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Chicken Man, not Rocket Man, goes down memory lane

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The beauty of asking an otherwise ordinary question is a wildly unexpected answer. A couple of us were chatting with Clippers Coach Mike Dunleavy on Tuesday at Clippers HQ and for some unknown reason I asked him if he had a nickname in his playing days. (Maybe it was because of the on-going search to find one for Clipper rookie Blake Griffin)

Said Dunleavy: ‘Chicken Man.’

Say what? That was NOT among my first 100 guesses.

‘They had a promotion in Houston,’ Dunleavy said of his Rockets’ days. ‘They got free fried chicken for 135 points. So the first night of the promotion, I scored the 135th point. The guy almost died, ‘I thought you people told me this wouldn’t happen very often. If it’s going to happen every game, I’m going to be out of business.’

‘So it happened five times over a three-year period. And all five times, I was the guy that made the shot. On the second or third one, I went down on a two-on-one fast break, got a behind-the-back pass to Robert Reid and he goes in for a dunk and misses it.

‘We kept getting offensive rebounds. Everybody else had a shot at it and couldn’t make it and I made it. After that, when it got close, they started chanting, ‘Put in the Chicken Man. Chicken Man. Chicken Man.’’

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The legend of pollo stayed with Dunleavy over the years, following him to such places as a golf outing in Palm Springs and the University of Texas, the latter coming when he once took his son Baker there for a visit.

‘I’m out on the football field and a guy from 40 yards away - and I’m with Baker and the coach - and he says, ‘Oh there’s Chicken Man, Chicken Man,’’ Dunleavy said.

So let’s raise a chicken wing to Hombre Pollo.

-- Lisa Dillman

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