Jerry Ray Lucas (born March 30, 1940) is an American former basketball player and memory education expert. Famous first in basketball, he was a nationally-awarded high school player, national college star at Ohio State, and 1960 gold medal Olympian and international player before starring as a professional player in the National Basketball Association. As a collegian, Lucas led the Ohio State Buckeyes to the 1960 college national championship and three straight NCAA finals. He remains today the only three-time Big Ten Player of the Year, and was also twice named NCAA Player of the Year. As a pro, Lucas was named All-NBA First Team three times, a NBA All-Star seven times, was 1964 NBA Rookie of the Year, and was named Most Valuable Player of the 1965 NBA All-Star Game among other honors and awards. He was inducted to the Springfield Basketball Hall Of Fame in 1980. After his basketball career ended in the mid-1970s, Lucas took to becoming a teacher and writer in the area of image-based memory education. His book written with Harry Lorayne, The Memory Book, was a national best-seller. Lucas has also conducted seminars demonstrating memory techniques, and has written 30 books and educational products and games for children. He is known today as Doctor Memory.

Lucas was born in Middletown, Ohio, then a community of 30,000+ halfway between Dayton and Cincinnati. Middletown then called itself " The Basketball Capital of Ohio", based on the success of the basketball teams from the town's one high school. The Middies had already won five Ohio state high school championships, 1945–55, before Lucas played at Middletown High. Local support for the team was remarkably high in the early and mid-1950s. A tall youth hailing from a family of tall men, Lucas was greatly encouraged to take up the game at a young age, perhaps age 12. He was already six-feet tall by age 13. Lucas had also begun to demonstrate an active mind at a young age. A fidgety boy on family car rides, Lucas began to develop mental games to occupy him perhaps as early as age nine. " I saw a sign at a gas station, and decided to rearrange the letters of each word into alphabetical order ". The word 'price' would become 'c-e-i-p-r'. These and other mental exercises began to help develop his intelligence at a young age.

In addition to strong local support for Middletown High basketball, the city was also home to remarkable summer outdoor basketball scene at Sunset Park. Previous Middletown players who had gone on to play at the college level recruited other college players to play there in the summer. By the time Lucas was age 15, Sunset Park was one of the best summer basketball scenes in the region between Dayton and Cincinnati. By then, Lucas had grown to 6'7" and had the opportunity to scrimmage against college players, advancing his game greatly. Lucas was, in fact, outplaying good college big men before he had played his first game for Middletown High.

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