The Punch

by John Feinstein

  Even so, Washington believed the test strengthened his case, that it proved he wasn’t just making up a story to cover his actions. Armed with the results, Washington wrote to the New York Times, saying he wanted to tell his story in the newspaper. The Times has a page called “BackTalk” in its Sunday sports section, for stories just like the one Washington was proposing. Neil Amdur, the Times sports editor, read Washington’s submission and decided it would be worth running in “BackTalk.”

  On May 14, 2000, Washington’s story, headlined “A Sudden, Violent Moment That Still Haunts a Life,” appeared in the Times. In the story Washington again described the moments leading to the punch, again insisting that Kunnert’s two elbows were the reason the fight started. “After being attacked by Kunnert, I did not think Rudy’s intentions [when he saw him coming from behind] were good either,” he wrote. “I just saw someone running at me and reacted. My punch landed on his face and he fell. As Rudy Tomjanovich fell that night, so did my basketball career and a lot of the rest of my life.”

  Washington went on to say that the media had turned on him after the incident, and he described his suspension as being for three months. He didn’t get the number of months wrong on purpose. In telling his story later, he repeatedly said the suspension was three months long. Only after being shown newspaper clips that said the suspension was two months did he believe it was that long. Through the years, the suspension, in his mind, had become three months.

  In the story he continued to describe the aftermath of the punch:

  My nightmare was just beginning… I was public enemy No. 1. In 1977, racial diversity was almost nonexistent; racial slurs about me became everyone’s favorite. I was humiliated. I was an embarrassment to myself and my family. Not even the university I had attended wanted anything to do with me. Everyone who was once so proud of me could not even say my name in public.

  He did, at this juncture, mention the support of Red Auerbach and Pete Newell. Then he continued:

  Since then, I have applied for various coaching jobs from high school to the pro level, but have always been turned down because no one wanted to be associated with my reputation, or with me. My name stood for violence and bad publicity. I was blackballed everywhere…. Schools were hesitant to let me speak because all the kids ever wanted to hear about was the famous fight….

  Over the last 23 years, the clip of my hitting Rudy is played every time there is any type of violence in sports. I can’t count how many times it ran during the Sprewell incident [when Latrell Sprewell choked his coach, P. J. Carlesimo, during practice“….Everything I’ve ever accomplished in my life is overshadowed by this incident.

  There were exaggerations in the story. Washington had been hired twice: by Tom Davis at Stanford, who had then offered to take him to Iowa, and by the Trail Blazers as a part-time strength coach in 1988. He did do speaking in schools under the aegis of the GTE (now Verizon) speakers’ bureau, a group he became part of after being elected to the GTE Academic All-American Hall of Fame in 1994. He had applied for the athletic director’s job at American Univeristy in 1995—and had been turned down because the school’s administration felt that, given his lack of experience, he should break in as an assistant and work his way up. In that role, AU would have been very interested in bringing him back.

  “I didn’t see why I couldn’t be the AD so they could use my name out front and then have someone with more experience be my assistant,” he said. “They didn’t want to do it that way.”

  Certainly it isn’t accurate to say the school is ashamed of him. Two pages of the 2002 media guide are devoted to his accomplishments, and Tom George, who was hired at the start of the year as athletic director, says Kermit Washington is more than welcome to be a part of AU anytime he wants to come back.

  But the crux of the story, that the Tomjanovich incident had shadowed his life and overshadowed everything he had ever accomplished, was true.

  The Times piece brought on a spate of publicity. But the phone wasn’t ringing except occasionally when people who had read his story or heard him speak wanted to make contributions to Project Contact.

  No job offers.

  One person who wasn’t the least bit pleased by the new round of publicity was Kevin Kunnert. He was especially unhappy when his youngest daughter came home from school the day after Washington appeared on Jim Rome’s syndicated radio show and told him that one of her teachers at school had heard the interview. “Hey,” he told her, “I never realized it was your dad’s fault that Rudy Tomjanovich got beat up the way he did.”

  Kunnert was outraged. “It’s been almost twenty-five years now,” he said. “And the guy still won’t face up to what he did. If that’s the case, so be it, but it isn’t fair to keep dragging me and now my family into it. I didn’t do anything on that court that night to deserve to hear this stuff about myself all these years later.

  “Look, I’m sorry if the guy hasn’t been able to find work, but it’s not my fault. I’ve heard he’s done good work with his charity, and I think that’s all great. But it doesn’t give him the right to keep telling this fairy tale about me. If the guy would just deal with what he did, I think he would be a lot better off.

  “But he won’t, and maybe he can’t. So my family and I have to keep living with it.”

  Still searching for something—vindication, validation, most of all, work—Washington went in a different direction. He had a Portland lawyer, Mark Lindley, draft a letter and send it by certified mail, return receipt requested, to David Stern. The letter began by detailing all the publicity Washington had been receiving. It then went on to discuss Washington’s charity work with Project Contact, mentioning that the NBA had denied requests from Washington to make a contribution to Project Contact.

  After that, Lindley wrote:

  Kermit feels that the NBA manipulated the situation when it occurred in 1977 for public relations purposes and worked against Kermit with NBA team owners to make Kermit the scapegoat and make the NBA look better to Kermit’s detriment. As a result, Kermit’s ability to flourish as an NBA all-star was undermined and any future opportunities with the league and in the basketball world in general were ruined.

  Until recently, people have not heard Kermit’s side of the story. A story that has been validated by the results of a voluntary lie detector test that Kermit subjected himself to earlier this year. Kermit found himself in the middle of an altercation initiated by Kevin Kunnert, saw Rudy Tomjanovich running at him, and hit Rudy Tomjanovich because he was threatened by turning and seeing someone running at him. Kermit is not a violent man. Kermit has never been arrested for possession of a weapon, has never been cited for driving under the influence, and has never choked an NBA coach. As a matter of fact Kermit does not even drink or smoke and never has. Kermit made a mistake in judgment twenty-three years ago, and he is still paying the price.

  Because of the false light that the NBA has cast Kermit in, every time an incident involving violence in sports comes up, Kermit’s involvement in the Tomjanovich incident and his subsequent suspension are repeatedly established by the NBA as a benchmark. It is our understanding that the NBA released footage of the incident and continues today to cast Kermit in a false light. Kermit certainly does not fit in with today’s superstars with their long arrest records and erratic behavior that is condoned by the league.

  Kermit believes that he is entitled to compensation in the amount of five million dollars ($5,000,000.00) for the difficulty that he has faced for the last twenty-three years as a result of the actions of the NBA. Kermit has tried to maintain a good relationship with the NBA, but the poor treatment that he has received has pushed him to this point. Five million dollars ($5,000,000.00) is a small amount for the NBA to pay for the injustice that Kermit has dealt with for the last twenty-three years….

  In the event a favorable response is not received by this office prior to the end of this month, this firm will proceed to take more formal action.

 
The NBA responded with what the league describes as “a lawyer letter.” In sum, the letter said that while the league sympathized with any difficulty Washington had encountered through the years, it was not responsible. No check would be forthcoming, for $5 million or any amount.

  Washington did not take any further legal action. “Mark told me it would cost me thirty thousand dollars just to get them in a courtroom,” he said. “I didn’t have that kind of money to gamble at that point in my life.” But he did keep pursuing the league’s charity office about giving money to Project Contact. “I kept telling them that they had taken a lot of money from me in fines in 1977, not to mention the lost salary involved, and since they always use fine money to contribute to charity, why couldn’t they give some of their fine money today to my charity?” he said. “They could check out the charity, see that it was legitimate and doing good work, and then make a contribution.”

  Eventually the NBA did just that. It contributed $4,500 to Project Contact in the spring of 2001. The contribution was made at almost the same time that Bryant Gumbel was putting together a piece for his HBO series RealSports on the Washington-Tomjanovich incident. The NBA says the timing of the contribution was coincidental to the Gumbel piece. Washington, of course, thinks differently.

  “No one there ever returned my phone calls until HBO got involved,” he said. “Then, after HBO calls, all of a sudden they want to be my friend.”

  Coincidence or not, the $4,500 helped him fund a trip to Africa in May of 2001. Clearly the work he does with Project Contact gives Washington great satisfaction. The people he works with enjoy his company and respect him for what he is doing. “When I’m in Africa,” he said, “no one sees me as the person who punched Rudy Tomjanovich. They just see me as someone who is bringing them help they desperately need.”

  It is when he returns home that he again finds heartache. In the summer of 2001, after Maurice Cheeks was hired as the new coach in Portland, he interviewed Washington for a potential job on his staff. The last thing he said to Washington was, “I’ll be in touch.”

  Washington never heard back from him.

  23

  Brothers

  On a hot midsummer afternoon in Houston, Rudy Tomjanovich sat in his living room, legs stretched out in front of him, looking both tired and relaxed.

  The NBA draft had taken place that week and he was convinced the Rockets had stolen a great player in Eddie Griffin. The hours spent preparing for the draft were evident in his eyes, but the satisfaction he felt registered in his smile.

  He swirled a glass of ice tea in front of him, frowned, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “My goal this off-season,” he said, “is to quit.”

  He lit a cigarette and leaned back. Like every room in the house, the living room has a fifteen-foot ceiling, custom-designed for a man 6-foot-8 to feel as if he has plenty of space. The house, which the Tomjanoviches have lived in for three years, was designed by Sophie, and it is elegant and tasteful. It is located in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston, or, as the Houston papers describe it, “the fashionable River Oaks section.”

  That description makes Sophie Tomjanovich a little bit crazy. “We lived in the same house for twenty-one years,” she said. “It isn’t as if we inherited the house or any money. Rudy worked very hard for a very long time before we moved into that house.”

  Regardless of the cost or how fashionable it may or may not be, Tomjanovich feels comfortable here. The ceilings are high, the kitchen has plenty of space, and there’s a swimming pool in the back. He has come a long way from helping his dad bring home welfare food in Hamtramck.

  The HBO piece on Kermit and Rudy had recently aired and the subject came up. “Didn’t watch it,” he said. “They sent me a tape. I haven’t watched.”

  The only time he ever watched the tape of the punch was in 1979, when he was preparing for the court trial. Not before. Not since. No need. No reason to remember something he is happy he can’t remember. He was talking now about Kermit Washington.

  “It took me a long time to get to the point where I could think about him without feeling some resentment,” he said. “Right from the beginning, I think I knew that to recover, I couldn’t afford to hate him, that if I did, it would be like taking poison and hoping someone else would die from it. I worked consciously at that for a long time. I just tried not to think about him. That was the best way.

  “But I would get asked about him. So I would just say that I forgave him. My emotions about him were a lot more mixed than that. I remember him telling me that the incident ruined his life. I didn’t want it to ruin his life. But I also didn’t want to go through what I went through and I had to go through it.

  “I see it differently now. Since my sobriety, since I started looking at life differently, I really do feel differently. If he called me today and asked for my help, I’d give it to him if I could. I know he didn’t want to be involved in this thing any more than I did. Who hasn’t made a mistake in life? Am I perfect? What’s the statute of limitations on what he did?”

  He smiled. “You know, the funny thing about it all is this: I barely know the man. We’ve never really sat down and talked to one another. We just both had the misfortune to cross paths that one night. And now, all these years later, I feel like I’ve been married to him for twenty-four years. He’s been a part of my life the entire time.”

  John Lucas sat in front of a bowl of corn flakes and strawberries, talking about his friend Kermit Washington.

  “I love Kermit, I really do,” he said. “I’ve known him since college, used to play with him in the summertime. I’ve never sat down and talked to him about what happened that night. It’s amazing how clearly I remember it all. I can see it, I can hear it, I can feel it.

  “I know what happened. I know he had no idea who it was coming up from behind and he reacted. I know he could coach in the NBA.” He laughed and leaned back in his chair. “I can hear it now if I hired him. ‘There goes Father Flanagan again, trying to resurrect another life.’” Lucas, who works with troubled youth at his clinic in Houston, laughed again. “The guy worked with Pete Newell. He was one of the first guys in the league to know how to really work with weights. You telling me he couldn’t help some team’s big men? Of course he could.”

  His face turned serious. “But you know what I wish? I wish he could just say, ‘I’m sorry. I screwed up.’ All the years, all I’ve heard over and over again is, ‘I’m sorry, but…’ Sometimes in life, you make a mistake and there’s no buts and no explanations. If I had been there after it happened, knowing the things I know about life now, I would have said to him, ‘Go see the man.’ I would have told him if he had to, fly to Houston, drive to Houston, hitch to Houston. Take ten bodyguards if you have to, but go see the man. Look him in the eye and tell him how sorry you are.

  “It would have been the right thing to do for Rudy. And it would have been the best thing to do for Kermit. There’s no peace in ‘I’m sorry, but.’ You can’t find peace until you truly understand that the only thing to say is, ‘I’m sorry,’ period.

  “I hope someday he says it—and means it. Maybe then he can have peace. With himself. Which is all that really matters.”

  On a rainy Portland night like most other rainy Portland nights, Kermit Washington was dropping a passenger off at his hotel. Sitting behind the wheel, the engine running, he was talking about the future.

  “I hope I’ll get to coach,” he said. “I think I could help people. I know the game, and I know the ups and downs of life pretty well too.”

  He was preparing for another trip to Africa. He had been chasing, although not ardently, another of his nutty professor ideas— track down Charles Barkley and offer to help him get in shape for the NBA comeback he has been threatening. As it turned out, he would get into coaching late in 2001—in China. A longtime friend who works placing players and coaches overseas would find him a job coaching in the Chinese professional league. He would jump at the chance, figurin
g he had to start someplace. The job would last four months, until the Chinese team ran out of money. Washington would come home to Portland convinced he had found a future NBA player on his team, but nonetheless looking to start all over again.

  He was living in a rented two-bedroom condo near the river in downtown Portland because he had rented his house in Lake Oswego in order to find some extra income. Trey, who was still working at LeSlam, was staying with him.

  “He sleeps in every morning,” Washington said, laughing, sounding very much like a father. “He has no idea what it’s like to have it tough. He’s never had it tough a day in his life.”

  He rambled on, sitting in the hotel’s driveway, about Africa and the NBA; about his kids and his dog; about HBO and Jim Rome and the New York Times; about Pete Newell and Red Auerbach.

  Finally, as always, he began to talk about Rudy. He never refers to him as Tomjanovich or Rudy T. Always it is Rudy. As if, as Tomjanovich says, they have been married for all these years.

  “He is a good, good guy,” he said. “I know that. You know what’s funny? Under different circumstances, I believe we would have been the best of friends. Everything I’ve ever seen or heard about him tells me that.

  “I hope he’s doing well. I really do. He didn’t deserve what happened.”

  “When you talk to him,” he said softly, “tell him I said I hope he’s okay. I really hope he’s okay.”

  It is early in the year 2002. Rudy Tomjanovich has endured a miserable, injury-filled half-season with a Houston team that began the year with high hopes, only to watch them crumble because of injuries, much the way the 1977–78 team’s hopes crumbled. In today’s NBA, where coaches are discarded like socks in the midst of virtually any losing streak, he is about as secure as one can be. In his tenth full year with the Rockets, he is now second only to Utah’s Jerry Sloan in tenure, and with two years left on his contract at the end of the season, he isn’t the least bit nervous about his job security, even after a 15-game losing streak.