Early Life
Gill was born in Salem, Oregon, the youngest of eight children. His father died when he was a child. His nickname "Slats" was given to him at age 12. Gill was swimming in a local pond one summer afternoon. Upon exiting the pond, a buddy joked with Gill about his scrawny frame with his ribs protruding, which he said looked like slats in a picket fence. Gill was from then on known as Slats.
Gill attended Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University) in Corvallis, Oregon. While at OAC, he played baseball from 1919 to 1921 and basketball from 1922 to 1924. Gill was an All-American forward in 1924.
Read more about this topic: Slats Gill
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)