UCLA Basketball: How Former NCAA Champ Parlayed NBA Flameout Into TV Stardom
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (a.k.a. Lew Alcindor in his college days) wasn't the only UCLA Bruins star with aspirations of making it at the next level.
Point guard Michael Warren won a pair of NCAA championships with Abdul-Jabbar in 1967 and 1968, but didn't even manage to land on an NBA or ABA roster on opening night. Even though he would later be named to the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame, that never translated to pro success. Warren was selected with the No. 173 pick by the Seattle Supersonics, though they never actually employed his services during a season.
The 5'11" guard, a three-time All-AAWU (the then-equivalent of being All-Pac-12) selection, also didn't survive the exhibition phase of the ABA's 1968-69 season. In his three collegiate seasons, Warren averaged 13.7 points on 44.4% field goal shooting and 75.1% free throw shooting, along with 4.0 dimes.
The Los Angeles Stars had picked him up, obviously hoping to parlay some of his Bruins success into box office dollars, but he didn't last through their 1968 preseason.
Bob Williams of The Sun recently examined the massive career pivot Warren took after he failed to secure a permanent foothold in gainful pro ball employment, unlike his former Bruins comrade.
"At 22, I was a washed-up ballplayer,'' Warren told Roy S. Johnson of The New York Times (as recapped by Williams). "But I think if I had played pro ball, I would have escaped, if even just momentarily, a growing-up period I eventually had to go through."
Warren eventually got the acting bug, perhaps by benefit of living in Los Angeles, and landed the plum role of Officer Bobby Hill on the smash NBC show "Hill Street Blues." He has since gone on to star in oodles of film and television roles in the intervening decades. Warren also has an A-list actress daughter-in-law. His producer son, Cash, is probably best known as being the husband to "Sin City" star Jessica Alba.
