Thaddeus "Ted" Bokina grew up working on his parents onion and tobacco farm but it was on the basketball court where he built a lifetime of memories in just a few short years in the 1940s.
Mr. Bokina was a star at what was then Massachusetts State College (now University of Massachusetts, Amherst) soon after walking on the court in 1939. His height, which was to grow to nearly 6 feet, seven inches, got him nicknamed "The Giant" during that shorter man era.
He was top shooter on the team and was named captain his senior year -- until he and several other seniors were booted from the team when a coach discovered they were entertaining female company in their motel room during a road trip to Tufts University, according to a 2009 story in UMass Amherst Magazine.
He still ended up as the team's highest scorer that year with 156 points over nine games.
With no place on a college court, and the NBA not yet in existence, Mr. Bokina drifted into semi-professional ball. The agricultural economics major -- who after earning a bachelor's degree in 1943 got a job as an agricultural statistician -- began playing with the Boston Goodwins at $25 a game in the New England Professional League. By 1946, he had signed with the professional Dow Athletic Club of Midland, Mich., which was sponsored by Dow Chemical company in the National Basketball League, a precursor of the NBA. Mr. Bokina squared off against some of the era's best players, earning $7,000 for the 1946-47 season.
Thaddeus Bokina, 89, of Snellville, died Monday of complications that grew out of his battle with prostate cancer. A funeral Mass will be 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Oliver Plunkett Catholic Church, 3200 Brooks Drive, Snellville.
After professional ball, he became a computer programmer and retired from a job in the civil service at Robins Air Force Base at Warner Robins. He retired in 1979, his son Jon Bokina said. While his father was an early pioneer in working with computers, Jon Bokina said his father never got the computer bug and never wanted much to do with email, much less Skype.
"Once he retired he really didn't want much to do with computers," Jon Bokina said. "He liked to communicate the old fashioned way. He had beautiful penmanship and he wrote wonderful letters. He had a masterful command of the English language. He was constantly correcting people on how to speak and proper grammar, which got a little old at times."
Three of his older but shorter siblings served in the military in World War II, including his sister, Helen, but Mr. Bokina's height -- by one-half inch -- kept him out of the Army.
"I was drafted in the army, but I was declared 4-F because I was too tall," he told the magazine in the 2009 article. His older brother Carl, who served as a fighter pilot, died during a training mission in England in 1945.
Mr. Bokina spent his lifetime playing tennis and golf and kept himself mentally sharp up to the end by doing daily crossword puzzles and playing Scrabble, his son said.
He moved around the country after retirement, keeping an apartment in his son's Snellville house, and often staying with his sister Helen Oliver, who had retired to Palm Springs and who died last year.
A Palm Springs neighbor, Ralph Benton, said he often listened to Mr. Bokina reminisce about his basketball days. By the time they met, Mr. Bokina had suffered from battles with various health ailments, and he would often chat with retired entertainers about his sports heyday, Mr. Benton said.
"He wasn't bashful,' Mr. Benton said. “He would go to the driving range and watch people hit because he couldn’t hit any more.”
He also survived by daughter-in-law, Beatriz Bokina and a grandchild, Alexander Thaddeus Bokina, of Snellville. A third sibling Henry S. Bokina also died before him.
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