By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News

The Pontiac Kiwanis met Wednesday during lunch and heard from guest speaker Gary Beckman.

Beckman spoke of his mother’s career in the 1960s with women’s professional basketball. Many people in the community know Beckman, but few knew of his family connection with the early stages of the sport.

“My mom has always been my mom, and then to find out this side to her, where she was a professional basketball player, traveled across the country and to Canada and different countries – that’s certainly humbling for me and I feel honored to have her as my mom and being a part of that group, The All-American Redhead family,” Beckman said.

Beckman said he didn’t know about his mom’s history until high school, and said he then realized why he enjoyed sports and benefitted from being tall, like his mother.