Jay Scot Bilas was born December 24, 1963, in San Pedro, California, and grew up in Rolling Hills Estates — a quiet community on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the South Bay. At Rolling Hills High School, he was dominant: 23.5 points and 13.5 rebounds as a senior. First Team All-CIF. MVP of the Bay League. The Long Beach Press-Telegram named him ‘Best in the West.’ Consensus Top 50 national recruit.
Bilas committed to Duke before Christmas of 1981, the third player in the six-man 1982 class. Krzyzewski had already secured Weldon Williams and Bill Jackman (‘touted as the next Larry Bird’). Bilas was the California piece. Dawkins from D.C., Alarie from Arizona, Henderson from rural North Carolina would follow. In the pre-Internet era, the classmates didn’t even know what each other looked like. ‘We knew each other only by name and reputation,’ Bilas later said.
Decades later, Bilas was characteristically honest about why the class stayed four years: ‘Never again in my judgment — unless you allow players to be paid — will you have players stick around like we did. We didn’t stick around because we were of better character. We stuck around because there wasn’t the money. If there was the money, Johnny Dawkins would have had a tough time saying no.’