Ellis could score and rebound with the best of them. He could pass, he was the captain of coach Al McGuire's 1977 national championship team and he designed uniforms.
Designed uniforms?
Yup.
Ellis, 57, has a talent for drawing and he's always loved to dress well. One can only imagine the surprise McGuire felt when he visited Ellis' south side Chicago home on a recruiting trip and heard what Ellis wanted to study in college.
"He asked me what I wanted to major in and I told him fashion design," said Ellis, who attended Parker High School in Chicago. "Coach looked at me like, 'You're from the south side of Chicago and you're interested in fashion designing?' "
"He didn't really react but I could tell his mind started to spin because he didn't know what he was going to tell me, because Marquette didn't have fashion designing. So he said, 'Let me check on some things.' "
What McGuire did was send assistant coach Hank Raymonds to Mount Mary College and arrange for Ellis to take a course in fashion design there that he would get credit for at Marquette.
Ellis took that course for only one year but his interest in fashion design continued. By his third year at Marquette (1975-'76) Ellis, with help from roommate and guard Lloyd Walton, came up with the idea of Ellis designing some uniforms for the team.
"Every year we got new uniforms for the tournament, so one day Lloyd went to Coach and says, 'Coach, why don't you let Bo design the uniforms?' Lloyd knew I could draw. Coach looked at him like, 'Well, go ahead and put something together and let me see it.' "
"We went back to the dorms and I drew some stuff up. We got some colored pencils and everything. I went into Coach's office and I put it on his desk and he looked at it and he goes, 'Bo, this is pretty interesting. Give me a little time.' "
McGuire hooked Ellis up with the people from Medalist and together they came up with a rather bold concept for the new team uniforms - the players would wear their shirts outside of their shorts and "Marquette" would be written across the bottom of the shirt.
What did Ellis' teammates think of the uniforms?
"We liked them," said Gary Rosenberger, a guard on the national championship team. "We were a diverse bunch of characters from all around the planet anyway, so we didn't have a problem being a little bit different. Our coach was different and we were different as players, so those uniforms were perfect for our personality."
After Ellis' stellar four-year career at Marquette ended, he was selected 17th overall by Washington in the 1977 NBA draft, in which the Milwaukee Bucks selected Kent Benson, Marques Johnson and Ernie Grunfeld in the first round. Ellis was dealt to Denver, where he played in 168 games over three seasons.
After that, Ellis got into coaching with two stints as a Marquette assistant wrapped around a four-year run as head coach at Chicago State.
He also has spent time as a sports administrator for Chicago Public Schools, currently lives in Chicago, and is in his second season as a Development League and college scout for the Bucks.
"Bo does a very thorough job," said Bucks director of scouting Billy McKinney. "Having played at a very high level at the high school, collegiate and professional level, he has a very good eye for talent. He works hard and he knows what we're looking for, which is very important. . . the kind of player he knows we need to see."
Back in the day when McKinney was a standout guard at Northwestern, he played in some memorable games against Ellis and Marquette.
"We had some pretty good battles with Marquette," said McKinney. "But they always won."
"Bo was a tremendous player. He was athletic. He'd be the kind of player that we (the Bucks) would be looking at now."
Ellis averaged 14.0 points and 9.1 rebounds in 119 games at Marquette. He still ranks 10th on the school's all-time scoring list (1,663 points) and his 1,085 rebounds rank second only to Don Kojis' 1,222.
What was it like to play with Ellis?
"Bo and I always had a good relationship because Bo liked to rebound and I liked to shoot," said Rosenberger. "Bo was very unselfish. What made Bo a great player was he could dribble the ball like Magic Johnson, he could shoot a mid-range jumper, get rebounds, and he was an 80-85% free-throw shooter. Down the stretch, he would make free throws when it mattered."
Like anyone else who crossed paths with McGuire, Ellis has a favorite "Al moment" that occurred at halftime of the 1977 first-round NCAA Tournament game against Cincinnati, when McGuire and forward Bernard Toone got into what Ellis called "a little confrontation."
"I can't tell you what was actually said and how it went down," said Ellis. "But Coach was a master psychologist. He was a great coach and psychologically he knew how to push our buttons. He knew each individual. He knew what to do and what to say.
"I didn't think he was going to play Bernard anymore that game and Bernard ended up with like 26 points in the second half. He went to work and we won. And not until we got to the championship game, before we went out on the floor, did Coach bring that situation up. He said, 'I never said anything about that on purpose. I did that to motivate you and I knew it would.' "
"He thought we needed a jump-start and that's why he started the whole thing. And he never said anything to Bernard and never even mentioned that incident again until we got to the national championship game."
Marquette went on to beat Kansas State, Wake Forest, UNC-Charlotte and then North Carolina for the national championship.
Ellis said the game plan that was drawn up by the coaches was the key to the victory over the Tar Heels.
"We knew if they ever got a lead they would go into their four corners, so our No. 1 focus that whole week of practice was if they got the lead how we were going to handle their four corners," said Ellis. "Because they would make you come out (of your defense). In those days, you could hold the ball forever."
"So the game plan was if they got the lead and they went into their little four corners to get us out of our zone, we would go out like we were playing man-to-man for about 5 seconds and then as soon as they started to operate, we'd fall right back into the zone. They would pull it back out, we would get into them, they'd go and try to do their thing, and we would fall back into the zone."
"Actually it worked to their disadvantage because they got a lead and had a little momentum. In the first half, we were spanking them pretty good. But they came out in the second half and they got it going and as soon as they took the lead, they went to that four corners and it kind of took their momentum away."
"So when they did finally make a move, one kid tried to get to the basket, I went and blocked the shot. We got it and took off running and we scored and we got it going again."
"The rest was history."
THE BO ELLIS FILE
THEN: Ellis said he never got into a verbal sparring match with Coach Al McGuire as some players did. "I was one player who would never go back at Coach," Ellis said. "He could say what he wanted to me and it was very seldom that he really had to challenge me because I did what I had to. But a couple times he got after me a little bit and I would always just stare at him and it would just make him laugh. He couldn't get me to react to argue with him. I just looked at him and shook my head. That's how Al McGuire was."
NOW: Ellis had tried to get into scouting for some time before owner Herb Kohl and the Bucks gave him an opportunity to pursue his interest. "I enjoy working for the senator and for the Bucks because there's a special relationship with Senator Kohl," said Ellis. "Even though he's a (University of) Wisconsin man, he was very close to Coach McGuire and all of Coach's former players. Now I'm in there for him and just trying to help them take it to another level and get to the playoffs consistently. Hopefully I can continue to do it for a long time."
DID YOU KNOW? Ellis and Earl Tatum share the top spot in one very important Marquette statistical category - career victories - with 101 each.
QUOTE: "I used to always pull my jersey out of my pants. Earl Tatum was like that, too. I was just more comfortable. There were no rules then. They didn't make you tuck your jerseys in and it was just comfortable for me." - Bo Ellis, on why he designed uniforms that could be worn with the shirts out of the shorts.
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