Ralph Simpson

BY Myah Taylor

Ralph Simpson remembers when professional basketball had more than one Rockets team.

In 1970, after two years at Michigan State, the Detroit native signed to play hoops with the Denver Rockets in the American Basketball Association, which merged with the NBA in 1976. Simpson, a 6’6” swingman who scored 11,785 points throughout his professional basketball career from 1970 to 1980, is credited as a major reason Denver joined the NBA in the merger.

Now, the 75-year-old is campaigning for a spot in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He currently has the backing of Hall-of-Famers Spencer Haywood and Julius Erving, along with other figures like Larry Brown, Steve Smith, George Gervin, and Dave Bing. Simpson has been inducted into both the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, and the self-described sports historian has stayed close to basketball by developing his upcoming sports show on Roku. He has also enjoyed watching hoops evolve over the decades.

“Centers used to be around the bucket all the time and so were forwards, but now, we have stretch forwards and stretch centers who can shoot the 3-point play,” Simpson said. “I think that has made the game more exciting too because the scoring is up.”

Before Simpson went to Michigan State and became a pro, he was a high school basketball star at Pershing High School in Detroit. At Pershing, where Simpson won a state championship under legendary coach Will Robinson, he was teammates with Haywood, an NBA champion in 1980. A junior at the time of the 1967 Michigan state title game against Flint Central, Simpson led his team — including then-senior Haywood — with 43 points. His performance set a state record that stood for 30 years.

Haywood is the namesake of the Spencer Haywood Rule, a 1971 Supreme Court decision that ruled against the NBA’s requirement that a player couldn’t be drafted by the league until four years after graduating high school. Simpson saw many players benefit from the ruling.

“We want to acknowledge [Haywood] for that,” said Simpson’s wife, Shelli. “He helped others come from poverty to wealth in minutes.”

Those previous requirements prevented Simpson from being selected in the NBA draft until 1972 when his class graduated college. The Chicago Bulls chose Simpson with the No. 11 pick that year, but he stayed in the ABA with Denver.

The five-time ABA All-Star averaged a career-high of 27.4 points per game in the 1971-72 season, and after the NBA-ABA merger in 1976, Simpson returned home to Michigan as a member of the Detroit Pistons. Two years later, he went back to Denver, which changed its name to the Nuggets in 1975. After stints with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets in 1978 and 1979, respectively, Simpson retired and settled in the Mile High City, where he raised his four children: Jon (a successful businessman), Kamesia (an admin secretary), Victoria (a business owner), and India Arie (a Grammy award-winning singer). He also has two stepchildren, Greg (a former Colorado Buffaloes football coach) and Leah (a singer, business owner, and reporter).

Some of Simpson’s favorite memories from his basketball career include meeting notable people and building relationships with players like Haywood. He’ll never forget the time in high school when he met Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell at Kutsher's Country Club, a hot spot for professional athletes in the 1950s and ‘60s. One day, while Simpson was waiting for the arrival of his idol Oscar Robertson, Russell walked past him. Simpson asked if he could take his bags, and Russell agreed to it.

“I took them up to his room and he didn’t give me a tip,” Simpson said. “But it started a relationship I had with him.”

Simpson saw Russell eating with his Celtics teammates that night and remembers the center laughing at him. Russell’s teammates asked him why he was laughing at Simpson. He told them he didn’t give out autographs and wouldn’t give the kid a tip. They convinced Russell to humor Simpson, who they had heard was a solid high school basketball player. So Russell did, giving Simpson a tip and his autograph, which he still has today. After the encounter, when Simpson was at Michigan State, he received a letter from the Celtics.

“It was a $200 tip from Bill Russell,” Simpson said. “It was so nice of him to do that.”

Simpson cried when Russell died in July 2022 at the age of 88.

“That’s one of the real highlights I can remember,” Simpson said.

Since his basketball career ended, Simpson pastored a church in Aurora, Colorado, for three years. He still attends church faithfully, and he is very active in his grandchildren’s lives. He has run a few small businesses, and he had a show on a Denver sports radio station called Mile High Sports from 2019 to 2022.

“We interviewed a lot of people, a lot of sports guys came on. Movie stars came on. It was really great,” Shelli said.

About a year ago, the couple decided to make use of Simpson’s wide sports knowledge. Roku gave them a station that they named Audacity TV. Simpson will host a show called “Talkin’ Sports” that is set to launch Oct. 7 at 10 a.m. MST on Audacity. Perhaps Simpson will discuss basketball’s evolution on the show. Considering the rise of 3-point shooting, Simpson said he thinks Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry has revolutionized the game.

“A lot of young kids today are watching sports and watching basketball and watching Curry and LeBron James,” Simpson said. “They want to be like them. They start at such a young age — at 4, 5, 6 years old — that it’s allowed them to be greater and better than the prior generation.”

Basketball has also become more globalized since Simpson’s time in the league. Denver’s own Nikola Jokic, a three-time NBA MVP and NBA champion with the Nuggets, hails from Serbia. Simpson said the league does a great job marketing players like Jokic, who is popularly known as “The Joker.” Jokic is one of many international players that dominate today’s NBA, a league that is enjoyed worldwide.

In July, the NBA announced a multibillion-dollar, 11-year global broadcast deal with The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, and Amazon Prime Video that will begin in 2025.

“That’s phenomenal,” Simpson said. “It just shows you how popular the game has become.”

That visibility is another big difference between then and now, Simpson said. Basketball stars today are full-blown celebrities on and off the court. Simpson can hardly resist that kind of star power.

“I look forward to watching the game because of the superstars,” Simpson said. “The game has so many talented players and good coaching.”

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