Dr. J

by Julius Erving

  When we sit down for a meal after the game, our interpreters bring in Pravda and the other Russian papers. There’s a photo of me and in the story they talk about the good fight the Americans put up and single me out: “American Erving is doing things on the basketball court that we’ve never seen before . . .” They say I’m doing things with “spin” and “elevation” that nobody in Russia has ever even tried.

  I leave the Soviet Union thinking I wouldn’t mind another shot at these guys in the 1972 Games.

  We go on to Poland and Finland, again playing against veterans of Olympic and international competitions. For the rest of the tour, we only lose one more game, finishing 10-4. My teammates vote me the Most Valuable Player of the tour.

  After our last game in Helsinki, we walk around the city, which seems like a different planet after Poland and Russia. In Poland, they don’t even have proper toilet paper, just this white stuff that comes apart in your hand. And the food: they are serving us these stews and we’re finding bits of meat that don’t really look like any part of the cow that I’m used to eating. The whole Scandinavian feel, the beautiful blond women, the way everyone is so well dressed, the stores stocked with consumer items, even record stores with the latest Beatles and Stones albums, not to mention Ike and Tina Turner, Isaac Hayes, and Marvin Gaye: it feels great after the dingy and dusty Moscow and Warsaw streets. Because it’s still summer, it’s always light, the day going to dusk and then right back to dawn, so that we never feel like sleeping. Finland feels like a burst of Technicolor after the gray of the Eastern bloc.

  Still, after a month of traveling, when we finally land back in New York, at JFK, I actually kneel and kiss the American tarmac. The USA, with all its problems, still seems like the place to be. Here I’ve been to three very different countries, including the great Cold War rival Russia, and none of them compare to America.

  Mom and Mr. Dan pick me up at the airport. For a heartrending flicker, I expect to see Marky. I’m about to ask where he is when I remember. Of course.

  13.

  As an upperclassman, I have every reason to add a little swagger to my step. Not only have I returned from a tour of Europe with the US national team, I’m also now the acknowledged leader on a basketball squad that should win the Yankee Conference and secure an NCAA tournament birth. And if you consider the level of competition I played with and dominated over the summer, it’s not inconceivable that All-American recognition could be coming my way.

  I move out of the athletic dorm and over to Orchard Hill. My goal since arriving on campus has been to be a student-athlete, not just an athlete. I am fulfilling my goals as the latter, but I want to work on being a better student. Living in the athletic dorm over at Hills North, I felt stereotyped as a jock, something I am sensitive about. I want my peers to see me as a serious fellow student.

  I’m eager to live with my friends, and many of the African-American students on campus, over at Orchard Hill. And it helps that Orchard Hill is closer to Amherst, where my girlfriend, Carol, lives with her family. Our relationship is serious and exclusive, and has withstood the test of our many weeks apart this summer. (We’d only been allowed one phone call back to the US each week during the tour, and I always called my mom’s house.) The separation has convinced us both that we want to be together. We spend every minute that I’m free, outside of practice and studying, in each other’s company.

  My priority remains getting a business degree, but I’ve concluded that a degree in marketing is unlikely because of my epic struggles with statistics. I take stats and I’m sitting there and thinking, “Are they serious?”

  For the first time, I feel that a subject is beyond my abilities. It seems like the kids in that class who can grasp and follow the material showed up with a basic understanding already. And then there are the rest of us who will never figure out what is going on around the summation and gamma distribution symbols.

  I have met my academic match in stats.

  I am never passing this class.

  I declare myself a management major.

  14.

  Coach Leaman won’t let us skip practice. So, as soon as I shower, I run over to Bowker Auditorium to try to catch the last few minutes of Bill Russell’s lecture. For me, seeing and hearing Bill Russell is like seeing Abraham Lincoln or Dr. King; he’s one of the truly great Americans, a living legend to us black students. I’ve already read his book Go Up for Glory: he didn’t receive a single recruiting letter or visit when he was at McClymonds High School in Oakland, California, yet he went on to become, in my opinion, the best all-around player in the history of basketball. Just last year, as the player-coach of the Celtics in his last season, he led Boston to their ninth championship while averaging over 19 rebounds a game. I relate to his story, and admire in him what I have yet to accomplish. Like Russell, I feel like I have to earn my success. I wasn’t recruited by the big-name schools, I wasn’t selected to the Olympic development trials but was instead invited as an alternate. If you go back even farther than that, playing for the Salvation Army as the first black player or moving to Roosevelt High before I began high school, I’ve always come in through the back door.

  Russell does everything on the court. He blocks shots, he rebounds, he starts the offense with a great outlet pass, and he can score when the team needs it. But his game isn’t about stats. With Russell, the only stat that matters is wins.

  And like Russell, I like to think that my game, and my ability to impose my will on opponents, speaks for me. But more than that, it’s all that Russell represents beyond basketball. He urges young black men to use their minds, to get their education. He reminds us that it’s not good enough for us to be good enough. We have to be exceptional.

  But tonight, because of practice, I’m too late. The crowd is already filing out.

  There he is, near the side exit, standing in his black suit and skinny tie, nodding as he talks to some of my classmates.

  I approach him, extending my hand, introducing myself.

  “I’m Julius Erving.”

  He looks at me and does a double take. “You’re Irving?”

  I nod.

  “I’ve been reading in the Globe about this Jewish guy at UMass who is getting all these points and rebounds.”

  They’ve been misspelling my name in the Boston Globe for a while now, and Russell, who reads the papers every day despite his famously testy relationship with the press, has assumed that UMass has an athletic Jewish guard named Julius Irving.

  “I’ve never seen a guy named Irving that looks like you,” Russell says.

  Then he does something I never expected. “Let’s get a cup of coffee,” he says.

  So we head over to the student union, where we take a booth and for the next two hours, it’s just the two of us. I mean, William F. Russell and me: a nobody from Hempstead, Long Island. Russell is here for our Distinguished Lecturer series. On our walk over to the student center, he had been admiring our campus. I tell him that this campus is why I came here. I love it. I love the whole college experience.

  “And there are so many new buildings,” I tell him.

  He nods, sips his coffee.

  “What’s the most important building on campus?” he asks.

  Hmmm. “The gym? Yeah, the gym.”

  “Wrong,” Russell says. “It’s the library.”

  I walked right into that one.

  He tells me that what is being given to me here in college is more than the opportunity to play ball. It’s also access to the knowledge in that library. “What is in that building, the books that are now at your disposal, will impact you for the rest of your life.”

  He pauses, squinting at me. “Impact you more than anything you do on the basketball court.”

  Hearing this kind of wisdom from a professor or coach is one thing, but hearing it from the greatest basketball player in the world is completely different. While I was already intent on being a student-athlete, now I am sure that I want to keep le
arning, to keep growing. I don’t want to be just another jock.

  Russell lays out his whole story, how he was raised by his dad, grew up in Tennessee before moving to Oakland, all the way to present-day Boston, which he tells me he’s leaving because of the racism and discrimination he still feels in that city. He’ll never go back, he says. He stays with me until midnight, despite the fact that he has to drive ninety miles home.

  I walk him to his car. I shake his hand and feel that I have made a new lifelong friend.

  15.

  Coach Leaman names me cocaptain of the varsity team my junior year, along with Ken Mathias, and by the time the season begins on December 1, 1970, I’ve grown another half inch so I’m now six foot six, my full height, though I’m still narrow-chested with what Carol reminds me is a skinny butt. We start the season winning 12 straight games. I’m averaging nearly 30 points a game and against St. Michael’s I pull down 30 rebounds, which is a new school record. At the end of January, Providence finally beats us by a point when I have an off night. Despite the loss, I feel a certain serenity about our team and my game. I have realized, at least at this level of competition, there is only one person who can stop me from scoring 30 a night and that is my coach, Jack Leaman, who takes me out whenever we’re blowing out opponents. Against Iona, Vermont, Boston College, Connecticut, there are plenty of games where I have a shot at breaking the school scoring record of 41 set by Billy Tindall a couple of years ago, but Coach always removes me for the last several minutes. It’s not my style to complain about being pulled from the game, but after it happens a few times, I start to wonder about Coach’s motivations.

  On my birthday in February the Syracuse Orangemen come down to Amherst. The Orangemen are a huge team, with two six-foot-ten big men, but I’m just killing them, somehow finding space in the lane and laying it in or just jumping up and over their guys. I’m having a great game, going for 36 points and 32 rebounds, and we still have a good three minutes left to play. It’s a night, in other words, where I am imposing my will on the game, taking it over. (Little do I know that Bob Costas, a Syracuse broadcast journalism major, is in the stands.) I’m thinking, Okay, that’s it, the record is mine tonight.

  But Coach Leaman takes me out. “You’re done for the day.”

  What?

  I take a seat on the bench. Later, I ask Coach Leaman why he removed me. I was going for the record, man.

  “I want you to have something to play for in your senior year.”

  Like I said, Leaman is the only person in New England who can stop me from scoring.

  But those 32 rebounds remain the single-game UMass record to this day.

  Our next game is down in New York, at Madison Square Garden. We beat George Washington, and I score 35 and collect 17 rebounds.

  We finish the regular season 23-3, going 10-0 in our conference. I set school records for scoring and rebounding, averaging 26.9 points and 19.5 rebounds, both marks that have never been broken. Despite our success, however, we miss out on the NCAA tournament and have to settle for another NIT bid, again drawing the eventual champion, this time North Carolina, in the first round. Featuring guard George Karl and forward Bill Chamberlain from Long Island Lutheran High School, the Tar Heels take us apart. I foul out early in the second half and they pull away, beating us by 40.

  It’s disappointing when I learn that I haven’t even made the NCAA’s All-American team, losing out to Ken Durrett, Johnny Neumann, Howard Porter, John Roche, and Curtis Rowe. Now I respect all of those guys, have even run in the playgrounds with a few of them, but I know I can play with anyone in college basketball at this point.

  At least the coaches make me a third-team All-American and the UPI wire service also puts me on their All-American team. But still, how much better can we as a team play than going 23-3 and unbeaten in our conference? What do we have to do to get invited to the NCAA tournament?

  I keep my doubts to myself.

  Win without boasting, lose without crying.

  Coach Leaman tells me that we will do whatever it takes to improve. In addition to Al Skinner, a slick point guard who I remember from Malverne High in Long Island, he tells me he’s got another kid coming up from Oyster Bay, New York. In fact, would I mind showing him around? His name is Rick Pitino.

  16.

  There are students smoking joints by the campus pond. Sure sign of spring. I am making my way past the chapel, then down Hicks Way to Boyden. The college, especially when it warms up during the spring, when I can shed a layer or two of outerwear, really feels like home to me now, and as I walk down the path, among the birch and maple trees, many of my fellow students nod toward me or say hello, reinforcing my sense of belonging. I feel that next year will be better. But also, I feel the very first flashes of a kind of sadness that this has to end, that this experience, the campus life I had sought, is fleeting. And I feel so lucky that I have been given this opportunity.

  When I get to Boyden, Ray Wilson pulls me aside and says he feels obligated to tell me something.

  A sports agent has gotten in touch with him and wants to speak with me.

  “About what?” I ask.

  “About turning pro.”

  17.

  I haven’t really been following the rivalry between the ABA and the NBA. Before attending the Olympic development program, I didn’t think about turning pro at all. My plan was, and still is, to be the first in my family to get that bachelor’s degree.

  Yet since the ABA was founded in 1967, a succession of top basketball players has joined the new league. Established pros like Rick Barry and Billy Cunningham have jumped to the upstart league. New York playground legend Connie Hawkins was the league’s first MVP. More relevant to me, however, is the fact that college players have been leaving school early to sign with ABA franchises, and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. Spencer Haywood left the University of Detroit after his sophomore year and signed with the Denver Rockets of the ABA for $450,000. Ralph Simpson left Michigan last year and signed with the Rockets for $750,000. Dan Issel, Rick Mount, and Charlie Scott are among the college stars who have signed or will soon be signing with the ABA, and these are all contracts paying at least $100,000 a year. George McGinnis of Indiana University has recently signed a $200,000 contract with the Pacers—and he’s only a sophomore. The rivalry between the two leagues is driving up salaries. And these ABA clubs are paying a premium for young talent. The NBA, on the other hand, is still underpaying young stars, giving UCLA guard Henry Bibby just $25,000 for his first year. The only guys who get seriously paid over in the NBA are big men. A couple of seasons ago, Wilt Chamberlain made news when he signed for $100,000 a year and then Russell literally one-upped him when he signed for $100,001.

  “Ray, you think I should talk to this agent?” I ask Coach Wilson.

  “It can’t hurt, Julius,” Ray says. “It’s worth taking a look at. At least hear what he has to say.”

  The agent I speak with is named Steve Arnold, and he explains to me that the leagues will soon be merging, eliminating the competition for players and driving salaries back down to Bibby levels for all of us.

  He says he believes the Virginia Squires of the ABA would be interested in making an offer for my services.

  I’ve never heard of a Squire. “What’s a Squire?”

  “It’s like the Virginia version of a Minuteman,” he says.

  Steve stresses that this merger is imminent, perhaps a few months away. By the time I graduate with my class and am drafted by an NBA team, there might be only one league and I will have to take whatever I can get. I have leverage as long as there are two leagues.

  When I hang up, I talk to Mr. Wilson and ask him what he thinks. “At least hear what they have to offer,” he says.

  I tell Carol about it, and we both agree that it doesn’t make sense to leave college with only one year left. A degree, after all, will last forever.

  I drive back to Roosevelt in the blue Chevy for spring brea
k. I meet in New York City with Steve Arnold, who has slicked-back hair and wears a sharp suit. He’s very persuasive and he starts to intimate how much money may be involved here. It’s much, much more than I had previously imagined.

  I go straight to visit my old freshman coach at Roosevelt, Mr. Mosley. When I recount the conversation with the agent, he says he’s going to make a few calls and get back to me.

  I’m at home the next morning when I hear a knock at the front door and my mom answers and shouts upstairs, “June, Coach Mosley is here.”

  Mr. Mosley has decided we need to go see Louie Carnesecca, who is now coach of the New York Nets, in their offices over near Island Gardens, where the team plays. Mr. Mosley thinks if I do leave school, then I should at least explore playing locally with Louie and the New York Nets. I drive us over in the Chevy, the horn honking every time I turn left, and we park in this little parking lot next to a run-down office building. We go upstairs to see Louie in the Nets office suite. It’s two rooms at the end of the hall, a receptionist behind a desk and Louie in the office behind her.

  Mr. Mosley tells me to wait here. I take a seat, pick up a copy of Sport magazine, smile at the receptionist, and wonder at the wisdom of joining the ABA. This office doesn’t really seem any nicer than Coach Leaman’s back at UMass. Mr. Mosley and Coach Carnesecca stay inside for a while, but when Mr. Mosley comes out he tells me we’re going.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Louie would love to have you play for the Nets. He called Roy Boe (the owner of the Nets) who told him he won’t sign underclassmen. He thinks you should stay in school. That’s the best thing for you.”

  I nod, start the car. “He’s probably right, right?”

  Mr. Mosley nods. “Louie would have signed you today, Julius, if it were his decision.”

  “Well, I’m staying in school,” I tell Mr. Mosley.

  But Steve Arnold is talking to Mr. Wilson, who is also back on Long Island. Arnold says we should come down to Philadelphia, meet with the representatives from the Virginia Squires, at least entertain their offer. It won’t cost us anything and who knows, maybe something will come of it. I tell Mr. Wilson I’m 100 percent against leaving school, but we might as well hear them out, maybe learn something that I can use later, when I do finally graduate.