NBA and the Olympics. He later became a politician, serving three terms in the U.S. Senate.

“Princetonians Dick Kazmaier and Bill Bradley shared not only the same number, but also the same national acclaim for their academic accomplishments as undergraduates and their heroic athletic achievements at Palmer Stadium and Dillon Gym,” says Princeton Athletics Director Gary Walters, a teammate of Bradley’s on the Tigers’ 1965 Final Four team. “If one mentions the student-athlete ideal, Dick and Bill immediately come to mind as arguably the two most iconic, publicized and historic Ivy League student-athletes of the 20th century.”


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