"Student William "Bird" Averitt, 1974," 1974, p. 1 (Pepperdine University Archives Photograph Collection)William "Bird" Averitt
Student athlete (basketball)
In the spring of 1972, William Averitt was a sophomore and the star of Pepperdine's basketball team. He broke the school's 15-year-old single-season scoring record in February. His Waves did not have a strong season. In the fall, his scoring was even more prodigious. In the 1972-1973 season, he ended up breaking his own scoring record. To this day, he has eight of the ten highest single-game point totals on the Waves' all-time list.
After his junior year, Averitt joined the ABA, first with the San Antonio Spurs, then with the Kentucky Colonels, where he won an ABA championship in 1975. When the ABA was folded into the NBA in 1976, Averitt joined the Buffalo Braves (the franchise that would later become the Los Angeles Clippers) and then the New Jersey Nets.
