(Note: The following was previously published by the author on WaggleRoom.com.) As the NBA Finals is well underway with the Miami Heat leading the Dallas Mavericks 2 games to 1 in the best-of-seven series, I stumbled upon the following tidbit from the PGA TOUR's website.  While we all know that many professional golfers (past and present) are incredible athletes outside of golf, good ol' Jack Nicklaus was also a pretty talented basketball player in his own right back in the day.

Did you know Jack could dunk?

According to Helen Ross' article on the PGA site, the Golden Bear participated in an amateur basketball league up until the age of 40:

Nicklaus actually played basketball in a recreation league in Florida for about two decades. His teammates were guys he worked with, as well as his secretary’s husband who was 6-foot-8 — "so he was a staple," Nicklaus said.

"It was really kind of funny," he said. "The guys (on my team) would say, ‘You take him out and you’ve got us to deal with.’" 

Even those who had written about Nicklaus for a long time were surprised to know that he had played in the league until he was 40. Nicklaus, for his part, was surprised it was such a topic of conversation.

"I always played basketball," he said with a shrug. "I wouldn’t call it a real serious situation. I just played. I’d go to the gym on Sunday nights and played, too."

"But it’s a big deal to us," one of the reporters said.

"That a little shrimp played basketball?" Nicklaus asked with surprise.

Just when you thought you knew everything about Jack