Carroll Brooks has been a quiet presence in Western’s basketball history.

He’s played for legendary Western coach E.A. Diddle.

He’s refereed high school basketball games with former Western president Dero Downing.

But the retired family practice doctor is better known in Bowling Green for his bedside manner than backboard baskets.

As a general practitioner, reassuring patients and telling them what the outcome of their illness or injury might be was just as important as writing prescriptions to Brooks.

Brooks was born on October 29, 1925, in Memphis, Tenn., but he moved to Bowling Green when he was a kid and has lived here ever since.

His history with Western began in the seventh grade. Brooks went to College High in the current Science and Technology Hall.

During his senior year of high school, basketball coach E.A. Diddle hand-picked Brooks to play for Western.

Diddle had seen the teenage Brooks play pick-up basketball games with the team in Western’s gymnasium, now Helm Library.

Brooks played his last high school game and first Western game in the same week, he said.

Deciding to come to Western was as easy for Brooks as walking out his backdoor, he said.

He also had other goals he wanted to accomplish.

Brooks joined the Army Air Corps, now the Air Force, on February 14, 1944, because he wanted to fly.

But the closest he got to the sky during his one-year stay in the Air Corps was riding with a maintenance crew in Biloxi, Miss.

Peggy Brooks began dating her future husband after he joined the Air Corps. They first met when they attended College High together.

Brooks was a big-time basketball star in high school, Peggy Brooks said.

During his time away from Bowling Green, Peggy Brooks said they talked for two hours a day on the phone.

Brooks returned to Bowling Green in 1945.

He didn’t immediately rejoin the basketball team and didn’t have to. Diddle sought him out and helped sign him up for classes.

Brooks only played a semester and a half with Western’s team, he said. After playing with Western Athletics Hall of Famers such as Oran McKinney and John Oldham, Brooks realized he’d never be as good a basketball player as they were.

So Brooks dropped his basketball scholarship and used his GI Bill to focus on pre-med.

He stayed connected to the team by serving as team physician for 10 years, including the Final Four Western team in the ’70s, Brooks said.

After graduation, Brooks taught English at Bristow High School for two years and served as principal of Alvaton High School for four.

He went to the University of Louisville’s medical program and spent a year interning at St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Brooks then returned to Bowling Green and took up general practice with two other doctors. He retired from practice in 1994 after 58 years of service.

As a doctor, Brooks delivered babies and saw patients in their own homes.

The job would often keep him away from his wife and their three children.

“You can’t be a part-time family doctor,” Brooks said.

Peggy Brooks said she didn’t mind Brooks’ long hours.

When he was younger, Brooks’ son, Kevin, would hang out with his father at hospitals and ride with him to patients’ homes so they could spend time together.

Brooks’ nickname has been “Doc” since the kids in Kevin’s neighborhood found out he was a doctor, Kevin said. They got the name from Bugs Bunny’s famous line, he said.

Brooks said he’s missed being a doctor every day since he retired.

So have his patients.

Brooks received a call from a former patient the other day. The patient wanted to schedule an appointment, even though Brooks is retired.

He remembers most of his patients, if not by name.

“I can’t tell you his name, but I can tell you his blood pressure,” Brooks said.

As a doctor, he always remembered the advice given to him by a professor in medical school.

“You don’t treat disease, you treat people,” the professor told Brooks.