This weekend’s Alumni basketball game ended on a jumper at the buzzer by NIU’s early 1970s star and Chicago Bulls draftee Billy “The Kid” Harris.

Tying up the game at a 65-all deadlock, Harris led the White team with 24 points, while recent Huskie graduates Andre Williams and Ephraim Eaddy led the Black team with 25 and 15 points respectively.

Other notables included DeKalb’s men’s basketball coach, Chuck Schramm, who last week guided the Barbs to their first conference championship in 33 years, and the once high-flying NIU Hall-of-famer Matt Hicks; both finished with four points.

It was “The Kid”, however, who stole the show on this afternoon.

After accumulating 18 of his 24 points before intermission, Harris stole the PA Announcer’s microphone and proclaimed to the Black team before the start of the second half, “I’m back.”

Harris is a constant prankster off the court, but on the court his game is no joke, even at the age of 50.

A prolific shooter, Harris has not lost his touch from the outside that helped him to be the top scoring guard in NIU history.

“I happen to be the best shooter ever to come out of Northern,” Harris not-so-modestly said.

Attributing all of his talents as “God-given,” Harris feels today’s NIU basketball team fails in comparison to when he suited up for the Huskies.

“There is no way to explain what it was like when I was at Northern (1969-73),” said Harris, who reminisces about their appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated in ‘72. “It was simply magical. Tom Jorgensen was the coach when I was here. He was offensive minded and didn’t take away our individuality.

“As you can see, I’m a free spirit. If it’s not fun I don’t want a part of it. We ran people into the ground back in my day. We would play with anyone in the country. People would sleep outside overnight to get a chance to see us play. It was wild.”

With basketball such a big part of his past and having a son, Anthony, who currently plays high school at Whitney Young, it is unusual the distance that Harris keeps away from the game nowadays.

“I don’t even like the game anymore,” Harris said. “It’s so into entertainment. Look at the record books, guys can’t even make free-throws anymore. I can’t believe what’s happened to the game now.

“By now this should be a hot bed for basketball here at Northern. Until we get guys who were involved in the program years ago back here, we won’t go anywhere. We’ve got to go back to go forward.”