I had been looking for this guy for decades. Seriously. I had talked with all the other players on the first Pacers team in 1967 but had never found Peeples, a backup center with the team. Mel Daniels had told me he was a dentist in Los Angeles, but I couldn’t find him.

Desperate for a guest for the following week’s show, I somehow managed to find a phone number for his office online one Thursday night. There, a woman was nice enough to pass on his home number. I reached him, introduced myself and talked him into recording a show that night. He was leaving for Europe the next day, so it couldn’t wait.

There’s more story to him than I realized. He’s not just a dentist, he’s a surgeon. After his unhappy exit from the Pacers (he filed a lawsuit, but withdrew it), he went to dental school and never looked back.

He’s come a long way from the kid who grew up in Detroit. Even if you had never heard of him, you should enjoy this story. And if you remember him, you’ll probably be surprised by it.

First aired 2014

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Tagged with: George Peeples, Indiana Pacers, oral and maxillofacial surgeon