
Former UTSA men’s basketball star Derrick Gervin (left) returned to the Convocation Center Thursday and addressed the team. UTSA head coach Austin Claunch (right) listened in as Gervin spoke for about five minutes. Gervin, who played three years for the Roadrunners in the 1980s, is a member of the 2024 UTSA Athletics Hall of Fame. – Photo by Joe Alexander
By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
On a foggy, cold and snowy January day in San Antonio in 1985, Derrick Gervin was having some fun, sitting around and talking with friends Ike Thornton, Alden Wren and Ken Jones.
The goal for the UTSA Roadrunners’ high-scoring forward was to hang out with his teammates, stay loose and mentally prepare himself to play that night at home against the Baylor Bears.
Suddenly, a bad-hair moment threatened the good vibes.
While giving himself a trim with clippers, Gervin accidentally chopped out a section of hair near his forehead. Whoops. Surveying the damage in the mirror, Gervin knew he would need to take remedial action.

Former UTSA forward Derrick Gervin averaged 21.1 points and 8.6 rebounds over three seasons with the Roadrunners in the 1980s. – Photo by Joe Alexander
So, he shaved his head. Then he called his mother to let her know what had happened and to tell her that he would be on his way to her house to take a pre-game nap.
When Geraldine Gervin saw him, she was taken aback. “Boy, what did you do?” she asked her son, who once had wore a sizable Afro while growing up in Detroit. Irritated and upset with himself for the grooming gaffe, Derrick did his best to shake off the moment.
He hit the pillow and slept, snoozing away in a 2 and 1/2-hour pre-game nap. Later that evening, with 2.4 inches of snow accumulating outside, he showed up at the Convocation Center and clipped the Bears, scoring a school-record 51 points in a 101-91 victory.
Gervin, speaking Friday morning in a telephone interview with The JB Replay, had a hearty laugh about the episode on the day that he will be inducted into the UTSA Athletics Hall of Fame.
“I went to Ike’s apartment. I would go see the guys in the daytime, and then I would go home and take my nap,” the 61-year-old Gervin said. “All my career, I would make sure I took a nap. I would eat, and I would make sure I got my sleep.
“So, this day, I go out there to Ike’s, and I’m talking to him. It was Ike and Alden Wren — rest in peace. Alden died on my birthday two years ago. On my birthday — (but) I’m out there with them. So we all go to Ike’s apartment. I’m in there cutting my hair and talking to Ike and Ken Jones.
“Ken was quite a comedian, I’ll say. Quite a guy. Personality was something else. So I’m talking to those guys while I’m cutting my hair. And I forgot to put the guard on my hair (clippers). So when I cut my hair, all I could hear was, grrr, grrr.”
Immediately, he knew something was wrong.
“I look in the mirror, and I have a big ol’ patch in my hair. I’m like, ‘… Oh, my God. What can I do?’ (Now) I got to cut all my hair off. Before I’m even finished cutting, I call my mom, and I say, ‘Mom, I messed up my hair. And I’m going to have to cut it all off.’ ”
Later, after he arrived at his mother’s place, and after hearing her admonition, he dozed off into a slumber. The weather. The hair cut experience. The impending game with Baylor. All of it combined to ruffle his usually unflappable demeanor.
As he sunk deeper and deeper into sleep, though, something changed. The unflappable Gervin started to re-emerge. When he awoke, he looked at himself and said, ‘Man, it’s just hair. I talked to Ike. I called him and he was like, ‘Man, we got a game tonight. You can’t be focused on your hair.’ ”

After UTSA, Gervin played professional basketball until he was 38 years old, including parts of two seasons in the NBA with the New Jersey Nets. – Photo by Joe Alexander
When Gervin arrived at the Convo, he immediately dressed out in his warmups so he could get on the floor and start to hoist some shots.
“I just had a different feeling,” he said. “I just felt like I was ready, and I blocked everything out. I just felt good going into that (game).
“They had a guy on Baylor, who was the leading scorer at the time, by the name of Carlos Briggs. Carlos is from Detroit. They also had Eric Johnson. Who was Vinnie Johnson’s brother.
“So I wanted to make a statement. I’m playing against Carlos, who was a known scorer from Detroit, and Vinnie Johnson’s little brother. So I wanted to shine that night.”
It didn’t take long for fans in the building to realize that they were seeing something special. Gervin hit his first few shot attempts and kept hitting. Shot after shot. By halftime, he had 31 points.
By the end of the game, he had knocked down 22 of 32 from the field and seven of eight from the free-throw line. He also had 18 rebounds.
For the season, the younger brother of Spurs legend and former four-time NBA scoring champion George Gervin averaged 25.6 points and 9.6 rebounds for the Roadrunners. In his three-year career, the former prep standout at Detroit’s Martin Luther King High school averaged 21.1 and 8.6.
His play, more than anyone at that time, put UTSA on the athletics map in the second, third and fourth seasons of the program. For the 1981-82 team, the inaugural season of men’s basketball at the school, it was a struggle.

Derrick Gervin played for more than 10 seasons overseas, in locales such as Spain, Argentina, Italy, Turkey and Israel, where he won MVP honors in 1995. Today, Gervin says he coaches and trains young ball players, does autograph signings, produces podcasts and hopes to do more public speaking. His email address is dgervin21@gmail.com. – File photo by Joe Alexander
Outmatched in size and experience, the Roadrunners slogged to an 8-19 record.
After Gervin arrived, in 1982-83, ’83-84 and ’84-85, they improved to 10-17, and then to 20-8 and 18-10. In his second season at UTSA, the Roadrunners won 13 in a row and nearly made the NIT.
Moreover, in his last two seasons, the Roadrunners routinely defeated teams from the old Southwest Conference.
So, as for the Hall of Fame induction after all these years, what does this day mean to Derrick Gervin? Perhaps, it is validation that a young man from inner-city Detroit achieved what his mother always wanted him to achieve.
“I just got through watching my brother’s documentary, just thinking about how we came from the city of Detroit, from the inner city,” he said. “And to make it out of there with my mom raising the six of us by herself, and keeping us out of bad situations.
“She always kept us in programs, just kept us active, doing positive things in the community. She didn’t allow us to get caught up in the inner city life. Detroit was very rough. And we were fortunate, because I had two older brothers, as well, that were very known in the city.”
Gervin, who played professional basketball until he was 38 years old, including parts of two seasons with the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, admitted that he has been thinking about his late mother today.
A woman of strong conviction, she supported all her kids, even on days when they came home crying about hair cuts gone awry.
“I think about her every day,” Gervin said. “I’m trying not to get emotional talking to you about her now. But, yeah, she’s smiling down on me. For her not to be here is kind of sweet and bitter. You know, some sweet, some bitter.
“I wish she could be here. But, she is here. She’s watching down on all of us.”
Notable
UTSA Athletics will honor its second Hall of Fame class this weekend. Derrick Gervin (men’s basketball), Monica Gibbs (women’s basketball), Michael Rockett (baseball), Starlite Williams (women’s basketball, track & field) and Teddy Williams (men’s track & field) will be inducted in a ceremony on Friday night at Pedrotti’s Ranch. On Saturday morning, their Hall of Fame plaques will be unveiled at the Roadrunner Athletic Center of Excellence on campus, and the group will be recognized on the field between the first and second quarters of the Homecoming football game against Florida Atlantic that afternoon at the Alamodome.