RU has lost one of its greatest legends - RIP Phil Sellers...
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Very, very sad day for Rutgers Nation. Phil was the 1st RU hoops player I remember, I followed, and I "tried" to model my game after. R.I.P. "Thrill." :(
A man among boys, as they say. A true leader. And he made my time at RU special
Just a great college basketball player. While his pro career did not meet expectations, I don't think there has been a more impactful player at RU.
what a loss for the Rutgers community, Prayers go out to his family, friends, teammates and all those who were a part of his time here as fans and students. RIP Phil
... and, considering where the game is today, no one will ever surpass his all-time leading point and rebound totals. The 4-season stats he compiled will likely never be duplicated. NBA and overseas moolah is simply too tempting. There would have to be HIGHLY unusual circumstances for a player to remain four years on the banks and pile up the scoring and rebounding numbers Sellers did.
I knew there was a go fund me page for Phil, but I thought he was going to pull through.
Just shocked to hear that he passed away. A very sad day indeed for Rutgers sports fans.
Really enjoyed watching Phil and the other players on those 70's teams. The Final Four team was amazingly fast.
Prayers for Phil and his loved ones. RIP Phil, you will be remembered.
USA Today Article
Just shocked to hear that he passed away. A very sad day indeed for Rutgers sports fans.
Really enjoyed watching Phil and the other players on those 70's teams. The Final Four team was amazingly fast.
Prayers for Phil and his loved ones. RIP Phil, you will be remembered.
USA Today Article
Yeh he wasn't going to play his Forward position at 6'4 in the NBA, but was the international game different in the late'70s-80s? Seems like today he could play the 3 for decent cash somewhere in the basketball world.
Forgetting how great of a player Phil Sellers was , he seemed to even be a better person !
RIP Phil the Thrill !
RIP Phil the Thrill !
So disappointing that he didn't pull through, but what a life and what a legend. Soon we will begin a season that should be spent celebrating him. RIP Phil Sellers.
That's an interesting question. I think he would've fared better with how the game is today, but as another poster said, he played with his back to the basket a lot. There was no three-point shot in college when he played (maybe pro too?), but he was such a great player, I can't imagine that he wouldn't have an outside game if the three existed. He was just a leader and a winner who would do whatever it took to win.
the game wasnt as popular around the world then as it is now
If I say the one thing about Phil that all who didn’t get to see him play is that he stepped on the floor to win, you might say the same is true of every player. That would be unfortunate. His competitiveness and will to win blazed from him.
I think those of us who saw him play are spoiled. This was a guy who gave maximum effort every second he was on the court, and he also demanded it from his teammates. Ever since then, whenever it appeared certain guys on the team werent giving 100% , it really annoyed me.
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In rooting for Rutgers for so long, I've seen many of our players and coaches put in positions where one of our teams didn't/couldn't belong on the same field, court, pitch or field with our opponent (for one reason or another). When Phil got here, I don't ever remember feeling that "man, we're in for a long game" feeling. It's like when you thought your team was going to get a shellacking in a pick-up game when you were a kid (or older lol) and then, all of a sudden, your "best guy" shows up. Now you want to play two games rather than anticipating a drubbing!! Phil made an entire program feel that way. I don't remember ever going to a Rutgers basketball game in his 4 years at RU where I thought we were outmanned. He made us feel like that. He was/is/will always be our "best guy". He is the original Rutgers foxhole guy. GO RU!
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R.I.P. to a great one. I never saw him play but 2,399 points and 1,115 rebounds is incredible.
its even more incredible when you realize he had four other future NBA players on the team with him
Simply a great college basketball player.He wanted the ball at crunch time and was able to post up or create shots off the dribble.
Phil's brother had a gut wrenching post on Facebook last night with dozens of people that new him in Brownsville Brooklyn talking about him. I grew up in Brooklyn not too far from him. Our high schools were bitter rivals in MBB, we got killed by his teams. I was younger so I missed the games, but I still heard about him years later.
I never saw Sellers play, I'm trying to search YouTube for some games in his RU prime, no luck though.
Nice article below by an old Home News reporter, Paul Franklin, about Phil.
Has anyone come across any funeral arrangements for Phil? SIAP. Thank you! Go RU!
www.mycentraljersey.com
Paul Franklin, Correspondent
Past the sadness and a reminder that time shows no respect, I can’t help but smile with memories of Phil Sellers becoming the very best basketball player at Rutgers University.
He died Wednesday, at age 69.
If you’ve never heard the name, you have wandered into the wrong room.
If you saw him play, you know that he arrived on campus in 1972 from Brooklyn, New York. So already you pretty much knew what to expect. And you were right.
Hey, born in Brooklyn myself, well, you know.
Yes he was arrogant, yes he was confrontational, he would get through a screen like an E-ZPass tag, and yes he could scowl and intimidate opponents. And of course he occasionally tried to do that to the guys in the striped shirts, his arms extended with a face that screamed, “What?”
He was whistled for turnovers he never committed, told more than once he could not hang out in the lane for more than three seconds.
Years ago teammate Jeff Kleinbaum said of the All-American, “If you think he was intimidating in a game, you should have seen him in practice.”
Which is why more than once he was kicked out of practice.
Off the court, to sports writers like myself, he was engaging, cooperative even after losses, smiled easily, made us laugh. And he was honest.
You don’t get those qualities from everyone in this business.
His legacy is more than just being the best player in school history. It is more than his jersey hanging from the rafters of Jersey Mike’s Arena.
Prior to the RAC, prior to Sellers’ arrival, Rutgers basketball was about as popular as Route 18 in rush hour.
Sure, Bobby Lloyd, whose jersey number also hangs from Mike’s rafters, was stacking stats offensively in the 1960s and became the school’s first All-American. There were other notable names like Jimmy Valvano, Bob Greacen, Gene Armstead and John Somogyi running the floor at the College Avenue “Barn.” But not until Phil “The Thrill” turned down Notre Dame to stay in the Met area did Rutgers start on its journey to become relevant on the national scene.
He was the centerpiece. He was The Show. He was why guys decided to play at New Jersey’s state university. Sure, he had help in that run to the Final Four in ’76, when they won 31 straight before running into veteran programs like Michigan and UCLA.
There were other terrific players that came after he and starting five teammates James Bailey, Eddie Jordan, Mike Dabney and Hollis Copeland forced the bell to sound on Old Queens.
Players like Roy Hinson, John Battle, Keith Hughes, Quincy Douby, Eric Riggins, Hamady Ndiaye, and more recently the likes of Geo Baker, Ron Harper Jr. and Paul Mulcahy. Just to name a few.
Prior to his arrival, Rutgers teams would score 90-100 points a game about as often as Captain Kangaroo dated models.
In that 1975-76 season, RU scored more than 90 points in 24 games. They scored more than 100 points 11 times.
When it opened the season Dec. 1 at The Barn by beating Bentley 100-60, I was like, “Whoa.” Or whatever the phrase was 48 years ago.
Forty-eight years ago.
That was just the beginning. The beginning of a most special season, led by the most special player.
After the semi-final loss to Michigan at the Final Four in Philadelphia, a disaster in which Rutgers shot 39 percent, Sellers was beside himself, having made 5 of 13 shots and being whistled for five turnovers. One of those was a 3-second violation.
I was the last reporter in the locker room. The showers echoed a constant drip as Sellers stared at the mirror straightening his tie.
“I’m an All-American,’’ he said, turning his head to look at me. “I know where the damn lane is.”
Yes he did.
And nobody in Rutgers basketball history has ever driven a lane like Phil “The Thrill.”
And I just can’t believe the Thrill is gone.
Paul Franklin is a freelance reporter for MyCentralJersey.com.
Has anyone come across any funeral arrangements for Phil? SIAP. Thank you! Go RU!
'I know where the damn lane is.' Remembering Phil Sellers, Rutgers legend
An appreciation of Phil 'The Thrill' Sellers, from a sportswriter who covered his incomparable basketball career at Rutgerswww.mycentraljersey.com
Paul Franklin, Correspondent
Past the sadness and a reminder that time shows no respect, I can’t help but smile with memories of Phil Sellers becoming the very best basketball player at Rutgers University.
He died Wednesday, at age 69.
If you’ve never heard the name, you have wandered into the wrong room.
If you saw him play, you know that he arrived on campus in 1972 from Brooklyn, New York. So already you pretty much knew what to expect. And you were right.
Hey, born in Brooklyn myself, well, you know.
Yes he was arrogant, yes he was confrontational, he would get through a screen like an E-ZPass tag, and yes he could scowl and intimidate opponents. And of course he occasionally tried to do that to the guys in the striped shirts, his arms extended with a face that screamed, “What?”
He was whistled for turnovers he never committed, told more than once he could not hang out in the lane for more than three seconds.
Years ago teammate Jeff Kleinbaum said of the All-American, “If you think he was intimidating in a game, you should have seen him in practice.”
Which is why more than once he was kicked out of practice.
Off the court, to sports writers like myself, he was engaging, cooperative even after losses, smiled easily, made us laugh. And he was honest.
You don’t get those qualities from everyone in this business.
His legacy is more than just being the best player in school history. It is more than his jersey hanging from the rafters of Jersey Mike’s Arena.
Prior to the RAC, prior to Sellers’ arrival, Rutgers basketball was about as popular as Route 18 in rush hour.
Sure, Bobby Lloyd, whose jersey number also hangs from Mike’s rafters, was stacking stats offensively in the 1960s and became the school’s first All-American. There were other notable names like Jimmy Valvano, Bob Greacen, Gene Armstead and John Somogyi running the floor at the College Avenue “Barn.” But not until Phil “The Thrill” turned down Notre Dame to stay in the Met area did Rutgers start on its journey to become relevant on the national scene.
He was the centerpiece. He was The Show. He was why guys decided to play at New Jersey’s state university. Sure, he had help in that run to the Final Four in ’76, when they won 31 straight before running into veteran programs like Michigan and UCLA.
There were other terrific players that came after he and starting five teammates James Bailey, Eddie Jordan, Mike Dabney and Hollis Copeland forced the bell to sound on Old Queens.
Players like Roy Hinson, John Battle, Keith Hughes, Quincy Douby, Eric Riggins, Hamady Ndiaye, and more recently the likes of Geo Baker, Ron Harper Jr. and Paul Mulcahy. Just to name a few.
Prior to his arrival, Rutgers teams would score 90-100 points a game about as often as Captain Kangaroo dated models.
In that 1975-76 season, RU scored more than 90 points in 24 games. They scored more than 100 points 11 times.
When it opened the season Dec. 1 at The Barn by beating Bentley 100-60, I was like, “Whoa.” Or whatever the phrase was 48 years ago.
Forty-eight years ago.
That was just the beginning. The beginning of a most special season, led by the most special player.
After the semi-final loss to Michigan at the Final Four in Philadelphia, a disaster in which Rutgers shot 39 percent, Sellers was beside himself, having made 5 of 13 shots and being whistled for five turnovers. One of those was a 3-second violation.
I was the last reporter in the locker room. The showers echoed a constant drip as Sellers stared at the mirror straightening his tie.
“I’m an All-American,’’ he said, turning his head to look at me. “I know where the damn lane is.”
Yes he did.
And nobody in Rutgers basketball history has ever driven a lane like Phil “The Thrill.”
And I just can’t believe the Thrill is gone.
Paul Franklin is a freelance reporter for MyCentralJersey.com.
SIAP….I found this link this morning for services for Phil:
Phillip A Sellers Jr. Obituary (1953 - 2023) | Montclair, New Jersey (echovita.com)
Our two most notable coaches found time to honor Phil with nice words last week...very classy. I hope our school finds a way to officially and suitably honor our fallen Knight. GO RU!
On Wednesday following the conclusion of practice, head coach Greg Schiano began his media availability with a tribute to Sellers.
“Probably the greatest player to ever put on a Rutgers uniform,” Schiano said.
“A tremendous loss for the school and I know for his family as well. Thoughts and prayers are with them.”
Also on Wednesday, Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell released a statement on the impact Sellers had on the program:
“Phil Sellers is Rutgers royalty. He is the greatest player on the greatest team in our program’s history. His jersey is one of three that hang up in the rafters at Jersey Mike’s Arena. He was the ultimate role model for our current Scarlet Knights. Rutgers men’s basketball sends our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. We love you Phil ‘The Thrill’!”
Phillip A Sellers Jr. Obituary (1953 - 2023) | Montclair, New Jersey (echovita.com)
Our two most notable coaches found time to honor Phil with nice words last week...very classy. I hope our school finds a way to officially and suitably honor our fallen Knight. GO RU!
On Wednesday following the conclusion of practice, head coach Greg Schiano began his media availability with a tribute to Sellers.
“Probably the greatest player to ever put on a Rutgers uniform,” Schiano said.
“A tremendous loss for the school and I know for his family as well. Thoughts and prayers are with them.”
Also on Wednesday, Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell released a statement on the impact Sellers had on the program:
“Phil Sellers is Rutgers royalty. He is the greatest player on the greatest team in our program’s history. His jersey is one of three that hang up in the rafters at Jersey Mike’s Arena. He was the ultimate role model for our current Scarlet Knights. Rutgers men’s basketball sends our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. We love you Phil ‘The Thrill’!”
Phil Sellers, Whose Basketball Stardom Was Short-Lived, Dies at 69 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
By Richard Sandomir
Sept. 26, 2023, 12:58 p.m. ET
Phil Sellers, a brash, high-scoring forward who helped transform Rutgers University into a national basketball power in the 1970s, but whose N.B.A. career lasted only one season, after which he led a quiet life in business, died on Sept. 19 at a hospital in Livingston, N.J. He was 69.
His daughter, Kendra Palmer, said that she did not know the cause, but that he had recently had a stroke, an intestinal perforation and other health issues. A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $100,000 to cover the health costs that his insurance did not.
Sellers was recruited to Rutgers in 1972 after averaging 33.2 points and 22.6 rebounds a game at Thomas Jefferson High School in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He was considered the best high school player to come to a New Jersey college since Bill Bradley arrived at Princeton University from Missouri a decade earlier.
“Phil Sellers is the biggest catch in Rutgers history,” Dick Weiss, a columnist for The Courier-Post of Camden, N.J., wrote soon after Sellers agreed to play there.
He rarely disappointed. He was called “Phil the Thrill,” and, with Sellers leading a team that also included Eddie Jordan, Mike Dabney and Hollis Copeland, Rutgers kept improving. During Sellers’s junior year, when he averaged 22.7 points and 9.4 points a game, Rutgers had a record of 22-7 and played in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament, losing in the first round.
Rutgers was undefeated in 26 games during the 1975-76 regular season, Sellers’s senior year. Late in a conference tournament game against St. John’s University that preceded the start of the N.C.A.A. tournament, Sellers clashed with his coach, Tom Young.
“Give me the ball,” Young recalled Sellers saying when he described the incident to The New York Times in 1983. “I said, ‘Phil, we’re going to run our offense.’ He said it three times, ‘Give me the ball.’”
Sellers scored six points in the next 90 seconds, and Rutgers won.
Rutgers then won its first three games in the N.C.A.A. tournament, despite subpar scoring performances from Sellers, to raise its record to 31-0. But the Scarlet Knights lost the semifinal game to Michigan, 86-70, with Sellers scoring only 11 points against the strong defense of Michigan’s Wayman Britt.
Sellers’s college career totals of 2,399 points and 1,115 rebounds are still Rutgers records.
It was the end of his glory years.
His basketball career ended abruptly, but he understood and accepted that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.
Phillip Alexander Sellers Jr. was born on Nov. 20, 1953, in Brooklyn, to Phillip and Rita (Bacon) Sellers. As a teenager, he played so much basketball, he told Sports Illustrated in 1975, that “people used to tell me I was going to turn into a basketball.”
He was heavily recruited by colleges nationwide and signed a letter of intent to attend Notre Dame, but his concerns about his academic skills led him to back out of the commitment. Instead he chose Rutgers, whose lead recruiter was Dick Vitale, the future ESPN broadcaster, who was then one of the team’s assistant coaches.
“Dick Vitale was there all the time,” Sellers told The Courier-News in 2010, referring to his high school games in Brooklyn. “He was an Italian guy; he could talk more trash than the guys who lived there.”
Vitale recalled in a text message that Sellers had a “fierce competitiveness that separated him from many,” was “a man playing vs. boys” and “always competed with a chip on his shoulder.”
Vitale’s assessment was borne out: At Rutgers, Sellers was a strong rebounder, despite not being very big for a forward — he was 6-foot-4 and weighed 195 pounds — and he played with a confidence that seemed like arrogance at times, and with a scowl on his face. Sports Illustrated wrote in 1975 that he was “always jawing at referees, teammates and opponents,” and “taking dramatic falls during games.”
As he explained it: “I get involved when I’m playing. Sometimes I just get carried away.”
Sellers became the cornerstone of a strong Rutgers team.
“We weren’t a premier program on the East Coast, but when we got Phil he changed everything,” John McFadden, a Rutgers assistant coach, said in a tribute to Sellers posted on the school’s athletics website.
Sellers, a consensus second-team all-American in 1976, was chosen in the third round of the N.B.A. draft by the Detroit Pistons. Converted from forward to guard, he played in only 44 games, averaging 4.5 points a game.
“I couldn’t play guard,” he told The Times in 1983. “They had doubts. Even me, I had doubts. There was no way I was going to be too sure of myself. That’s probably where the arrogance went.”
He was released before the start of the 1977-78 season but continued to play for a short while, for the minor league Jersey Shore Bullets and for HV Amstelveen, a team in the Netherlands.
After he stopped playing, he was a Rutgers assistant coach for four years and worked at various jobs, including records manager at Chemical Bank and the mortgage banking firm Margaretten; bus driver for New Jersey Transit; and, for about a dozen years, assistant to the chief executive at Northeast Sequoia Private Client Group, a real estate investment firm, where his roles included chief of staff, bodyguard and driver.
In addition to Ms. Palmer, whose mother, Patricia (Robertson) Sellers, married Sellers in 1999 and died 20 years later, he is survived by a son, Phillip III, from whose mother, Jean Edmonson, he was divorced; a sister, Diane Deas; a brother, Tyrone; and four grandchildren.
Although his basketball career ended abruptly, Sellers recognized with clarity that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.
“I’m not going to be one of those guys sitting in the park saying, ‘I’ve been there,’” he told The Times in 1983, when he was back living with his parents. “Kids ask you, ‘What do you do?’ I tell them, ‘I go to work every day, shirt and tie.’ People see me. They say, ‘Phil’s working.’”
Richard Sandomir is an obituaries writer. He previously wrote about sports media and sports business. He is also the author of several books, including “The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic.”
By Richard Sandomir
Sept. 26, 2023, 12:58 p.m. ET
Phil Sellers, a brash, high-scoring forward who helped transform Rutgers University into a national basketball power in the 1970s, but whose N.B.A. career lasted only one season, after which he led a quiet life in business, died on Sept. 19 at a hospital in Livingston, N.J. He was 69.
His daughter, Kendra Palmer, said that she did not know the cause, but that he had recently had a stroke, an intestinal perforation and other health issues. A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $100,000 to cover the health costs that his insurance did not.
Sellers was recruited to Rutgers in 1972 after averaging 33.2 points and 22.6 rebounds a game at Thomas Jefferson High School in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He was considered the best high school player to come to a New Jersey college since Bill Bradley arrived at Princeton University from Missouri a decade earlier.
“Phil Sellers is the biggest catch in Rutgers history,” Dick Weiss, a columnist for The Courier-Post of Camden, N.J., wrote soon after Sellers agreed to play there.
He rarely disappointed. He was called “Phil the Thrill,” and, with Sellers leading a team that also included Eddie Jordan, Mike Dabney and Hollis Copeland, Rutgers kept improving. During Sellers’s junior year, when he averaged 22.7 points and 9.4 points a game, Rutgers had a record of 22-7 and played in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament, losing in the first round.
Rutgers was undefeated in 26 games during the 1975-76 regular season, Sellers’s senior year. Late in a conference tournament game against St. John’s University that preceded the start of the N.C.A.A. tournament, Sellers clashed with his coach, Tom Young.
“Give me the ball,” Young recalled Sellers saying when he described the incident to The New York Times in 1983. “I said, ‘Phil, we’re going to run our offense.’ He said it three times, ‘Give me the ball.’”
Sellers scored six points in the next 90 seconds, and Rutgers won.
Rutgers then won its first three games in the N.C.A.A. tournament, despite subpar scoring performances from Sellers, to raise its record to 31-0. But the Scarlet Knights lost the semifinal game to Michigan, 86-70, with Sellers scoring only 11 points against the strong defense of Michigan’s Wayman Britt.
Sellers’s college career totals of 2,399 points and 1,115 rebounds are still Rutgers records.
It was the end of his glory years.
His basketball career ended abruptly, but he understood and accepted that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.
Phillip Alexander Sellers Jr. was born on Nov. 20, 1953, in Brooklyn, to Phillip and Rita (Bacon) Sellers. As a teenager, he played so much basketball, he told Sports Illustrated in 1975, that “people used to tell me I was going to turn into a basketball.”
He was heavily recruited by colleges nationwide and signed a letter of intent to attend Notre Dame, but his concerns about his academic skills led him to back out of the commitment. Instead he chose Rutgers, whose lead recruiter was Dick Vitale, the future ESPN broadcaster, who was then one of the team’s assistant coaches.
“Dick Vitale was there all the time,” Sellers told The Courier-News in 2010, referring to his high school games in Brooklyn. “He was an Italian guy; he could talk more trash than the guys who lived there.”
Vitale recalled in a text message that Sellers had a “fierce competitiveness that separated him from many,” was “a man playing vs. boys” and “always competed with a chip on his shoulder.”
Vitale’s assessment was borne out: At Rutgers, Sellers was a strong rebounder, despite not being very big for a forward — he was 6-foot-4 and weighed 195 pounds — and he played with a confidence that seemed like arrogance at times, and with a scowl on his face. Sports Illustrated wrote in 1975 that he was “always jawing at referees, teammates and opponents,” and “taking dramatic falls during games.”
As he explained it: “I get involved when I’m playing. Sometimes I just get carried away.”
Sellers became the cornerstone of a strong Rutgers team.
“We weren’t a premier program on the East Coast, but when we got Phil he changed everything,” John McFadden, a Rutgers assistant coach, said in a tribute to Sellers posted on the school’s athletics website.
Sellers, a consensus second-team all-American in 1976, was chosen in the third round of the N.B.A. draft by the Detroit Pistons. Converted from forward to guard, he played in only 44 games, averaging 4.5 points a game.
“I couldn’t play guard,” he told The Times in 1983. “They had doubts. Even me, I had doubts. There was no way I was going to be too sure of myself. That’s probably where the arrogance went.”
He was released before the start of the 1977-78 season but continued to play for a short while, for the minor league Jersey Shore Bullets and for HV Amstelveen, a team in the Netherlands.
After he stopped playing, he was a Rutgers assistant coach for four years and worked at various jobs, including records manager at Chemical Bank and the mortgage banking firm Margaretten; bus driver for New Jersey Transit; and, for about a dozen years, assistant to the chief executive at Northeast Sequoia Private Client Group, a real estate investment firm, where his roles included chief of staff, bodyguard and driver.
In addition to Ms. Palmer, whose mother, Patricia (Robertson) Sellers, married Sellers in 1999 and died 20 years later, he is survived by a son, Phillip III, from whose mother, Jean Edmonson, he was divorced; a sister, Diane Deas; a brother, Tyrone; and four grandchildren.
Although his basketball career ended abruptly, Sellers recognized with clarity that he had another, more everyday life ahead of him.
“I’m not going to be one of those guys sitting in the park saying, ‘I’ve been there,’” he told The Times in 1983, when he was back living with his parents. “Kids ask you, ‘What do you do?’ I tell them, ‘I go to work every day, shirt and tie.’ People see me. They say, ‘Phil’s working.’”
Richard Sandomir is an obituaries writer. He previously wrote about sports media and sports business. He is also the author of several books, including “The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic.”
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