Hours after Kenyon Martin suffered the most devastating injury in the history of the UC basketball program, student manager Scott (Willie) Wilhoit went from room to room in the Memphis hotel where the Bearcats were staying to collect the players’ jerseys, as he did after every road game.
When he reached Martin’s room, he saw the jersey Martin was wearing when he went down with a broken leg in UC’s loss to Saint Louis in the first round of the 2000 Conference USA Tournament. He asked Martin, the National Player of the Year, what he wanted him to do with the jersey.
“He said, ‘I don’t want anybody to ever see it again.'" Wilhoit said. "'I don’t want it to be on display. I just want it to disappear.’ I said, ‘Well, can I have it?’ And he goes, ‘Take it. Do whatever you want with it.' So, I put it in my personal luggage and took it home with me the next day."
Twenty-three years later, the framed jersey that Martin was wearing on that fateful day in UC basketball history hangs in Wilhoit’s house. He understands its significance, but he says he will never sell it because he promised Martin on that day that he wouldn’t.
UC entered that game with a 28-2 record, ranked No. 1 in the country. The Bearcats were heavy favorites to win the C-USA Tournament and to secure the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament as they pursued the school’s first national championship since 1962 and its third overall. Instead, they were relegated to a No. 2 seed, and lost in the second round to Tulsa.
After the Bearcats returned to Cincinnati the morning after the loss to Saint Louis, Wilhoit got a call from one of the assistant coaches, who told him he needed all of Martin’s jerseys.
“We had about nine or 10 of his jerseys,” Wilhoit said. “I took them all to the basketball offices. I handed them a box full of Kenyon Martin jerseys and walked away. Nobody ever asked me about it.
“It sat in a drawer for a while until Kenyon came to Cincinnati for an NBA exhibition game,” Wilhoit said. “I think he was with the Nets. I called him and said, ‘Hey, can we come down and see you? And by the way, I’ve still got that jersey. Do you want that jersey back?’ And he said, ‘No, I gave it to you. It’s yours.’ He said, ‘Bring it down and I’ll autograph it for you.’ So, I took it down to the arena and he wrote, ‘Willie, thanks for everything - Kenyon Martin.’
“I told him to personalize it because, ‘I don’t want you thinking that I’m ever going to try to sell this thing.’ It’s been on my wall for 17 or 18 years, and it’s going to stay on my wall forever. It’s the best conversation piece when you walk into my house.”
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