Jerry West Statue
February 15, 2007 11:14 AM | General
February 15, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Artist Jamie Lester isn’t sure what will be going through his mind when he gets to watch Jerry West take his first look at his life-sized statue erected outside the WVU Coliseum.
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| Artist Jamie Lester stands next to his most recent creation: the Jerry West statue that will permanently reside outside the WVU Coliseum.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
A ceremony to dedicate the statue will take place Saturday morning prior to West Virginia’s men’s basketball game against Seton Hall.
“I’ve thought about it so many times and this project is such a long process,” said Lester. “It’s going to be unreal. I’m not going to try and picture what is going to happen so much. I’m just going to try and take it as it goes.”
Lester, a WVU fine arts graduate, has been involved in several notable projects, including the design of the obverse side of the West Virginia state commemorative quarter depicting a panoramic view of the New River Gorge Bridge. He also developed the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance for the firefighters who lost their lives in the World Trade Center attacks, as well as developing the World Golf Hall of Fame at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla.
But as a West Virginia native and a resident of Morgantown, being selected to design a statue of West Virginia’s most famous son was something beyond his wildest dreams.
“To have it come true this way it makes me so happy,” Lester said.
The project to erect the West statue began on May 5, 2006, when the funding was secured primarily from a donation made my Memphis Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley. Additional contributions were made by the 2007 West Virginia student body senior class.
The clay sculpture began with a welded steel armature on a reinforced wooden base. The clay was then formed into the likeness of Jerry West taking a total of more than 4,000 hours to create using handmade wooden tools, steel scraping tools and Lester’s bare hands.
Standing upright the statue would be 8 feet tall. The sculpture’s running stance height is 6-feet-6-inches. Adding the base, the total structure stands 9 ½ feet high.
“I’m really happy with it,” Lester said. “We had some trials in the making of the sculpture trying to get it to look like he’s really running proportionally. All of those things I feel we’ve worked out.”
A major obstacle, according to Lester, was getting West’s legs proportional with the rest of his body.
“The legs at one point were too short,” Lester said. “It weighed about 600 pounds with all of the clay on it. I thought I might have to pick the whole thing up and weld on more leg. What I ended up doing was reconfiguring the clay on the steel armature and I was able to get four inches of leg out of what I had and didn’t have to change it at all.”
Why the pose of West running instead of the famous NBA silhouette pose or a depiction of his classic jump shot?
“We didn’t know whether to express Jerry in the classic jump shot he is so famous for,” Lester explained. “This is a well known pose and so recognizably Jerry that we decided to go with this one.”
Lester said he did hours of research trying to capture the essence of Jerry West the player and Jerry West the human being.
“I read his book by (Bill) Libby Mr. Clutch: The Jerry West Story. It was eye opening and I recommend it to anybody,” Lester said. “It gives you insight into his character and it’s written in a way that makes it feel like he’s talking directly to you. For me it really opened my eyes as to who Jerry West is and what a phenomenal player that he was.”
The Jerry West Plaza, located at the WVU Coliseum Blue Gate, was designed by Heery International of Atlanta, Ga.
Lester said this statue will last for a very long time.
“It will be here long after we’re gone,” Lester said. “Someone will look back and it will be kind of like an ancient hero.”
That’s a fitting tribute to our present hero.
