Dave Bing
Mayor Dave Bing
70th Mayor of Detroit
Incumbent
Assumed office May 11, 2009
Preceded by	Kenneth Cockrel, Jr.
Personal details
Born	(1943-11-24) November 24, 1943 (age 68) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Yvette Bing
Alma mater	Syracuse University
Profession	Professional Athlete, Businessman, Politician
Religion	Baptist

David "Dave" Bing (born November 24, 1943) is the mayor of Detroit, Michigan, a businessman, and a retired American professional basketball player who played 12 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), primarily for the Detroit Pistons (1966–75). He was a seven-time All-Star. After retiring, he founded the Bing Group, which was one of the largest steel companies in Michigan.

His #21 was retired by the Detroit Pistons, and in 1996 he was named as one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of all time.

He was elected mayor of Detroit in a special election on May 5, 2009 and was sworn in on May 11, 2009.^[1] Bing won the full-term mayoral election on November 3, 2009, defeating challenger Tom Barrow.^[2]

Early life in DC[link]

Bing was born and raised in northeast Washington, D.C., as a son of a bricklayer. At age five, Bing accidentally poked his left eye with a nail of a wooden horse that he improvised. With the family unable to afford an eye operation, the eye healed on its own but left Bing with fuzzy vision since then.

Bing's basketball career began in 1959 at Spingarn High School in Washington D.C., where he played in the footsteps of the great Elgin Baylor who had set all the city scoring records playing there in 1954. At Spingarn, Bing played in 3 straight Interhigh championship games. In 1960 and 1961, he teamed up with the great Ollie Johnson, and Spingarn won easily over Dunbar (67-53) and Eastern (81-64). The Green Wave went on to defeat DeMatha 63-50 for the 61 City championship. Bing averaged 16.2 and 16.9 ppg in 1961 and 1962.

Bing was a three-year letter winner, all–Inter High, All-Metro, and All-East member. In 1962, Bing was in Parade magazine and made the All-American Team.

College[link]

Bing attended Syracuse University, where he was once roommates with Jim Boeheim.^[3] He led the Orangemen in scoring as a sophomore (22.2) in 1964, as a junior (23.2) in 1965, and as a senior (28.4) in 1966. During his senior year, Bing was fifth in the nation in scoring and was Syracuse's first consensus All-American in 39 years. He was also named to The Sporting News All-America First Team and was named Syracuse Athlete of the Year.

National Basketball Association (NBA)[link]

Bing's playing style was somewhat unusual for the time. As a lean, athletic and explosive point guard, he functioned as the playmaker distributing the ball, but also did more shooting and scoring than most others who had this position. At one time a joke about him and his backcourt partner, Jimmy Walker, was that it was a shame they could only play the game with one ball at a time.

In 1966, Bing joined the NBA as a second overall first-round pick of the Detroit Pistons, where in his rookie year he scored 1,601 points (20.0 points per game) and was named the NBA Rookie of the Year. The next year, he led the NBA in scoring with 2,142 points (27.1 points per game) in 1968. Bing sat out 2½ months of the 1971-72 season due to a detached retina incurred from a preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers, playing in only 45 games that season.^[4] While with the Pistons, he played in seven NBA All-Star Games (1968, 1969, 1971–1976, and winning the 1976 NBA All-Star Game MVP Award) and was named to the All-NBA First Team twice in 1968 and 1969.

After his career with the Detroit Pistons, Bing went on to spend two years with the Washington Bullets and one with the Boston Celtics before retiring at the conclusion of the 1977–1978 season. He averaged 20.3 points and six assists per game in his 12 NBA seasons and was awarded the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award in 1977.

Bing was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1996, he was named one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players.

Life after basketball[link]

Business[link]

Aged 22 with an NBA contract worth $15,000, Bing was rebuffed by the National Bank of Detroit on getting a mortgage to finance a home. This led Bing to work at the bank during the offseason, holding jobs in the teller, customer relations and mortgage departments.

Immediately after retiring, he worked at a warehouse of the steel processing company Paragon Steel and was paid $35,000. He left after two years, after stints in the company's shipping and sales operations.

In 1980, Bing opened Bing Steel with four employees in a rented warehouse from $250,000 in loans and $80,000 of his own money. Losing all his money in six months, the company shied away from manufacturing to focus on being a middleman. With General Motors as their first major client, the company turned a profit in its second year on revenues of $4.2 million. By 1984, Bing was awarded by President Ronald Reagan the National Minority Small Business Person Of The Year. By 1985, Bing Steel had expanded to two plants with 63 employees posting revenues of $40 million.^[5]

Bing Steel would transform itself to the Bing Group,^[6] a conglomerate with headquarters located in Detroit's North End. The company, among other things, supplies metal stampings to the automobile industry.

At the 1990 NBA All-Star Game, Bing received the Schick Achievement Award for his work after his NBA career.

Politics and mayoral election[link]

On October 16, 2008, Bing announced that he would be a candidate for the mayor of Detroit in the February 2009 primary election (Detroit mayoral election, 2009). He finished first in a 15 candidate non-partisan primary on February 24, 2009. On May 5, 2009, the top two vote-getters faced off and he defeated interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. and was elected to complete former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's term, which ended December 31, 2009.^[7] Kilpatrick had resigned as part of a plea bargain agreement after being charged with the crime of perjury. Bing was re-elected to a full term on November 3, 2009. [3]

Honors and volunteerism[link]

On January 19, 2009, Bing was to be named as a recipient of the National Civil Rights Museum Sports Legacy Award. The award honors athletes who have made significant contributions to civil and human rights and who helped establish a foundation for future leaders in athletic careers in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.^[8] The honor was to be presented during the half-time show of the game between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Detroit Pistons in Memphis, Tennessee.

Bing volunteered in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

See also[link]

	Detroit portal
	Biography portal

• List of National Basketball Association career free throw scoring leaders
• List of National Basketball Association career assists leaders

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• The Next Wave of Urban Reform, City Journal, Fall 2010
• Basketball Hall of Fame
• Hoopedia bio
• Mayor Dave Bing's Biography from the City of Detroit website
• CityMayors profile
• Detroit Works Project - Mayor Bing engages with Detroiters
• Bing on cover of Forbes Magazine

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