DeKALB – Jim Bradley is now a folk hero at Northern Illinois.

Dubbed the best player in the history of the Huskie men's basketball team, his Paul Bunyan status was clear during a ceremony unveiling a display honoring his appearance in a 1971 edition of Sports Illustrated on Saturday afternoon at the NIU Convocation Center.

Bradley's early death in 1982 at the age of 29 – while preparing to tryout for the Portland Trail Blazers – only feeds the mystique of the player who got a picture in the nation's premier sports magazine before he played a single game for Northern Illinois.

"I'm truly amazed that he's still in people's hearts, obviously he's still in mine," said Pam Fitzgerald, who met Bradley after his Northern Illinois days and was engaged to him when he was killed and now lives in Eastern Oregon. "Every now and then something like this comes up and makes you think, 'People still remember.' They still remember him and love him."

When Bradley was killed in Portland, Oregon – changing his folk hero status temporarily into the lead of a Shakespearean tragedy – Fitzgerald was nearly eight months pregnant with his son, Jamahl.

On Saturday, Jamahl, now 34, gave his thanks to the university for honoring his father, a man that he only knows through stories from others.

"I really didn't know him, and its a father-son relationship so you should know that person very well but I didn't get a chance to know him," said Jamahl, who now lives in Seattle. "His image is a compilation of stories from people who knew him and say he was a great man and an amazing basketball player. We have one VHS of him on the Kentucky Colonels (of the ABA) playing another team and that's it. There's not a lot of video footage of him."

Playing for the Huskies in the 1971-72 and 1972-73 seasons – well before the age of Twitter and Vines and YouTube – most of the legend of Bradley continues simply through word of mouth. Former teammates, coaches and fans gathered with his family to unveil the display of photos by famed photographer Heinz Kluetmeier, which now hangs in the south entrance of the NIU Convocation Center, a building built decades after Bradley's final game.

He was named the Huskies' "Player of the Century" for men's basketball in 2000 and was inducted into the NIU Hall of Fame in 1983. He scored 1,134 points, had 824 rebounds and recorded 46 double-doubles in just 49 games before playing three seasons in the ABA.

"He was Mr. It," said Bradley's childhood friend and high school teammate Lonnie Randolph, who also went to NIU. "The disappointment I have is people won't be able to realize and see the talent and greatness he had as a basketball player."

The stories shared on Saturday brought laughter and smiles – a sort of "you had to have been there to believe it," tone to them. When No. 5 Indiana, coached by Bobby Knight, tried to press a leading Northern Illinois, the Huskies simply had Bradley bring the ball up. It broke the press and the Huskies stunned the Hoosiers, 85-71.

Randolph and Bradley grew up in the New Addition neighborhood of East Chicago, Indiana – a place that Randolph said now has a Jim Bradley Boulevard in his memory. Randolph, currently a state senator in Indiana, resorts back to the smiles of a child when talking about Bradley. The two helped lead East Chicago Roosevelt High School boys basketball team to their first undefeated season in 1968, when Bradley was a sophomore and Randolph was a senior.

"The older people in the area, when you mention the name Jim Bradley, they know," Randolph said.

The stories told on Saturday sounded like fishing buddies re-telling the story about the biggest haul they'd ever seen. Bradley was like Magic Johnson before Magic Johnson. He was better than Gary, Indiana, product – and No. 1 pick in the 1994 NBA Draft – Glenn Robinson.

But playing in the early 1970s has created a legacy cemented by stories – stories that sound as though they border on tall tales. However, now that legacy lives on with the pictures of him displayed to every passerby entering the NIU Convo Center's south side.

There is the greatest basketball player in NIU history, smiling in a cornfield.