Big Dipper commits Suicide today

[elnutsmalljaws]

Sad to hear that the Big Dipper, Melvin Turpin, committed suicide today. I still remember The Big Dipper and The Big Sam Bowie as the Twin Towers in Big Blue. I can still remember a game against Tennessee in 1983 or 1984 when Turpin scored something like 44 points and TN won the game like 64-63 or something like that. The whole UK team scored less than 20 points but The Big Dipper had 40 something. Turpin averaged more points his senior season than Sam Bowie and Kenny "Sky" Walker as well.

I used to go to The Red Mile and bet a few ponies and became friends with Sam Bowie, who is a regular there, plus owns several standardbred horses. Sam and I had several conversations about basketball plus horses during our time there. One night Sam had a horse running at Northfield Park in Cleveland and on a whim, decided to drive up there and watch it race live so there was 6 of us that got in Sam's Yukon and off we went. The conversation on the way there was about Sam's days at UK and the NBA and Melvin's name came up many times. Sam said he was one of the nicest guys he had ever met and they remained good friends to that day. Sad to hear that life got so bad for him that it ended up like this.

[stoner]

I hated hearing about big Mel too!!!

[mhall]

I hated to hear this. I always liked big Melvin, he was a gentle giant. Coach Hall always said it was one of his favorite all time players they were very close and kept in contact.

Rest In Peace

[Tim_T]

RIP Dinner Bell Mel! Didn't realize that he had any problems.