Richard "Dick" Parsons is fast becoming the most famous University of Hawaii basketball player never to have lettered at the school.

"Deadspin" suggested Thursday that Parsons, who was installed as chief executive of the Los Angeles Clippers this month in the wake of the Donald Sterling sanctions, was not the UH basketball player he purported to be.

The report touched off a frenzy of speculation about Parsons, who attended UH from 1964-68, was chairman of Time Warner and served vice president Nelson Rockefeller and President Barack Obama.

In its May 9 release announcing that Parsons would assume operation of the Clippers, the NBA said, "After attending the University of Hawaii, where he played basketball, Parsons earned a law degree from Albany Law School in 1971."

But few players of that era from UH say they remember him, and there is scant information on his athletic career at UH.

Questioned about Parsons’ UH days, Seth Burton, vice president of communications for the Clippers, told the Star-Advertiser in an email, "I have been told that Mr. Parsons did not play varsity basketball at Hawaii, but was a member of the JV team for a season."

UH did not field a JV team then but did have a freshman team, players from that era said.

Mark Broussard, senior director, basketball communications for the NBA, told the Star-Advertiser in an email, "Dick played in ’64-65 and did not letter."

Thursday, Ed Adler, a spokesman for Parsons, released a statement saying, "Dick played on the freshman team at the University of Hawaii in 1964-65. He has never said that he played varsity, that he lettered, or that he was a good player."

Sports information director Derek Inouchi said individual statistics from that period are sketchy and he couldn’t say whether Parsons played at UH.

The most recent UH basketball media guide lists several players who lettered in the 1950s and ’60s but does not list Parsons as ever having earned a letter at UH.

Dennis Chai, team captain of the 1964-65 varsity, says he doesn’t recall Parsons but couldn’t say definitively whether Parsons was there.

Nor could Bruce O’Neil, who was a freshman then and went on to be a UH assistant and head coach (1973-76). O’Neil said he contacted some other Hawaii players from that era and said they did not recall Parsons, either.

O’Neil said, "gosh, there was nobody like that (Parsons)." In a text message, O’Neil said, "I was there in ’64 and freshmen weren’t eligible to play varsity. He didn’t play with me, Harvey Harmon or Paul Klassivity, the first three full scholarship players recruited by Red (Rocha). Maybe it was in intramurals. Oh, well, the memory does strange things."

O’Neil said, "Only thought could be (is) he tried out for the freshman team and didn’t make it. Tough to check that many years ago."

A 2004 story in the New York Times quotes Rocha as saying, "He (Parsons) was a big gangly kid who clearly enjoyed college. He didn’t start on the team, but he was clearly popular with all of the players."

Rocha died in 2010.

Los Angeles attorney Bill Robinson said he was a teammate of Parsons on the 1964-65 freshman team, telling the LA Times, "the bottom line is Dick and I did play on the freshman team together in 1964 and ’65 and neither one of us started. But I think both of us got a fair amount of playing time off the bench. Suggestions to the contrary are false."

O’Neil said he didn’t recall Robinson, either.

In a 2009 interview on PBS Hawaii’s "Long Story Short," Parsons discussed coming to Hawaii from Brooklyn, N.Y., and said, "I did OK in the fall semester ’cause there was basketball, right? So the basketball team became my extended family and my friends."

Parsons told PBS Hawaii about his relationship with Rocha. "I think I was frustrating to him (Rocha) ’cause I had talent … but I was young. And I hadn’t fully grown into my own body and I hadn’t developed the sort of discipline and focus and sense of real purpose that a coach like Red requires, you know. I was still goofing off, right."