In the 1990's, he was Georgetown's most famous walk-on of the John Thompson era--a short, stocky guard who wasn't there to score, but to make practice as difficult as possible for a trio of future NBA All-Stars. And he's the only Georgetown walk on who was thanked in a Basketball Hall of Famer's speech.

Brendan Gaughan was the third generation of a Omaha family that settled in Las Vegas in the 1950's and built casino properties there. But rather than follow in his father's (and grandfather's) footsteps at Creighton University, he went to Georgetown, where he was familiar with the basketball program and the coach, with John Thompson being a friend of the family. After two years as a placekicker for the football team, John Thompson invited him to be a walk-on.

Gaughan's on-court time was not altogether memorable. In three years, he scored just one field goal. Gaughan was better remembered for being a practice player who would not give up, especially when paired against Allen Iverson.

"Coach [Thompson] used to put him on me because he knew that he would make me work harder if he was guarding me than anybody else," Iverson told The Associated Press. "That's what I remember most. He's a great guy, man. A beautiful person."

"I'm a 5 foot, 9 inch white boy that can't shoot, can't dribble, but I can definitely box out," Gaughan said. "It went bad for him and it went bad for me some days. I was allowed to hold my own with him.

"We had certain rules in practice that we didn't have in games."

Coach Thompson acknowledged Gaughan's hard work by scheduling a road game in Las Vegas during his senior year, and allowing him to start ahead of Victor Page. Gaughan played only three minutes, failing to score, while Page came off the bench for 15 points.

After basketball, Gaughan pursued a lifelong dream: motor sports racing. Brendan's father, Michael, had raced professionally as a younger man and Brendan followed suit. Following Georgetown, Brendan raced for nearly 20 years on the NASCAR car and truck circuits, with 10 titles overall and an 11th place finish in the Daytona 500. Gaughan, a loyal Georgetown alumnus, never lost sight of those years in his life alongside Iverson.

"For me, it's just life," Gaughan told NPR. "[Allen] had this silly white boy that, you know, was told to guard him. He didn't know that I was going to become a NASCAR driver. He didn't know any of that. We were just friends in college, 18-year-old kids. You know what? Our lives went different ways and we're just middle-aged men now, doing what we do."