Bob Love was one of the first names to become synonymous with greatness and the Chicago Bulls.
A three-time All-Star who spent nine of his 11 seasons in the NBA playing for Chicago, Love was the second Bulls player to ever have his jersey retired by the organization. And when Love died Monday at age 81 after a long battle with cancer, he left behind a legacy of unyielding defense and versatile scoring.
Love’s jersey now hangs in the rafters of the United Center, enshrined alongside other Bulls greats such as Michael Jordan and Jerry Sloan. But when most folks talk about Love, they don’t linger on the basketball. Instead, they focus on two words: kindness and resiliency.
“Bob is one of the original Bulls greats,” owner Jerry Reinsdorf wrote in a statement. “During his nine seasons with the Bulls, Bob became a cornerstone of the franchise, and his tenacious defense set high standards for competition and toughness. Toughness was not only a trademark of Bob’s play on the court but also apparent in his resiliency throughout his basketball career. His impact on the Bulls and the countless lives he touched through his work in the community will keep him in our memories forever.”
Love’s story is one of tenacity. The son of a sharecropper in rural Louisiana, Love taught himself how to shoot hoops by tossing a wadded-up pair of socks stuffed with grass and paper into a basket crafted from a coat hanger he stole from his grandmother’s closet. He picked up the nickname “Butterbean” as a child due to his favorite food, a moniker that stuck through his professional basketball career.
Love struggled with a stutter as a child, a speech pattern he believes came from copying the mannerisms of a beloved uncle with the same impediment. Despite the severity of his stutter, Love became the only one of his 13 siblings to attend college, landing a football scholarship to Southern University where he quickly transformed into a basketball star and became a three-time NAIA All-American.
Despite being drafted by the Cincinnati Royals in 1965, he had to try out twice before finally earning his first NBA contract, playing two years as a backup before he was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1968 expansion draft. And when the Bucks made clear that a perceived inability to communicate due to his speech impediment meant he wouldn’t last in Milwaukee, he requested to be included as a “throw-in” on a 1968 trade for Flynn Robinson.
In Chicago — and under legendary coach Dick Motta — Love found his footing. While he was best known for his persistent defense, Love averaged more than 20 points in his first six seasons with the Bulls as he anchored the roster alongside Sloan.
In an era defined by scorers like Pete Maravich and Jerry West, Love established himself as a dominant two-way player. He remains the second all-time scorer in Bulls franchise history with 12,623 points, surpassed only by Jordan.
“I always could score, but they wanted me to play defense,” Love told the Tribune in 1994. “I wanted to stay on the squad, so I did what they wanted. I learned to play both ends of the floor, and I think that made me a better player. I always had to guard the best scorer on the other team.”
Love and those ’70s Bulls could never clear the hurdle to reach the NBA Finals. Despite dreams of finishing his career with the Bulls, Love was traded to the New Jersey Nets in 1976 following disputes with the front office. Lingering back issues hampered his final two seasons in the NBA.
After being cut by the Seattle Supersonics in 1976, Love struggled to find a job due to the severity of his stutter. He picked up any work he could find — bartender, caterer, construction worker — until he landed a job in 1985 as a busboy in the basement restaurant of a Nordstrom in Seattle.
“Every once in a while, former players, or even current ones in town to play Seattle, would come by for a cup of coffee or a sandwich,” Love told the Tribune in 1994. “I’d be there in my apron and my little hat, pushing a cart and clearing tables for $4.45 an hour — ‘Yeah, I used to be Bob Love.’ I was embarrassed, and they were embarrassed for me. But there’s only two ways you can go. You can take off the apron and the hat and give up. Or you can decide to be the best dishwasher in the world. I kept on washing.”
Although he was making less than $5 an hour, that entry job at Nordstrom offered Love his first opportunity to undergo speech therapy, beginning a years-long endeavor to overcome his stutter in his 40s.
In the process, Love rose to become the director of health and sanitation for Nordstrom’s restaurant wing — and found his voice in the process. He began to give motivational speeches at churches, high schools and rotary clubs, fulfilling a childhood dream after emulating Martin Luther King Jr. for most of his life.
Love earned the league’s Oscar Robertson Leadership Award — named for his longtime friend, who served as his roommate in his rookie season with Cincinnati — in 1989, receiving a standing ovation when he delivered his acceptance speech without any halt or hesitation.
And in 1992, Love received a call from then-Bulls vice president of marketing and broadcasting Steve Schanwald with an invitation he had hoped to receive for nearly two decades: come home to Chicago.
The Bulls hired Love as the team’s community relations director. Once unable to deliver a full sentence in a timeout huddle, Love gave hundreds of speeches a year as a spokesman for the Bulls, repeating the mantra that carried him through his career: Never see yourself a victim.
“It’s been like heaven ever since,” Love told Bulls.com in 2015. “It’s been like I was reborn.”
Love’s No. 10 jersey was retired in 1994, a reflection of his impact on the organization both as a player and as an ambassador for the team.
The latter years of Love’s life were defined by an unyielding love for the sport of basketball and the Bulls organization. When Love remarried in 1995, his wedding took place during halftime of a Bulls game against the San Antonio Spurs at the United Center. He shot a basket shortly after reciting his vows.
And in January, Love was the most effusive member of the inaugural class of the Bulls Ring of Honor, repeatedly thanking the Reinsdorfs for the honor.
“I was so happy to be here,” Love said on the Ring of Honor red carpet in January. “This is the most wonderful day of my life. It is so good to be back home.”
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