Life on the Run

by Bill Bradley

  Willis leaves the training room and slumps on his locker-room stool. The team doctor talks to him. Willis nods his head but doesn’t look up. Tonight’s opponent is Milwaukee, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at center. Willis knows he’s not prepared for the best offensive center in basketball. He knows that his body will never be the same after two operations and almost three years of little active competition. Still, he sends his complimentary tickets down to the will-call window, as usual, and tells the Knick publicity man that he feels good. He sprays his knees with skin adherent and pulls on the braces which give his weakened joints support. Then he tapes his fingers to avoid jamming them. A hot pack lies over a shoulder as he rubs liniment on the tendon area above the knee. Self-respect is still as much a part of him as ever, but the pride is less apparent. He plays against his real opponent, pain, with the knowledge that someday he will lose to it. But, his will forces him on and he is ready to work, believing that his team needs him—and we do—if only for a few minutes. Basketball is his living. He holds on, and who can fault him? Still, it’s not the same, and that’s sad.

  I return to my locker stall, tape my ankles and put on my uniform. I watch the first quarter of the Milwaukee film, and then turn to the stack of mail that the ball boy has just delivered from the administrative office downstairs. I usually get forty letters a week, less than in my college years, but still a sizable amount, almost none of it from people I know. Total strangers write to “Bill Bradley of the New York Knicks.” I quickly break the mail into four categories: autograph request, business proposal, personal invitation, other. For four years, I tried to answer every letter. Eventually, I realized that although each letter meant something very important to the person who sent it, I could not form forty personal relationships each week, no matter how important it was to the sender. The ones with the letterheads I recognize, or ones that are marked “Personal,” I open and read. The rest I try to forget by placing them in the black trunk, which I empty at the end of each year into big cardboard boxes. I save them all. I have nearly every fan letter written to me since 1965.

  Willis answers some of his mail with the help of the Knick administrative secretaries. Barnett does the same. DeBusschere’s sister-in-law, overseen by his wife, answers most of his mail. Monroe, Jackson, and Lucas rarely answer any mail. Frazier has one of his secretaries at Walt Frazier Enterprises (a company that represents players in contract negotiations) cope with the problem. He receives more than a hundred letters each week.

  The first letter I open is from a Rotary Club president in New Jersey who wants me to speak at his club’s next luncheon. Then there are a few autograph requests. A woman in Jersey City writes to ask if I could send her anything for a celebrity auction her church is having. A man from Sparta, New Jersey, asks me to assure him better season tickets. A letterhead from the Dean of Students Office from a local New York college catches my eye. It is from the Assistant Dean of Students and it begins, “I find myself increasingly interested in the effects of greatness on athletes. It is of course practically impossible to get any kind of accurate clues from such sources as television commercials, sportscasters, and popular literature; nevertheless, some consistencies do emerge sometimes. Take Dave DeBusschere. I first saw Dave doing a hair commercial in which I recall he flashed a smile that was dazzling. His radio voice, which I heard next, was moderate and pleasing. His image, coupled with his brilliance as a ballplayer, added up to an affable, easy, relaxed kind of guy. But now I think this is not so. Dave, apparently, wrote The Open Man, in which he inadvertently reveals quite a bit about himself….” The assistant dean, a woman, then launches into a brief psychiatric profile of DeBusschere, as revealed in his book. Predictably, it is a negative portrait because the assistant dean is angry. What is she mad at? DeBusschere did not respond to a letter she sent him, so he is now on her enemy list.

  The assistant dean continues, “To me, this portrait is a great disappointment, almost a tragedy, not because it reveals a great man to be a fallible human, but because it exposes the enormous pressure under which the man lives. Were I to write to Dave instead of you, I would surely wound him, even though I am a total stranger.

  “I believe athletes lead the sort of life that is highly destructive to them in many ways. Constantly on the run, subject to incredible hardships on the road, it would take a highly insensitive person, or one with fantastic insight, to maintain equilibrium. Given one who starts off less than confident, the results must be progressively difficult, not only for the star himself, but for those who live with him.”

  She asks me to comment if I desire. Two days later I write to her, saying that I find Dave to be a warm, confident, and genuine friend and that I’m sure she would, too, if she got to know him better. I write that the questions she raises about athletes in general are good ones, except that I would put quotes around “greatness” in her question about the effects of greatness on the athletes. I never show DeBusschere the letter or tell him about it.

  Another letter is from a man who is angry because I did not comport myself properly during the playing of the National Anthem before a recent game in Maryland. “You looked very uninterested in your country’s anthem,” he says. “Then, before the music had even stopped, you broke away from the other players and headed toward the bench. I realize that standing even at half attention is not the ‘in’ thing to do among basketball players, but for someone who it is rumored has political aspirations, it may not be a bad idea. Also for thousands of kids watching these games you would be giving a good example….”

  There is a note from the “Famous Peoples Eye Glasses Museum” in Henderson, Nevada: “We would like to add a pair of your eye glasses to the growing FPEGM.” There is an invitation to a sculpture exhibit on Sutton Place in New York. Inside the invitation is a note scribbled, “I sit in my seat 16 feet from yours and watch you perform 1782 minutes each season (54 home games × 33 average minutes). Therefore I demand 60 minutes of your time knowing of your appreciation for art.”

  The last letter I open is from Kentucky. It is marked “Important.” Inside is a letter from the doctor-father of a boy whom I had met four years earlier. The son was then a sophomore at the University of Kentucky. He came all the way from Kentucky to ask me to show him how to shoot a basketball. He just appeared at my apartment one day. We went up to Riverside Drive Park where there are some empty baskets. After three minutes, I knew what I had suspected. He couldn’t shoot well but he kept asking how to get off his jump shot under heavy guarding. He said that Adolph Rupp, the coach, had told him he might have a slim chance to make the team. He insisted that he intended to work day and night, for his lifelong goal was to play basketball for Kentucky. We talked and shot about an hour. He thanked me for the help and boarded a bus back home. I saw him later that year in Cincinnati. He had been cut from the Kentucky team. He was down, and convinced that his sprained ankle had something to do with it. I wrote him a letter two years later, after his sister had written that he had cancer. My letter arrived too late. The boy’s father thanks me for the letter but says that his son had died six months earlier. He goes on to relate the grief and pain of losing his only son. I put the letter down. Holzman begins his pregame conversation. I can’t concentrate. I should have written sooner. I feel numbed with anger and sorrow.

  We leave the locker room with a clap of hands, pass between the tan burlap curtains under the loge seats and onto the hardwood surface of Madison Square Garden. The spotlights shining down from the spoked-wheel ceiling make the court warm, even hot. As we form two lines for warm-up lay-ins, the Garden audio department blasts a record whose high-speed percussion ratchets through the enormous loud speakers hanging suspended over center court. During the first game that was played in the new Garden, in 1968, a large metal plate fell from the ceiling to the floor, and since then I have thought about what might happen if the gigantic speaker fell. The players who never get back on defense or never go for rebounds would be the most likely victims.

>   I approach the basket slowly, take the pass from Frazier and lay the ball against the backboard. The pace is slow and jerky. As you get older, the warm-up becomes more important. Muscles are tight and restrict movement. They need to be slowly stretched and loosened for the running and jumping to follow. A rhythm develops which puts me in tune with the game rhythm.

  Before play-off games, nervousness and determination mark the faces of players. There are shouts of encouragement to teammates and glares at opponents. Each player tries to convince his body to perform beyond its capability. But during the regular season the warm-ups are a time of hellos to opponents, smiling inquiries about families, and occasionally the making of post-game plans.

  The record fades into the more familiar accompaniment of organ music. Stiff muscles yield, the tempo picks up. I see the ball drop through the hoop. I start, fake left, and then cut right; going toward the basket at an angle. The ball thuds into my hands. I feel the grain, bring the ball up to my chest, and drop it softly against the backboard. Coming down on my toes, I take five steps to slow down, then jog to the end of the rebounding line. The music plays, people watch, and a mood begins to form.

  As the lay-ins draw to a close, the younger players start the playful movement of basketball, the dunk shot, literally stuffing the ball into the basket. There are many varieties. The straight one-hand and two-hand dunks are elementary. The reverse dunk, however, requires a player to approach the basket frontally and then at the last moment turn at a right angle in the air and slam the ball over the left backside of the rim with the right hand. For the hesitation dunk, a player “skies” (jumps very high). As he approaches the level of the basket, he ducks his head aside to miss the rim or net and at the last moment, after his body is past the basket but before it descends, he reaches back with one hand and stuffs the ball through. The self-assist dunk is the most violent: a player tosses the ball against the backboard and as it caroms off, he jumps, catches it above the rim and slams it through, all in one motion. With my limited jumping ability I’m not much on the dunk. The standing locker-room joke is that a daily New York Times can’t be slipped under my feet even on my highest jump. So, in between the “oohing” and “aahing” the crowd gives for the practice dunks, I shoot driving hooks and reverse lay-ups against the glass. After my last lay-in made running flatout down the center, I go to the right corner of the court to tighten my shoelaces. A little boy and girl shout, “Dollar, look up, look up. Please. We want your picture. You’re our favorite Knick.” I look up, but they don’t take the picture so I return to my sneakers. The two young voices call again, “Look up, look up, you jerk!” No player can blot out the comments from the crowd. He can only pretend he doesn’t hear.

  After the lay-ins, the team starts individual warm-up shots, using six balls. A jumper, a free throw, a hook, a running one-hander—each player will run through his repertoire until he has reaffirmed it against the imaginary opponents of the warm-up.

  DeBusschere practices his long jumper from the corners and his full-speed drives across the middle to the basket. He jump-shoots three from the low post and tips in a few rebounds off the glass. Lucas stands twenty-five feet from the basket. He shoots with a piston-like motion—one bounce, fix the ball into shooting position, jump, fade, kick one leg forward, release the ball near the right ear. Monroe works on his rhythm, faking his shot, driving to the basket, pulling up for the jumper from the hip. Frazier dribbles from baseline to halfcourt five times. I shoot fouls and take jumpers at points on the court where our plays are designed to spring me for the open shot.

  Muscles loosen even more and confidence grows. Sometimes you can sink every shot in the warm-ups, but the shots in the game fail to drop. Other times just the reverse. Each player has his own superstitions: taking the last shot, swishing the last shot, walking to the bench last or first, shooting with one ball only, saying hello to a friend in the stands.

  Frazier and DeBusschere rarely use the full ten minutes for shooting; they prefer to sit on the bench for two or three minutes, thinking about their opponent.

  Several years ago, I took to surveying the crowd for lovely women, and now in Madison Square Garden three women are part of my pregame fantasy ritual. They sit in different places and they attend games often. At some point during the warm-ups, I will stare at each of the three. I don’t want to meet them and I’m sure they aren’t aware of their strange role in my preparation. After two years, one of them made it known through friends that she was available, but somehow it didn’t seem right. From what I saw, she was extremely attractive and alluring; meeting her might dispel that image. I knew she was bound to be different. Anyway, I did not want to find out, because the very act of meeting her would destroy the role she played in my warm-ups. So, I continued just to look. She caught my glances with recognition for several more months, but finally ignored me altogether. I still notice her dress, her hair, and the remarkably impassive manner with which she regards the scene. Three times I have seen her from a cab walking down a New York street. She looked the same, but her allure was less, insufficient without the Garden and the game.

  The buzzer sounds, indicating that players should return to their benches for the start of the game. Players take last-second shots not unlike students cramming, minutes before an exam.

  “Welcome to the magical world of Madison Square Garden,” says John Condon, the Garden’s public address announcer, “where tonight it’s the New York Knicks against the Milwaukee Bucks. And now for the Milwaukee starting lineup…”

  “Booooo.” The Garden vibrates like a bass violin string. Few opposing teams escape the New York boo.

  “Now the World Champion New York Knicks…”

  Sound of waterfalls, a continuous roar.

  “Playing forward, No. 22, Dave DeBusschere.”

  Waterfalls.

  “Playing forward No. 24, Bill Bradley.”

  Waterfalls.

  “Playing center, No. 32, Jerry Lucas.”

  More waterfalls.

  DeBusschere and I stand stonefaced as the remaining introductions are made. DeBusschere says, “I found her. I’m playing for her tonight.”

  “Where, which one?” I ask.

  “The blonde in the blue sweater up to the right of Gate 13.”

  I glance up the wall of faces, past Wall Street types in their three-piece suits, past blue-jeaned bearded kids, until I focus on an unknown woman in a gray skirt and a blue turtleneck sweater. She gazes down at us as the National Anthem is announced. “Okay, we’ll do it for her tonight,” I say.

  During the National Anthem, while a fan in the front row does toe raises, I stare at the balcony where the signs of Knick sponsors hang—Coca Cola, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, Schaefer Beer, Eastern Airlines. I fix on the red and black Coke sign. The colors jump and then fuse. “O’er the land of the free and the…” I can’t wait. I spring to the sidelines, ready to play, excited. I catch a towel from the ballboy as the singer finishes, “… home of the brave.” I take off my warm-ups and towel my legs dry. Holzman gives last-minute instructions. Barnett calls our first play and we head out for the center jump. Game number 66 begins.

  Milwaukee gets the tip. Oscar Robertson passes to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who hits a drifting hook shot from the middle of the lane. Oscar hits a jumper and passes for three more. Milwaukee takes a 10-to-2 lead. They are running well.

  Oscar and Kareem, the old and the young, make Milwaukee a devastating team. Kareem’s calmness engulfs opponents. With a beard covering his face and his alert eyes darting back and forth across the court, he looks like a member of some royal family. He does things on a basketball court that are truly astounding. At 7′3″, he is as graceful as any player in basketball. In one game, I saw him grab a rebound two feet over the basket, dribble the full length of the floor ending with one dribble behind the back, leap from about the foul line, and dunk it. He does not have the massive bulk of Wilt Chamberlain or the coiled reflexes of Bill Russell; but he seems to be flyi
ng effortlessly, giving and taking at his whim.

  Oscar’s play has been my model since I was in high school, when I saw him play against St. Louis University. He never wastes a movement; the form is always perfect. His arm fits under the ball as if its sole function is shooting baskets. The same motion releases the ball in the same manner every time. The Robertson body fake frees him time after time for the short jump shot. He dribbles at you slowly, then fakes right with his head, shoulders, and arms. His man jumps right, and he brings his body back left for a clear shot or drive to the basket. His passes are crisp and pinpointed. He is unselfish with the ball but demands that the game be played properly—his way.

  Who is the best, Jerry West or Oscar Robertson?

  “Jerry’s a great shooter,” Barnett says, “but Oscar is the best all-around basketball player ever. He makes it look so easy. He’s not fancy, just fundamental. He is going to take the shot he wants, not the one you want him to take, and the motherfucker isn’t going to shoot further out than fifteen feet. When he was younger he could have scored 100 points in a game if he went for the shot every time instead of averaging ten assists a game. No mistaking it either, Oscar is boss. One night we were playing Cincinnati and Wayne Embry [a 6′8″, 250-pound center] sets a pick for Oscar. As he attempts to roll I try to hold him. Embry looks at me and says, ‘Don’t hold me, man, Oscar will yell at me if I don’t roll.’”

  Oscar dissects situations on the court. Basketball for him has never been a matter of emotion. The only obstacle between him and a perfect game has been the ability of his teammates, which, until he joined Kareem, could not compare with his own. Perhaps he doesn’t give lesser players a large enough margin for error, but when they listen to him he makes All-Stars of meager talents. He controls events on the court with the aplomb and authoritarian hand of a symphony conductor. The NBA finals in 1971 showed Oscar’s mood as he sensed the possibility of his first championship. He drove his young teammates, placing blame on those who made mistakes, urging them never to let up, telling them when and where to move, and insisting on perfect execution.