UL Athlete Andrew Toney

[ChanceEncounter]

Where is the great Andrew Toney these days?

[BeauCajun]

Last I heard I think he was still in Philly.

Beau Cajun

[Cajun1997]

Andrew is in Birmingham, AL still. He had a great message on the college of education's neat CD. He is now teaching; got bored playing golf every other day. Obviously, bright guy who saved the big bucks he was making.

[Turbine]

Andrew Toney

[cajun11]

does anyone have pics

[Turbine]

Originally posted by cajun11
does anyone have pics

This one is from the 1980-81 season.

[Snuffy]

Suddenly I feel ancient.......I remember Andrew as an 18 year old freshmam at USL like it was yesterday.

Our program was just coming back from a probation and for a player of Andrew's talent and dedication to choose to be a part of the comeback was nothing short of a miracle.

My oldest son, Eric served as a ballboy for the Cajuns in Andrews years and collected sweatbands from the team
and is now a father and avid Ragin Cajun Basketball fan as is his son CC
Thank you Andrew for being part of a Family Tradition

[DonAtkins]

Here's a story a guy wrote last year on Andrew that says a lot about just how good he really was.

http://nbadraft.net/maurer001.asp

[shof]

Very nice. I did not know so many held him in such high regard!

[tlyles]

Hi
This is Ted Lyles. I have a whole box of pictures of "T".

[NewsCopy]

TROY, Mich. - (KRT) - Andrew Toney is, in a sense, coming home. Yes, he played at Southwestern Louisiana. But he spent his entire eight-season NBA career with the 76ers. And now he's coming back to them.

The Sixers have agreed in principle to add Toney, the starting shooting guard on their 1982-83 championship team, to their coaching staff. A person with knowledge of the situation, on the promise of anonymity, said Toney had not yet signed a contract but was expected to be at their practice site, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, next week to help oversee workouts of prospective draft choices.

Toney will be reuniting with new head coach Maurice Cheeks, his Sixers backcourt partner and one of his closest friends. He will be joining a staff that already includes John Kuester and Bernie Smith. The Sixers also have had a telephone conversation with Portland assistant John Loyer, but a job has not been offered.

Toney accompanied Cheeks to the predraft camp workouts in Chicago last week.

Toney, a first-round draft choice in 1980, averaged 15.9 points over a career that was cut short by severe foot problems. He was a two-time All-Star. His son, Channing, just completed his freshman season at Georgia, where he averaged 9.8 points.

The source of the story

BY PHIL JASNER

Knight Ridder Newspapers

[NewsCopy]

You will find Andrew Toney's career statistics buried in the back of the Sixers' media guide, between those of Sedale Threatt and Bernard Toone (and not far away from those of John Q. Trapp).

Toney is just an afterthought, his story a sad chapter in team history.

But now it looks like he is going to get a chance to rewrite the ending.

He was once one of the NBA's most explosive shooting guards, a guy who was as fearless as Allen Iverson but bigger, stronger, more selective and a better ballhandler.

But for different circumstances, Toney might have been a Hall of Famer.

But for different circumstances, the tide of team history might have been different, too.

But his body betrayed him, forcing him to retire on the eve of the 1988-89 season, at age 30. This in the wake of a long, bitter feud with management, which did not believe his feet were as badly injured as he let on.

He has for the most part kept his distance in the years since, returning to Philadelphia only on occasion, and never for long. But now he is reportedly coming back to the Sixers as an assistant coach under his former backcourt partner, Maurice Cheeks.

Meaning, of course, that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong when he said there are no second acts in American life. And that the Brothers Grimm were right in assuming there can be happy endings.

The rest of the story

gordon.jones@mcall.com

610-820-6628