Herb Johnson still playing pro basketball, 25 years after TU

A friend sent along a fascinating sports story from Yahoo sports blog "The Dagger": 25 years after playing for Nolan Richardson at the University of Tulsa, 6'10" center Herb Johnson, who celebrated his 48th birthday last month, is still playing pro basketball. Drafted by Cleveland in 1985, but never playing an NBA regular season game, Johnson has played pro ball in Turkey, Japan, Italy, France, and now, in his 7th season in Switzerland, his second year with team Villiers Basket in the Ligue National de Basket.

He's the oldest player on the team by 19 years. So far he's averaged over 32 minutes of playing time per game over 15 games, 11.7 points and 9.6 rebounds per game at the moment.

(There's a staggering number of foreign pro basketball leagues -- check out the list on eurobasket.com. When I spent the summer of '83 in Manila, I remember noticing the basketball standings in the papers, and more than once someone hearing my name would say, "Oh, like Billy Ray Bates," who was playing his first season in the "reinforced conference" of the Phillipine Basketball Association, after four seasons in the NBA.)