Erick Dampier: 2015 MSU Sports Hall Of Fame Inductee
October 20, 2015 | Men's Basketball
By Bob Carskadon
HailStateBEAT
Note: Every day this week, we will recognize a member of the 2015 Mississippi State Sports Hall of Fame Class. The class will be formally inducted at a banquet Thursday night and then recognized during the MSU-Kentucky game Saturday in Davis Wade Stadium.
A high school kid in Alabama, Wayne Madkin knew very little about Mississippi State, though it was the school he would eventually go on to attend and set records as a quarterback on the football team, but he knew who Erick Dampier was, the dominant center on MSU's basketball team.
At the same time, Eric Moulds was a receiver on State's football team, early in a journey that would lead him to Pro Bowls, Super Bowls and many millions of dollars, but he too was in awe of Dampier, often going to MSU's basketball practices just to watch Dampier's seemingly absurd dominance.
The stories are the same whoever is telling them, stories about a player whose force and talent paved the way for the only Final Four appearance in the history of Mississippi State basketball. There were many great players on that team in the spring of 1996, plus an eventual Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame coach, but it's always Dampier, when those who watched the run look back, say drove the team to those heights. And it's that respect, as well as record-breaking production, that has Dampier being enshrined this weekend in the Mississippi State Sports Hall of Fame.
“Everybody on that Final Four team obviously was an important piece,” said MSU Director of Athletics Scott Stricklin, “but I don't think that run happens if Erick Dampier's not a part of that team.”
The key was Dampier's defensive presence. He was an important contributor on the offensive end, too, racking up 1,231 points in his three-year career, but his natural size and ability very literally changed the game for MSU and its opponents.
Moulds was college roommates with Darryl Wilson, one of the stars of the 1996 basketball squad, and he often would practice with the team when football was out of season. He saw firsthand the impact Dampier had and heard his friends on the team describe it in detail.
“Darryl would always say, as a guard, they could take chances because we had a big man in the middle that could block shots and take the heat,” Moulds remembers. “He created a lot of problems for teams, because as a guard, you could cheat.”
It was that shot-blocking prowess that helped Dampier to All-SEC and All-American honors. In those three years on campus, Dampier blocked 249 shots, a school record that stood for 15 years, and altered countless more. Even still, he's fifth all-time in rebounds at MSU with 859 in his career.
All that production, and all that respect, led to Dampier becoming the 10th overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers. His career in the NBA spanned 15 years and included two trips to the NBA Finals, one each with the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat.
“He had about as good an NBA career as anyone we've had come through our program,” Stricklin said. “That kind of validates what he did here at Mississippi State.”
Dampier and his teammates were responsible, as well, for the re-birth of MSU basketball. A powerhouse in the 1960s, the program had been mostly down for the better part of the previous two decades. But those players, under the guidance of head coach Richard Williams, brought the program back to prominence, launching a run of great teams and players in Humphrey Coliseum for the next decade and change.
Dampier was certainly sought after as a high school prospect, but he was far from the most highly-recruited player on his team. He wasn't even the most highly-touted player at his own position, where the seven-footer MSU signed the year before was supposed to be the star, not Dampier.
So it was fitting that a Mississippi boy was the one to defy the expectations people had for him as he helped a program defy its own expectations and punch through to the top of the SEC.
And really, that's what his career was about from start to finish – powering his way through, regardless of expectations high or low. From his first day in Starkville to his last in the league, that was the reputation Dampier earned himself.
“Erick came in and I just remember him being a defensive presence the minute he stepped on campus,” Stricklin said. “He was just so big and physical and so good at defending that position.”
His is a legend largely centered around the Bulldogs, and State's run to the Final Four is the climax of his tale.
“Dampier, obviously, was one of the cornerstones for that great Mississippi State team that people still talk about to this day,” said Madkin, the chairman of the MSU Sports Hall of Fame committee. “He was an integral part of their success, along with others that are potential hall of famers themselves.”
Dampier will be honored on the field before MSU's football game against Kentucky on Saturday night. For more information on the MSU Sports Hall of Fame, visit www.msumclub.org.