ATHENS, Ohio – Eighteen years after leaving Ohio University, Gary Trent returned Saturday and was honored by having his jersey retired before a sellout crowd of 13,011 at The Convo.

Known as the “Shaq of the MAC,” Trent is the only player ever to win the league Player of the Year honors three times, averaging 22.7 points and 11.3 rebounds in three seasons for the Bobcats.

His No. 20 jersey joined those of Frank Baumholtz, Walter Luckett, Dave Jamerson and coach Jim Snyder hanging in the rafters during a halftime ceremony.

“This honor here is just unbelievable and to me it’s a lifetime award because 100 years from now or 200 years from now, I’ll be long gone, but that jersey will still hang and students who never met me, students who aren’t born today will still acknowledge me and my legend will last on and on till this university closes down,” Trent said. “It’s just a great honor.”

The 6-foot-8, 250-pound Trent made an immediate impact for the Bobcats, putting up averages of 19.0 points and 9.3 rebounds per game while shooting 65.1 percent from the floor in his freshman campaign, becoming the first player ever to win MAC Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year honors in the same season.

Ohio captured the MAC Championship during Trent’s sophomore season of 1994-94, during which the power forward scored 25.4 points and averaged 11.4 rebounds per game.

In 1994-95, the Bobcats made national waves by winning the Preseason-NIT, but they failed to defend their MAC championship and exited the postseason NIT after two rounds. Trent averaged 22.9 points and 12.8 boards per game.

Trent carried himself with confidence and backed it up with his performance on the floor.

“To me, that was always part of the intimidation,” he said. “It was part of the persona. It was part of acknowledging to a defender that there was nothing you can do. I was almost more or less rubbing it in his face. There’s nothing you can do.”

Coach Larry Hunter instituted the Gary Trent rule for his team during those three years, meaning that no one else was allowed to shoot until Trent had touched the ball.

Although he was dominant from the start, Trent got better through hard work, he said.

“A lot of times in the summers, I stayed in Athens,” he said. “It’s a small town, nobody was here, students were gone, the staff was gone most of the time. It gave me a chance to just be with me, the basketball and the weight room. With the combination of those things, you got 12 weeks just to work on basketball and your strength and conditioning and by the time the preseason rolls around, I was already ready.”

There was nothing but distractions to return home to, so staying in Athens was his best choice. He worked painting houses.

With a year of eligibility left, Trent decided to forgo his senior year and enter the NBA Draft. Miami coach Charlie Coles said it would have been great had Trent returned, even though it was a challenge trying to game plan against him.

“You have to wonder how good Gary Trent would have been,” Coles said. “He would have averaged 30 points and 20 rebounds.”

Trent was the 11th overall pick in the 1995 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks but was immediately traded to the Portland Trail Blazers.

His nine-year NBA career was injury-plagued, but he still averaged 8.6 points and 4.5 rebounds in 506 games. During the 1998-99 season, he averaged career highs of 16.0 points and 7.8 rebounds, but he played only 44 games the next two seasons because of injuries and was never the same again. He played for the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves, before completing his playing career with three seasons in Europe.

None of his successes would have come to pass if not for the mentoring by many people in his life. Growing up in inner-city Columbus, Trent had a troubled childhood with his father in prison.

Hamilton Township High School coach Randy Cotner made the first step in getting Trent involved in a positive lifestyle.

“My high school coach, it really all started with him,” Trent said. “The greatest thing about it, I was not Gary Trent, the great basketball player. I wasn’t even probably in his eyes the best player on the team when I was in high school. We just had a connection and we had a bond and the way he put me under his wing and just helped me put my life on track and helped save my life and helped put things in perspective and see other options in life when I didn’t know other options existed.”

After scoring 20 points in the first half of his first junior varsity basketball game, he immediately was promoted to varsity. He was virtually unstoppable in high school and still holds the Ohio high school record for field goal percentage in a season with a mark of 80.9 percent.

Trent also credited Hunter as being a mentor in his life and someone who helped him become a better person.

Now Trent is a mentor as an intervention specialist for an inner city elementary school in St. Paul, Minn. That became possible after he completed his degree in business management this past summer.

He also has served as coach for his son in Little League football and basketball. He and his wife, Natalia, have three children, Gary Jr., Garyson and Grayson, and live in Minneapolis.

A return to basketball in some form is something Trent said he hopes is in his future. He has taken part in numerous high-level workshops in coaching, general management and broadcasting, but he said he thinks he has the most to offer in coaching.

“I would love to be a college coach or NBA coach. I think college would be a good fit because there’s really nothing a child will go through or a student-athlete will go through or has been through that I couldn’t identify with,” Trent said. “There’s 300 Division I schools. How many coaches can look down their bench and look at their staff and say I have a coach with the basketball knowledge that I have, the basketball experience that I have, the basketball intuition and understanding that I have.”

As for now, Trent said he gets back to Athens a couple of times a year. He is glad to see the recent accomplishments of both the men’s basketball and football teams so that he can engage in talks with friends who for years have bragged about what their schools have been doing.

This trip to Athens will be a special memory for life, Trent said.

“I think this will be something I can look back on and say, ‘Wow, I accomplished something big, something that stands forever,’” he said.