(GETTY IMAGES(2) NEW YORK POST)
As the Nets depart Jersey for a second time — they were born the New Jersey (Teaneck) Americans of the ABA in 1967 before spending the next nine years in New York — I grow increasingly concerned that the team’s first three NBA years (1977-80) have been forgotten, vanished from the memory bank like Winford Boynes, the Nets’ first pick in 1978.
Those were the Piscataway, Rutgers Athletic Center years, the years between Julius Erving and the first season at the Meadowlands. Those Nets teams were loaded with assorted characters of assorted character.
These were teams, after all, that saw leading scorer “Super John” Williamson suspended for being overweight, and sent to a nutritionist named — I kid you not — Jack Spratt.
These were teams that held a “Rich Kelley Growth-Chart Night” — Kelley was 7-foot — but traded him that afternoon.
These teams included ultra-straight Mike Newlin, who, upon joining the Nets, nudged a reporter on the team bus, nodded toward Phil Jackson, who was wearing one of those Davey Crockett hippie jackets, and asked, “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“He’s a Communist?”
“Card-carrying,” the reporter
deadpanned.
“Thought so,” Newlin said.
And those who covered those teams were a trip, too. I was there, kid reporter. Every day, it seemed, something special went on, only some of it involving basketball.
One Saturday afternoon before tipoff, I took my seat on press row, and my feet landed on something that groaned. It was Al Mari, who covered for the Westchester-Rockland papers.
Mari rolled over, looked up and said, “What time is it?”
He crawled from under the table, brushed himself off, took his seat and went to work. He had arrived in Piscataway early from a Friday night poker game. No big deal. Mari was a throwback pro.
* * *
THEN there was the game when ref Darell Garretson went after — physically — Mike Weber of the Star-Ledger. Garretson accused Weber of flashing him the “choke sign.” Weber was startled by the accusation. He also was built like a bull and snorted like one.
Next thing I know, I’m knees-up on the press table, papers flying, trying to break up an in-game hassle between a beat writer and an NBA ref. Ah, Piscataway!
* * *
ONCE I brought a date to a game, got her a seat just behind me.
In that game the Nets made a big comeback late against, I think, Houston. Down two with seconds left, the Nets had no timeouts. The Rockets, shooting to the right missed; the Nets rebounded. At that point, the Nets bench, just to my left, began to point and holler that there’s water on the floor.
The refs looked down. Sure enough, a splash of water had mysteriously appeared near midcourt. Officials’ timeout. The refs called for a mop. Meanwhile, Kevin Loughery called the Nets over to discuss their last-chance shot.
At that critical point, my date decided, for the first time, that she wanted to discuss the game.
She stepped to my seat and, pointing, said, “He threw it.” I told her, “Not now, I’m … He threw what?”
“He” she said, pointing to Loughery, “just threw a cup of water on the court.”
“He did?”
“Yes, I just saw him do it!”
Good things happen, I suppose, when you bring a date to a game who, during the biggest play of the game, would be watching elsewhere.
Anyway, the Nets lost, but, thanks to my date, I had the story to myself, plenty more to come. I married her.
After the game, when I asked Loughery about the water toss, he refused to discuss it. But he did ask what made me ask. “You don’t wanna
know,” I told him.
* * *
THE Post, then, was an afternoon paper, thus late deadlines. I could write until after midnight. Because I often did, I was the last one out of the RAC. I would file, shut the lights off in the pressroom, follow the “EXIT” lights up the steps then out the main entrance.
Once that door closed behind me, the RAC was locked for the night.
There wasn’t much to the RAC back then. Long driveway, 9,000-bleacher-seat arena, parking lots, surrounded by woods. I would park my VW bug beneath the one light in the media lot that was left on, so, if I was the last one out, I could see my car.
One night I wrapped it up late, shut the door behind me and headed toward my car. This night a thick, swampy fog had socked in. All I could do was keep walking until I saw that light through the soup.
There it was, a smear of white light. But as I walked closer, I saw a human form seated on the cement block that held the light post. And as I walked closer, that form rose. It was a monster! A swamp monster, at least 10-feet tall!
What could I do? There were no cell phones. The doors to the RAC were locked behind me. I was going to be killed and then eaten, or worse, killed while being eaten. What else was that monster there for, directions to the nearest lagoon?
I determined to go down fighting. I removed my belt, wrapped some of it around my hand to keep the buckle dangling. That’s all I had.
Rendezvous with destiny. The moment had arrived!
“Hey,” it said. It — he — was Wilson Washington!
Washington was one of many itinerants the Nets still sign rather than risk a forfeit. He was 6-foot-9, out of Old Dominion, played hard. He was a sweet guy but so ditzy that Jackson nicknamed him “Vision.” He would play 86 games for the Nets, then fade from view and memory. Not mine.
What the heck was Washington doing there?
He had been looking for his van, in the fog, all over the lot. He said it may have been repossessed during the game. Could I give him a lift to the Holiday Inn? He had been waiting for the owner of the VW to show. He, too was stuck, no options.
So, after locking up the NBA arena for the night, I pushed back the passenger seat as far back as it could go, and Wilson Washington, his knees to his chin, and I chugged off into the fog, looking for the smear of green lights fronting the Piscataway-South Plainfield Holiday Inn.
“Thanks, man,” Washington said as I dropped him off.
“No sweat,” I told him.
As I drove home, I realized that my belt wasn’t on. I had thrown it in the back seat before Washington got in. Yeah, no sweat.