by Earl Monroe
By the 1940s Gottlieb, now a coach and part-owner of teams in the Eastern League, was looking to form another professional basketball league after the ABL folded, and in 1946 he founded the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which merged with the National Basketball League to become the NBA in 1949. So it was eye-opening to learn that the first professional team formed in 1946 was the Philadelphia Warriors and that they won the inaugural BAA championship with players mostly drawn from the SPHAs’ roster, with Gottlieb as their coach (and, later, owner). Also on the roster were two Philly guys, Matt Guokas Sr. and Jerry Rullo, who later ran the Thirtieth and Tasker playground.
The SPHAs continued playing in the Eastern League, eventually becoming a touring squad that played against the Harlem Globetrotters when the Trotters toured all over the world. (After Gottlieb sold the team in 1950, the SPHAs were renamed the Washington Generals.) It was fascinating to learn that a lot of Jewish players had a direct influence on the game of basketball back in those days, much like the influence of black players on basketball today. This information was very important for me to hear as a young player, especially since so many Jews, such as Abe Pollin, became owners of professional basketball teams. They just moved from the playing court to the boardroom, and that’s something black players have to do more of in the future.
Also, Sonny had come up playing with Wilt Chamberlain, Guy Rodgers, and Hal Lear. Guy and Hal played together at Temple, where Lear was a great scorer, while Rodgers was a ball handler extraordinaire. Sonny was great friends with all three of these very important Philadelphia players, had balled against them all, so when he talked, people listened, especially me. He also was friends with and played against John Chaney, the important Philadelphia player and coach at Simon Gratz High School, Cheyney State, and Temple, as well as Chink Scott, who was my teammate in Baltimore. John and Sonny ran a basketball summer camp outside Philly for years.
Anyway, Sonny had heard about me when I was getting a rep playing on the playgrounds in South Philly. He knew about my unorthodox style, that I didn’t have a traditional game, that I was always working on moves, on the angles of shots. But the first time he saw me play, he said, was in one of those New York–against–Philadelphia summer games, when he was the coach of our team. I must have been a sophomore in college. But anyway, the New York team we played against had Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) on it. So we went up to New York to play and I lit them up with about 40 points and when I walked out of their gym my name, not Lew’s, was on everybody’s lips, even though he scored 35 or 40 points. So after Sonny saw me play in that game, he always wanted me to play in the Baker League after I graduated from college. He told me later that he liked the showman part of my game and that it would be very popular in the Baker League, which it was. So our relationship really started with that game, although I didn’t realize he was watching me so closely because he never said anything to me at that time.
So when I played in the Baker League the summer after my rookie season, people were flocking to the Bright Hope Baptist Church gym to see me. You couldn’t get in because the place was so packed. So Sonny started calling me “Mr. Baker League,” and I was truly flattered by that because Wilt, Guy Rodgers, Andy Johnson, Woody Sauldsberry, and a whole host of great players had played in that gym. So that summer I had gotten myself in great physical shape because I knew I was going to be playing against big-time players like Billy Cunningham, Luke Jackson, Chet Walker, and Bill Bradley, who had committed to playing in the league for the first time that summer. So I was stoked and ready to compete against all those guys.
Like I said, I played for the Gaddie Real Estate team, coached by Herb Janey. Sonny was coach of the Jimmy Bates B-Bar team. Sonny had Bill Bradley on his team that summer. (Bill had come back from attending Oxford University in 1967 and felt that his game was a little rusty. So he came to Philly to work on his ball handling skills with Sonny and to get ready to play the upcoming season with the New York Knicks.) Chink Scott, Jim Washington, Wali Jones, Cazzie Russell, Bobby Hunter, Hawthorne Wingo, and Matt Jackson, my old Landreth playground opponent, were on that team (I remember that Matt played pretty well and that he made a few outside jump shots in that game). The Kent Taverneers, coached by John Chaney, had Hal Greer and Chet Walker. The Century Chevrolets had Billy Cunningham and Luke Jackson. I can’t remember all the teams, but I do know that Fred Carter and Geoff Petrie played on teams because they were co–rookies of the year in the Baker League that summer.
I remember distinctly a game we played against Sonny’s team where I scored 63 points and Bill Bradley had 54. The game went back and forth with all kinds of amazing plays and shots being made by both teams. So the game was nip and tuck, with the lead seesawing back and forth, and it all came down to Bill taking the last shot from deep in the left corner with a couple of seconds left on the clock. When he got the ball, all the fans were screaming. I mean, it was almost bedlam! I can remember seeing my father there and the great Tom Gola of LaSalle—who at one time was the leading all-time college scorer and was an outstanding pro player—standing against the wall near the exit with his mouth wide open. Plus, I can see my best friend, Sahib, who was sitting on top of a soda machine, screaming his head off every time I made a great play or scored on an incredible shot. Anyway, “Dollar Bill” got the ball, went up for the shot, and I think Trooper Washington got a fingertip on it and it hit the side of the backboard as time ran out. People went crazy. They were running around either screaming with joy or mad as hell, depending on which team they were rooting for. Now, Sonny will tell anybody willing to listen that Trooper fouled Bill on that shot, but I don’t know about that because I didn’t see any foul and the referees didn’t call one. Today, it’s just water under the bridge, you know what I mean? I always tell Sonny that it is what it is and we both just laugh. But man, that game was a classic, no doubt about it, a heart-stopper. And I’m just sad that there isn’t any film of that game to preserve for history, because it was something to remember and a lot of people who were there still talk about it today. This was a playoff game. I think it was in August and my team, Gaddie, went on to win the league championship that year.
What was also thrilling to me about playing in the Baker League was that my family and friends could see me play all the time. And I was really happy to see my father at a lot of those games. He was there when I scored those 63 points and later when we won the championship game against John Chaney’s team. Anyway, it made me happy to see the joy and pride in my father’s face. The two of us were getting closer and closer as time went on, and he was also getting close to Sonny Hill, which I thought was a good thing. My mother still never came to my games, and that was okay because I never expected her to be there. She just never wanted to see me get hurt. But I would be with her a lot whenever I was in Philadelphia and I could see her face light up with pride whenever my friends and relatives told her about the great games I was having in the Baker League. Seeing that always made me feel good.
Another inspiring thing I had factored into my upcoming season was a book I’d bought by Dr. Lerone Bennett, the prominent African-American historian, entitled What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Bennett’s book contained many excerpts from Dr. King’s speeches and I decided to read passages from these speeches before each and every game and during halftimes throughout the upcoming NBA season for motivation.
I was ready to set the NBA on fire when I went down to Baltimore to begin my second professional training camp. It’s interesting, because I had decided that I needed to carry more weight coming into my second year because I saw how strong Oscar Robertson was, how no one could push him around down low. So I thought the added weight would improve my strength if I conditioned myself correctly, which I did over the summer. So being at home and eating my mother’s great food helped me put on some extra pounds. But when I reported to training camp in the fall, Coach Shue thought at first that I was out of shape because I weighed about 210
pounds—instead of my usual 190—until he saw me running and sprinting up the floor. Then I told him why I had gained the weight and it was never a problem after that.
After reducing our squad to 12 players, including 4 new guys—guards John Barnhill and Barry Orms, forward/guard Bob Quick, and the much-heralded center/forward Wes Unseld—we broke camp and started our season at home in Baltimore on October 16 and won against the Detroit Pistons 124–116. We led at the half, but Detroit caught and passed us and led 85–82 at the end of three quarters. But then we pressed pedal to the metal in the last quarter and won going away. It was an exciting game. Gus led us with 29 points, I had 28, and Wes had 8 points but rebounded well in his first NBA game. Dave Bing picked up where he had left off the previous season and had 39 for Detroit. I think Kevin fouled out of that game trying to guard Dave Bing—which was almost an impossible task because Dave was so quick and good—and so did Barry Orms, who was playing in his first NBA game. But we were happy to get the win and I remember we had a pretty good crowd there on opening night.
When I woke up the next morning, October 17, I was greeted by a miraculous, beautiful image in the Baltimore Sun that overshadowed our opening night win against Detroit. It was the image of Tommie Smith and John Carlos standing on the victors’ podium down at the Mexico City Olympics the day before, their black-gloved fists held ramrod straight in the air in Black Power salutes. Smith had won the 200-meter gold medal, and Carlos the bronze. Australian Peter Norman had won the silver by finishing second. So when the three were standing on the podium and “The Star-Spangled Banner” was being played to celebrate Smith’s victory, the two raised their fists to protest the poverty and treatment of black people in the United States. (Norman supported them in their protest but didn’t raise his fist, though all three wore human rights badges on their warm-up jackets.)
That image was both stunningly beautiful and powerful for me and most black folks in this country, but it also made many white Americans angry, and some black people, too. I must admit to loving it because I was becoming more and more aware of the circumstances of blacks in this country, which was causing a profound change in my political attitudes. That day, their actions knocked our victory over the Pistons from the sports headlines because the image was so controversial and remains iconic even to this day. So I didn’t mind so much that our victory had to play second fiddle to that image, because we would give the basketball fans of Baltimore—and basketball fans all across this country—a lot to talk about in the coming days and months.
We lost our next game to the 76ers in Baltimore, 124–121, in another close one. We led by 6 at the half and 9 after the third quarter, but the 76ers played extremely well in the last quarter, outscoring us 34 to 22, and beat us by 3 points. Again, Gus played well and led us with 31 points. I scored 30 and Wes got 13 but rebounded again like a demon. Archie Clark, my future backcourt partner that summer in the Baker League, scored 26 points for the Sixers and meshed well with Hal Greer, who also had 26, as did Billy Cunningham. Chet Walker had 20, so we could see that they had a lot of scoring weapons even though Wilt had been traded to Los Angeles. Again we had a good crowd and everybody felt good about our team despite the loss.
I bought my mother a house in Germantown, a neighborhood in northwestern Philadelphia, in October, though she couldn’t move in until December when the sale closed. I purchased the house with the help of Gaddie Real Estate, which sponsored the team I played for in the Baker League. It was a very nice, upscale integrated neighborhood, though there weren’t many dark-skinned black people living out there. Mostly, the blacks were light skinned and kind of snooty, which was a little strange for us coming from South Philly. But what we liked about it was in fact its distance from all that violence, which was a welcome change for all of us. The address of the house, which was made of gray stone, was 823 East Haines Street. It was next to the last house on the block and sat up on a little hill. It had a big backyard where we would have friends-and-family gatherings during the summer. Singer Chubby Checker (who was also a South Philly cat) lived up the street, and Leroy Kelly, a star running back for the Cleveland Browns who would later make the Hall of Fame, bought a house for his parents across the street from me. He would be over there a lot during the summers.
The three-bedroom house had hardwood floors. After Ma moved in I outfitted the basement with a bar, stocked it with hard alcohol, beer, wine, soda, snacks, and whatnot. I gutted the garage and made it into my bedroom. I set it up so I could enter it from the outside and not have to disturb anybody if I came in late. I created a lot of privacy for myself in there with a TV and whatever else I needed when I came to Philadelphia. I could bring my friends and my girlfriends over and we could be together in the basement, too, because I had also set up a separate entrance there. With my bedroom and the basement set up like this, I could get inside both areas without ever disturbing anybody else in the rest of the house. So we partied a lot in the basement whenever I came home. All kinds of gaiety with my guys (and players from the Baker League the next summer) happened down there, you know, drinking, dancing, chicks everywhere. Talk about partying, man, we had some great times down in that basement. If only the walls could talk! Cars parked up in the driveway, out on the street. In December Ma moved in with my stepfather and my sister Theresa, who transferred from the school she was attending to Germantown High, where she graduated from. It was a very stable, middle-class neighborhood and my family loved living there.
Our next game was in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 20, against the expansion Suns. We won 134–122. Kevin led us with 24 points, while Gus chipped in 22 and I had 20. What was significant about that game was that Wes’s great rebounding and outlet passing triggered our fast-break running game, which got everyone their touches and shots. That was a very good thing, and I saw the future of our team getting better, and quickly. Phoenix had some good players, too, especially Gail Goodrich, Dick Van Arsdale, Dick Snyder, and George Wilson. But we were just too much for them that night.
Then we traveled west and played our next seven games on the road, first against Seattle in Vancouver (a city I really liked), then against the San Diego Rockets, where we got our first look at top pick Elvin Hayes, who didn’t disappoint with 25 points. I got 35 in that game, though, and we won 119–115. Then we went up to Los Angeles to go against the Lakers and lost 117–111 behind 34 points from Jerry West. Then we went up north to San Francisco and lost a very close game 107–106, even though I scored 30 points. For San Francisco, Jeff Mullins (who had attended Duke), a truly fine and underrated shooting guard and forward, led the Warriors with 33 points. Our next game was in Seattle with the SuperSonics and I put up 32 points in a 126–114 victory. We ended our long cross-country road trip with a 129–112 win over the expansion Bucks in Milwaukee, with Kevin and I combining for 54 points. Our record during that exhausting seven-game, 10-day road trip was five wins and two losses.
But as tiring as that road trip was, it brought us together and let us know we could be good teammates on the road. I could also see it helped us jell as a team, and Wes Unseld, a rookie wise beyond his young age, had helped us do this with his great attitude, tough defense, and outstanding rebounding that helped to unleash our increasingly devastating running game. We returned to Baltimore and avenged our loss to San Francisco with an overtime victory over the Warriors. Gus led the way with 31 points, while Mullins led San Francisco with 27. We had started the season with 7 wins and 3 losses, and after we won our next 3 games over the Knicks, Atlanta, and the San Diego Rockets, we found ourselves with a record of 10 wins and 3 losses.
We took that record into the Big O’s lair in Cincinnati, where we fell to the 9-and-2 Royals 126–115. Chink Scott played a great game, scoring 27 points, but Oscar and Tom Van Arsdale had even bigger scores, combining for 61. We played the Royals again the next night, again in Cincinnati, but this time beat them 115–111. I had a big game against Oscar, scoring 33 points against his 12. Now we were 11 and 4, while the R
oyals dropped to 10 and 3.
We came back to Baltimore and played Milwaukee on November 15, beating them 129–102. We had seven different players score in the double figures in that game. Gus led us with 28, while I had 25. We were really starting to click as a team now. San Diego came to town a few days later and we beat them in a close game, pulling away in the last quarter. I was the high man for us that night with 28 points, but Jim Barnett touched us for 36. They were beginning to look like a pretty good team. We lost our next game, on November 22, to Philadelphia again, this time on their home court, 121–110. The game was never really close, and that was disappointing for us. We had to travel back to Baltimore and play Detroit next and we beat them 128–127 in a real shoot-out. They were winning going into the last quarter, but we got it together and beat them at the wire.