Charles Oakley and Ben Wallace reflect on their 1-on-1 games: "That first contact always stuck with me"
As Wallace described it, his first 1-on-1 battle with Oak was like a “life or death” match.
MAR 10, 2024 6:22 PM EDT
If there's one thing Ben Wallace has always had in him since Day 1, it is his unbreakable will. Like any other teenager dreaming of becoming a basketball player, Wallace patiently waited for an opportunity to take a step forward to achieve his goal. Fortunately for young Ben, NBA legend Charles Oakley was running a basketball camp in his hometown in Alabama.
True to form, Wallace did everything to ensure he would take advantage of the opportunity. He began side-hustling as a barber and charged $3 per haircut. He then earned enough funds for Oak's camp.
Wallace was well aware of Oakley's reputation. He knew he would learn to be a tough player, but he didn't think it would be through a series of 1-on-1 games against Oak himself. At the time, Ben was just about 6'4" and 170 pounds. However, Oakley said the youngster gave him quite a good game.
"I was impressed," Oakley remembered of his 1-on-1 games with Wallace via Bulls.com. "Here I thought this group [of campers] were soft, unmotivated, unwilling to work. Then Ben stood up—he didn't even want to play me at first—and showed me a good game. I could see a real fire in him."
"Later on, he and I played a lot of basketball together," he added. "But that first contact always stuck with me. Ben was quick to the ball and tough once he got it. He was strong and athletic, and that convinced me that he had a future, which made it easy to get behind him."
The duel between Oakley and Wallace
Oakley was eager to send a message to all the campers, and he wanted to demonstrate it by beating up Wallace in a 1-on-1 game. Knowing Oak, there was no other way to play, but the hard way, and that was what the camp was all about, to toughen them up.
Indeed, Wallace quickly understood what Oak wanted them to learn. As "Big Ben" described it, his first-ever 1-on-1 duel with Oak was like a "life or death" match. For context, Wallace was only 17 years old at the time.
"Charles got mad and told us that we were soft, that he didn't think we worked hard enough," Wallace recalled with a chuckle. "He then challenged any one of us to play against him. I didn't jump at the chance, but Oak volunteered me. Right away, he hit me with the ball, hit me hard, and said, 'OK, let's go.'"
"This wasn't going to be a check-ball, pop-a-trey game of one-on-one," he described. "The game quickly evolved into one of life or death."
Despite being young, Wallace was not intimidated by Oakley's bravado and physicality. He managed to give Oak a competitive match-up and even torched the NBA legend.
"I won," Ben says with an ear-to-ear grin. "He couldn't get a jumper over me. If he couldn't later on in the NBA, he certainly couldn't when I was 17."
Oak didn't waste Ben's potential
Wallace's impressive performance at Oak's camp got some college scouts checking him out. However, he did become an athlete for Central High as a football player. In Ben's head, he'd use football to eventually switch to basketball, an idealistic plan that was easier said than done.
"I thought I had a pretty good basketball career going, too," Wallace confided. "It's just that I didn't receive any [scholarship] offers to play basketball. In all honesty, I was hoping to use football as a path to play basketball in college."
Unsurprisingly, Wallace needed help finding a school that would allow him to play football and basketball simultaneously to pursue basketball. It didn't take long before Oakley learned about Wallace's situation. Keen to ensure that Ben's potential wouldn't go to waste, Oak reached out to a pal at Cuyahoga Community College and injected Wallace into the school's basketball team.
Ben owes Oak big time
Wallace reportedly had a remarkable two-year stint at Cuyahoga, averaging 24 points, 17 rebounds, and seven blocks per game. However, he almost ruined his chance of being scouted by a Division I school by dropping out just before his sophomore year ended. Oakley then re-centered Wallace's focus and brought him to Virginia Union, where he logged 13.4 points and 10 rebounds per game.
Wallace's college career wasn't enough to impress NBA teams in 1996. He went undrafted, but he didn't succumb to dejection. Instead, "Big Ben" worked harder until the Washington Bullets gave him a shot. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Looking back, Wallace knows he wouldn't have become the player and man he is today without Oakley's mentorship.
"Charles Oakley was the first professional athlete that I met, period. That meant a ton. It proved to me that if I worked hard enough, good things would happen," Wallace once said.
Wallace became one of the best defenders of his generation and arguably the greatest shotblocker in NBA history. He lasted 16 seasons in the league and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2021.
John is a storyteller who has a penchant for old-school anecdotes and pretty much every unfathomable story waiting to be told. He has almost a decade of experience working as a sports writer and is focused on keeping the legacies of the old NBA eras alive.
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