March 9, 2022 • 41 mins
Spencer Haywood is a former NBA player, Olympic gold medalist, and a member Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. But most importantly, he's the man being "the Spencer Haywood Rule" allowing high school and college basketball players to enter the NBA. This is his story, and how it affecting the sport of basketball as we know it today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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How does one start to understand thevalue of his sacrifice in life? All
the accolades and the wards, No, all the money and the fame.
No, it's through all the sufferingand pain and make his voice heard.
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It's from others love and support whichgives him strength beyond measure. It's his
action that plants seeds, which bearsfruit, which in turn makes a difference
in the lives of others. Andwhether these rules have in common the Spencer
hayrew a rule, I am SpencerHey, what name Smith? Basketball Hall
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of Famer, Olympic gold medalists andthe US Supreme Court Haywood versus the NBA
which enabled players to leave college orhigh school to come into the NBA at
an early age. I was bornin civil City, Mississippi. And remember
there is no silver and it wasn'ta city. It was three hundred people
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in the cotton fields of Mississippi.And I was born into indenture slavery.
I know it sounds strange in today'ssociety, but that's the way it was.
I was born in nineteen forty nineand my first memory of life in
itself was looking up at a cottonfield because my mother had me on her
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sack of cotton, and as Iwas just maturing into a fully grown baby,
I was just looking at cotton,and that was our life. And
I often wondered why, as Iplaced there, what how did I get
out of there to the Supreme Courtand to the NBA and to the Olympics.
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I look at it like this.You know, when I was nine
and ten years old, I waspicking cotton, and I wanted to be
the best cotton picker that state hadever seen. So that was my big
dream. It wasn't basketball, itwasn't music or anything, because all I
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knew was cotton. And so Iknow sometimes people look at it and say,
well, you know, you're sayingthe Lord put you there, God
put you there, the higher powerput you there so you could develop into
a basketball player. And I'll tellyou why it happened like that. Because
I was this young player or thisyoung person in the cotton field picking cotton.
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My legs developed, My strength developedbecause I was pulling the sack of
a hundred pounds and I was workingfrom two rolls of cotton. My hand
and eye coordination were working. Andso later on, when I started playing
basketball and I had started playing basketball. It came pretty easily to me,
and I was well developed. Iworked twelve hours a day as a kid,
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and so playing two hours a daypracticing was nothing. That was like
I'm on vacation. And so whenit came time for me to move from
Mississippi to Detroit, I moved withoutmy parents or without my mother. And
my father had passed, so Imoved to Detroit. I didn't have a
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place to stay, and before Igot there, I had to go to
Bowling Green State University, where mybrother and his roommate was staying. And
that's where I went to school fora minute, but I didn't go.
I didn't enroll in the school.They had a tutor in section for me
when I was fourteen. So whathappened. My brother said, let's go
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into Detroit. And we went intoDetroit with the idea that I could play
in this all star game for highschool players. And they had, of
course college players and pros and atthe crunk outdoor facilities, and most people
look at crunk outdoor facilities like,well, you know there was Tommy Hearns
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boxing and Lennox Lewis boxing and allof that, but no Cronk had an
outdoor facility where we had played tennis, baseball, and basketball. So I
played in the first All Star gameup there at the age of fifteen,
and those young men were in thelocker room and I was in the locker
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room with them. They were like, you know, man, I can't
wear these Converse. I want someAdida's shoes and stuff. And I was
looking at my shoes. I goton these Converse, but I had some
cardboard in the bottom of my shoebecause my shoe had a big hole in
the bottom. So I grabbed mea pair of those Converts and put them
on, and I was like,oh my god, I feel like Superman.
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And so I went out and played. I got like twenty six points,
twenty and fifteen rebounds. And WillRobinson, the high school coach that
we were trying to show boat for, he came on the scene and he
ended up being the first black coachin NCAA Division One, and he came
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to me and was like, ohmy god, you were this good and
you could run all day. Canyou play another game? I was like
yeah, And so we played againstthe college player that was that All Star
team was Cazzie Russell, all ofthe guys from Michigan, Michigan State,
and Bill Buttons and all of thoseguys. So I played against those guys
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and I did pretty good. Ihad like sixteen points and eight rebounds.
And then my brother got braggadocious andhe said he could play again the pros,
and so they threw me out thereagainst the pros and they had all
of the great Piston players day beingReggie Harding, all of those great players
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out on the floor. And Igot out there and I got fifteen points
and eight rebounds again, and allof the coaches from high school was like,
hey, we gotta have this guy, we gotta have this guy.
And Will Robinson said, no,he's mine, and we're going to bring
about a championship to this high schoolbecause we had been out of championship contingency
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from the city of Detroit for thirtyfive years. And then all of a
sudden, I was registered at PersianHigh School and my first year and I
didn't have my mom there because mymom was like, baby, you know,
I'm not coming up to Detroit likethat. I'm not going to live
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in that city. What about mychurch? Your dad had built this church
I'm not leaving the civil city inMississippi to come to Detroit where all of
those people are moving so fast.I can't live like that. And so
so she signed over my papers forwill Robinson and James and Idabelle to adopt
me. And Lloyd behold, hereI am in Persian High School. And
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because I had been picking cotton andin the South, when you when you're
working in the fields, you don'tget a chance to get fully educated because
you're doing field work your field hand. And so I had to prep up
real fast. And then prepping upreal fast, we found doctor Wayne Dyer
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who was teaching at the school,and doctor Wayne Dyer said, I'll take
him on the arm and I willteach him how to read and write over
again, and found the English teacherand taught me the voice and the talk
and stuff. And then basketball.I mean, they looked at me,
those students when high school looked atme like I was some kind of stupid
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country bunking, like I was goingmopal in Detroit. And so I always
used to tell them, you're gonnalike me. And when the basketball season
come around, and Loyd and Behold, the season came around and we just
started playing and playing and playing.The first year we did real well,
and the second year we won theClass A state championship. And I was
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off to college. And I wantedto go to college at the University of
Michigan or Michigan State. But thenI convinced myself that I need my mother
needs to see me play. SoI signed with the University of Tennessee out
of high school. And when Igot down there, the Kentucky coach Adolf
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Er up and all of those coacheswere like, you know he was I
was supposed to get the first guy, not Tennessee, And so there was
a lot of issues that's going on, and we were debating whether we should
stay, what we should do,and Will Robinson came down. I got
a deal for you. I'm gonnasend you off to this junior college and
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on the border of Colorado and NewMexico. I didn't know, so I
gotta get it down at this juniorcollege, Trinidad State Junior College. And
Will didn't tell us that we were, like now three hundred and sixty miles
from Denver, four hundred and twentymiles from Albuquerquet. So I was out
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in the country. So I justplayed and studied, played and studied,
because I knew if I maintained aB average, I could leave after one
year and lower and behold. Thiswas nineteen sixty eight and the nineteen sixty
eight Olympics were upon us and rightaway Kareem due with Jibar. It was
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lou L Sender at the time,said no, I'm going to boycott the
sixty year Olympics. Alvin Hayes,Wesleyan Sell, those guys signed a professional
contract. And for you young folksout there, if you signed a professional
contract, you could not play inthe Olympics because it was all amateurs at
the time. And so the Olympiccommittee decided, well, let's bring a
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junior college team because we have allof the major university we have the NA
we have all of these schools comingin, but we need to not be
sued by the junior college players.So they said, well, you know,
you got to be a sophomore.And Jerry Tarkanian, who was the
coach at UNLV, says, well, you know, our best player as
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a freshman and we want him tocome down. So we go down to
Hutchinson, Kansas and there these guysare in the middle of shooting in Cold
Blood with Truman Capote. So we'relike on the movie set looking at this
guy shooting and cold Blood and welike had our trials and Hutchinson, Kansas.
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So I killed all the junior collegeplayer and they developed a team from
the junior college team. Let's takethem down to Albuquerque and showcase my junior
college team. So we went downthere and we started playing against all of
the nc to A Division one,Division two three and NIA and military,
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and we killed all of them.It was like all of the Renegades was
in this junior college team. Andso Hank iber was the head coach of
the Olympic team. He said toJerry Tarkanian, look, whatever you do,
don't get that boy hurt, becauseI think we're gonna take him first
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as the number one player for theOlympic team. And so I'm trying to
figure out why my time is gettingcut down, but they were trying to
preserve me. And then when theyselected the team, all of a sudden,
they said Spencer Hayward and I waslike, oh my god, what
am I going to do for abirth certificate? Because we had to go
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to Russia into Yugoslavia in different places, and I had no birth certificates.
So we get on the phone andsay, Mom, what are we gonna
do about the birth certificate? Andshe said, baby, don't you worry
about a thing. I got toyour birth certificate right here in my bible
on the John twenty one. Andthe coach and the Olympic committee was like,
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well, didn't send the bible upand we'll get it all certified.
Oh no, no, no,we are not going to send my bible
out of this house. I gotto take it to church so you can
come down here and take a pictureof it. So the Jackson Daily News
in Mississippi, they send this contingencydown to the home to our home in
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mississ in Silver City, and ittook a picture of it. They get
it back to the vital statistics andthey look at what the midwife had put
on. Because I was born bymidwife and my mom's bed, so it
wasn't like I mean, everybody calledit natural birth these days, but it
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was a midwife. And so shespelled my name Spency, and so we
had a problem because I was knownas Spencer in the world. But then
the birth certificates said spency, andso we had to get all of that
straight. And then we off toRussia, Yugoslavia and came back to America.
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We played against the Knicks, weplayed against Oscar Robinson and the Cincinnati
Royals and on into Mexico City.And we arrived in Mexico City in nineteen
sixty eight, and the coaches andeverybody's telling us, well, look they
just had a meeting with Martin Luther, King, Jesse ORNs and all of
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those great and I was like,yeah, so what so anyway, he
because I'm still young, I'm aMississippi boy, I don't know all of
this, you know, historical stuffthat's going on. And then and then
I walked. We went over tothe commissary and there was George Forming over
there, just pushing food and thisman. He was like, hey,
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man, men, you can hangbecause we're the youngest dudes on the team,
because we were nineteen and so sowe started hanging. And then Tommy
Smith and John Carlos. John Carloswas like this fly dude from New York.
He was talking. And by theway, John Carlos and Tommy Smith
are the guys who did the BlackClub and the protests for human Rights and
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sixty A Olympics. So those guyswas talking and John was just talking up
a storm, and then we knowwe had the big meeting. Whoever,
we were doing a survey for whowas going to protest and if there's going
to be a protest. Once theyvoted, Martlin at the King and Jesse
and all of them voted not forus to protest. But then the players
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decided we were going to have alittle meeting. Then Jesse ORNs came into
the room and we were like,oh my god, Jesse ORNs, and
so we started He started talking about, well, you know, you got
to stand up for America and yougotta do these things. And so we
were like, yeah, yeah,little uncle Tom, dude, what is
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he talking about? And he kindof like heard us, you know,
like, and he got like alittle bit teed off and he said,
hey, how would any of youso obs felt if you had to run
in the front of Hitler? Andthat's when we all said, oh shit,
e Don went to the Hitler plan. So we started getting our gears
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together and saying, hey, we'regonna now this life is on, and
so doing the Olympics you know,Tommy Smith and John Carlos finished in their
prospective track events first and third,and they got up on the podium and
they put on the black glove andthey did the salute, and then here
come all of the Olympic Committee andthe Olympic in charge. They kicked them
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out of the commissaries, out ofthe dorms, and out of the Olympics,
and they had to catch a planeto go back to San Jose and
San Jose State people protesting and actingreally nuts. And so there I was.
I had to play the final game, and I was nervous because Howard
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Coselle told me like, what's goingto happen to you when you get back
to Detroit? Those black folks aregonna be mad at you. And my
nerves got shattered again. I'm like, oh, Howard. And then then
then the coaches were like, whywould you do that, Howard? He's
a kid. And so you cansee in the game itself, I make
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a lap and I run straight intothe locker room, threw up, came
back out on the floor in thechampion in the championship game for the gold
medal, and just kept right onthe play and we won the gold medal,
and the Mexican fans and Americans,I mean, they just started cheering
and and people were crying. Andbecause we wasn't supposed to win the sixty
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eight Olympics. We were supposed tofinish fourth, I think a third,
but we won it, and allof a sudden, they were calling off
my numbers. And we have anew record set by Spencer Hayward, and
he leads the world in points,and he also leads the world and rebounds,
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and he also has set another recordin field gold percentage. And I'm
like, I did all of that, and so so it was really a
cool thing. And then I walkedup on the podium when they put the
gold medal on your neck, andI just all of this stuff that happened
in my life and in my world. I just started balling and crying.
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I couldn't stop crying. And Iwas thinking back now here I was three
years ago, four years ago,I was picking cotton. I didn't have
a name. I would just callthe inn word down in Mississippi. And
here I am now a savior forAmerica and I'm just on top of the
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world. We got the gold medalon my neck and I'm looking at my
teammates and they it was like,we did it. We did it,
young blood, you did it.And I was just saying, man,
America is truly a wonderful place,because how can I come from this place
at this fast time and to bean American hero? But I had one
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issue. I mean, like,what are they gonna think about me when
I get back to Detroit because thatHoward Cosale thing was in my head,
like or you know, they're gonnaget you when you get back to Detroit.
And so we flew in will Robinson. Now, we flew into Metropolitan
Detroit Airport and low and behold,when I got off, I had my
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metal on and all of the blackfolks and white folks came out to the
airport and Olympic you know, wow, an Olympic hero in, the mayor,
the governor, everybody was there.It was just like wow, what
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a what a what a what awonderful country we live in? And and
then I decided, well, rightthere, because we were pushing the idea,
they were trying to push the ideathat we need you to come home
and play, not go to UCLAwith Kareem. I introduce people. You
need to come home and play becausewe have had a We've had a riot
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in Detroit. Our city got burneddown basically in sixty seven. So we
need this uplifting spirit here and youare certainly the uplifting spirit. And I
came to Detroit, to the Universityof Detroit, with the idea that Will
Robinson would get the coaching job next. And I played, and I averaged
for thirty three points a game andtwenty two point five rebounds, and I
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was the Outstanding Player of the yearand Kareem was the MVP, and we
was all American together, and rightaway they renigged on the deal with Will
Robinson. So I was really hurtand felt betrayed by that idea. And
the same thing happened when and thedraft came out. The ABA went after
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Kareem, and Kareem decided, no, I don't want to play over there.
I want to play in the NBA, and he didn't. He didn't
take their offer, and so theythen came to me, Hannah Storm's father,
Mike Storm, said, well,look, you know we could pay
you and we will fight the caseif you want to come into the ABA,
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And so I said, well,you know, I can't stay here
because they have renegued on will andmy feelings are crushed, and I can't
transfer because if I transfer, itwould you know, if I transfer to
another college or university, I wouldhave to set out for a year.
So all of a sudden, I'min Denver and they said, well,
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you know, at the press conference, this guy could prove himself. If
he gets five points and maybe noseven points and five rebounds, it would
be great, and then we cango out and get all of the young
players like Julius Irvin had he wantedto come, George Gervin, all those
guys wanted to leave, Moses Malone, all of them wanted to leave and
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come into the ABA earlier. Butthey needed someone to break down the rules.
And so that year I ended upaveraging thirty points per game and nineteen
point five rebounds. I was theRookie of the year, the leading score,
the leading rebounder, MVP of theleague, MVP of the All Star
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Game, and I did clean floorsjust to let them know I was a
hand the man too. And sothey said, oh Jesus, we got
to make you the highest paid playerin the world. So they gave me
this contract for one point nine milliondollars. I'm like, yeah, I'm
a rich yeah, but anyway,David Chappelle anyway. So I'm thinking,
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yeah, you know, I signeda contract without an attorney anybody. And
I was like, man, I'mthe MVP. They're gonna have to take
care of me. So then Igot an attorney to look at the contract
and he said, this is abunch of garbage. And I'm like,
how's it a bunch of garbage?I get paid a hundred thousand dollars a
year for four years, and thenthe rest is deferred. He said,
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read this part here, and Iread the other part, and I was
like, wait a minute, youmean I got I have to be in
the employmanship of the rings until Iam seventy years old. So it was
like one point five million dollars woulddeferred. And the way that we were
going to derive at that money wasthrough the stock market. It was going
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to put ten thousand dollars in thestock market. So when I get to
be aged fifty, the money wouldbe able. I would be able to
elect one hundred thousand dollars from agefifty to age seven. But there's a
catch. I had to be inan employmanship of the owner of the team,
which was a truck line. SoI had to be an employmanship of
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the Rings truck to receive all ofthe money. And so we went in
and said, okay, we gotout to straighten this out. I took
my lawyer with me and my blackself going in to talk to these here
billies and these hardcore I don't knowwhat they were, but anyway, so
we go in there and we're talkingand al Ross is just talking, Yeah,
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we need to change this contract.You need to get this. And
he looked at us and said,you know what, You get your nigger
ass and take that jew lawyer withyou and get the hell out of my
office. We got you on thecontract. You can't go to the NBA,
you can't go anywhere. You arehere with us. We got you.
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And I said, oh, it'sback to Mississippi again. I'm like,
I'm gonna again. And so SamSchumann heard about this, and he
was the owner of the Seattle SuperSonics. He said, hey, you come
join my team and I'll pay youyour salary what the contract is worth,
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and I will fight the legal caseand I'm like, but I played it
all every one year in the NBA, so why would i have to have
a legal case if I'm already inthe set precedent for playing. And it
was like, now the NBA hada four year rule that you must abide
by or we can fight it incourt. So I was like, well,
yeah, well I'll probably miss tengames, you know, so yeah,
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let's fight. And I filed forthe injunction for the rights to play
in the lower court, and theNBA in the NC two A they filed
with the n C two A wasalways under the level of like, you
know, we don't want to loseall of this money from players in the
University of Detroit was like whining,like, oh man, we lost so
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much money, but we can't payathletes, wink wink, and so so.
So my first ten days I wassitting in the hotel because I had
a ten day injunction, a tengame injunction against me, and so I
couldn't play. And then when Igot the injunction to play, and I
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walk out on the floor the announcement, but say, ladies and gentlemen,
number twenty four, this game isbeing played on the protests, and your
fans can throw things, do whateveryou want to do, but that player
number twenty four is an illegal player. And so I played, and then
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players would come up hurt and saythat I did it because I was on
the floor. And then they getanother ten day injunction. And then I
sat. And then the next timeI come back, they says, ladies
and gentlemen, we have an injunctionbecause they went back on there in junction.
And once we got an injunction,they came back, and we have
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another injunction that reeves he must beout of the arena on the bus in
which he came in here. Sothey threw me off the floor, and
people throwing real bottles, not theclassic stuff that's going on today. They
threw real bottles and called me allthose names that I heard in Mississippi.
You know you sorry, you're killingcollege basketball. You're killing basketball as you
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know it. And I'm like atwenty year old kid, I'm like,
what am I doing. I'm justtrying to play so I can get my
mother out of the cotton field.Come on, let me play, and
and so and the next time Igot an injunction, just before I was
headed to the Supreme Court because Ihad to go through all of the court
system. I got an injunction,and Cincinnati, Cincinnati Royals, they slamming
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with an injunction that says, ladiesand gentlemen, he must be off the
grounds in which this arena set out. So they put me out in the
out of grounds in the snow.So I'm standing out there with my warm
up on. I didn't get achance to put all my clothes because in
Jackson read you got to put himout of here. I mean, this
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is just court battles and stuff,so you have to go figure out what
was going on at that time.And so he put me out into the
snow and I'm standing out there snowthis cold, crying what am I doing?
And then they all of the legendsof the NBA. They had been
brainwashed that if this guy wins thiscase, you guys are going to be
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put out a capacitory because we're gonnabring in all these young players. So
they were against me, and guyswere hurting me when I did play.
So I went through just this miserablehell hell. But again because I was
I'm from Mississippi, Silver City,Mississippi, there ain't no silver, and
there ain't no city. It's apopulation of three hundred people. So it
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wasn't that harsh. But then Iwon the case and they said, you
know, this case is one underthe Sherman Anti Trust Act because we can't
stop a person from making a living. And then I said, oh my
god, I'm ready to play.But the old heads in the NBA was
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like, yeah, let's rough himup some more. And then Kareem Abdul
Jabbar, who was Luel sender atthe time, he walked out on the
floor and said, hey, Iwant to play against him. I don't
show him that he you know,he ain't that tough. And so we
got into a you know, wewe embraced at the half court line before
the jop ball, and that's whenOscar and everybody said, oh, let
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him play. It ain't gonna hurtthe game and stuff. Let's just play.
And that's when I started to play. I had like maybe fifteen games
or twenty games left for the season, and I played a total of thirty
games that year going through the courtsystem. And the next year it was
like a ball because I would hadthe freedom to play, and the next
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year I had my freedom back,and I averaged twenty nine and twelve in
Seattle, and it was the firstteam, All Pro and all of that
stuff, and so it just continuedto roll. And then eventually we got
Bill Rosso as a coach and playersstarted in Seattle with the Seattle SuperSonics.
They were backstabbing me and him,and I ended up being traded to New
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York. So I get to NewYork. I don't know anybody. I
don't I had my family in Seattlewho had came up from the South,
and everybody was there. It waslike a right place. And then when
I got to New York, Ididn't know anybody, and I was just
lonely and and I I didn't havea girlfriend or nothing. And then I
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had a date setup for me,and then I went to Kleiol's restaurant on
sixty fourth and Broadway, and therewas the date that I was supposed to
meet this girl from Atlanta, butshe had brought her roommate with her,
and her roommate had on this Africangarb and it was like and I kept
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looking at her, like, Wow, she's so pretty. And it was
Zemon the Model, and we justfell in love and got married and that
was my refuge. But I gotmyself lost a little bit because I fell
in love. So I went awayfrom sports for a minute because I was
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just I was in love and Iwanted to experience different things. And we
traveled. I did all of thefashion shows and fashion weeks in New York
and stuff like that. This islong before these players doing it today.
And I had a wonderful time.But I lost myself a little bit with
my basketball because I wasn't training asmuch and wasn't doing what I should do.
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And then after five seasons, Iended up in Los Angeles with the
Lakers. And when I got toLA, I was really in the mood
for some party and because we hadmagic. We had he had just came
in as a rookie. Kareem,I'm Dual Jabbar, Jamal Wilkes, Michael
Cooper, I know him, Nixon. We had a squad. I mean,
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it was serious. And so Itrip over and I decided, well,
let me just hang out a littlebit. Let me go over to
this Hollywood part of the people Iknew from television and screens and everything.
I go to this party and theygot all this coke and stuff flying around
cocaine, and so I'm thinking,well, let me taste it, and
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so I taste the coke and notknowing and that my family history is that
this addiction was there in alcohol andwhatever else. So I did cope that
night, and I watched my gamedisappear because I think I was hooked that
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night because I hit that pipe andit did something to me my metabolism,
my brain or something that made mefeel like, you know, this is
this is like something that's gotten yougot you, and it grabbed me and
it choked me. It is likeit was like a disease I had for
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that year. And at the endof the year, I ended up coming
in here with twenty four and twelveand then I dropped down to the seven
and the seven and five that Iwas supposed to do in the ABA and
was a shell of myself. Sothe NBA and the ownership of the Lakers
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Society will we're going to exile it. And I didn't get a chance to
go to Dallas and the expansion,but they exiled me to Italy, to
Venice. I was like Old BroRabbit, you know, down south year
the name of Old Bro rabbit.They when you when you're trying to get
into the brow patch, and he'salways trying to get there. And so
(34:22):
he said, whatever you do,please don't throw me in the brow patch.
And so they threw me in thebrow patch. Because when I got
to Venice, I mean I wasplaying three games a week at max or
two. And my wife came overand she scheduled all of her shows and
in Milan and in Bologna and allthroughout Italy and also in Paris, so
(34:47):
I could fly up because everything isso close in Europe, and I could
take a train or whatever and hangout with her and go back and play.
So I got myself together. Andthose Italians, man, they they
took care of your brother. Theytook care of this boy, and they
loved all of the anger, allof the hate, all of the coke
out of me. Everything. Igot my life clean. I got I
(35:12):
learned to live with what I hadbeen brought up with, because I was
brought up with in a good Christianhome, you know, like the Bible
was like, you know, likeyou would not do anything because this is
Almighty God watching you, So whywould you even slip up? So I'm
thinking hey, back watching me again, and my mom is watching me.
So I ended up doing real wellover there, dominating and just and then
(35:39):
the NBA says, hey, youknow what, we got to get him
out of there because he's blowing upItaly in terms of like, you know,
everybody want to go to Italy,these players like, uh, let
me go over there. And sothey brought me back to to Washington,
d C. And I felt prettystrong about that because I up my case
(36:00):
was one at the seat of government, and now here I am back at
the seat of government. So wehad a great time in Washington, DC
and low and behold of my secondseason after we had made the playoff and
did all these wonderful things. Inmy second season, my wife was in
an automobile accident in New York andthat was like traumatic because she was like
(36:22):
a real bad accident on her faceand she was it was distraught. And
I also had her brother and twosisters living with me, and I had
my young daughter and they were inNew York and you know, like some
time, the languages wasn't as greatas it should be because they are from
(36:42):
Somalia and so, I mean,so I felt a need to take a
break and come home to take careof my family. And I tried to
explain it to Washington and that,you know, maybe it'll give me a
chance to go into treatment and lookat myself a little bit better, and
they weren't having it. So Ileft basketball for a while and thought I
(37:06):
would come back after a year,and I never made it back. And
so my life has just been atthis thing of like, you know,
one of these days if I doall of the great things in life and
stay clean and sober. This ismy thirtieth year in the program of sobriety,
and I got a got a chanceto learn about my family. Why
(37:30):
was my brothers and sisters dying ofalcoholism? And I and I began to
go into the gene pool and understandwhat had happened with our family. And
they go back to cotton picking days, back to slavery days. It was
a lot of alcoholism in order tocope and to deal with life. And
so I learned that and Loyd Behold, my young daughters were like looking at
(37:54):
me going through programs and stuff.So one of them came out turned out
to build psychology. Just now she'sa licensed therapist in New York City.
And so I have four daughters,which I'm so proud of. They all
graduated. They have two doctors,and I'm just proud. And then my
(38:15):
current wife, I've been with nowfor thirty years. She's great, but
she's a vegan. That's another world. So I've been in this vegan world
for a while. But now Ieat fish and and I'm just feeling grateful
because today, all of a sudden, now I came out with this book.
(38:39):
The Commissioner Adam Silver gave me abig endorsement with the book, and
like here it is today. TheJump did a special army. Rachel Nichols
did a special army. It's justGod, it's working these incredible miracles in
my life. And I'm just I'mjust so grateful to be alive and be
well. And I always said thatI didn't want to because it was three
(39:04):
of us that went to the SupremeCourt, Kurt Flood for baseball, Muhammad
Ali with boxing. We were basicallythere at the same time. And I
remember Kurt I spoke with him whenhe came back and he left the country.
So I did get a chance tostay in the country and play some
ball after I finished the court case, but he left the country and he
(39:27):
came back sort of like a brokenman. And then baseball was like,
you know, bringing him around.And then just as he was getting his
glory for what he had did andhow he stood up to the system to
change the game, he passed.And I always had that in my mind,
like I don't want to do that. I just want to I'm gonna
I'm gonna stay holy as best asI can, you know, and be
(39:51):
the best person that I can.I'm gonna eat right, I'm gonna treat
people right. I'm gonna do goodand see what happened, see if good
come back, because my mom alwaystaught me, you know you do good,
boy good, it's going to cometo you. And so here I
am today was so much good,so much love, and I was able
to be the chairman of the boardfor the NBA Retired Players. I fought
(40:14):
hard for our players are retired playersto have health insurance and low and behold
Chris Paul Lebron, James, StephCurrier, the executive committee from the NBA
PA. They jumped around and gaveus like sixteen million dollars a year for
health insurance which has saved so manyof our players lives and I'm just living
(40:39):
my best life at this time.And i want to thank you all for
joining me on this podcast, myvery first, and it's just I'm letting
you know it's going to be thisway. Every week you're going to get
something really special and we're going tobe talking about things that are relevant today.
(40:59):
And I'm must say too for theyoung players that are playing in the
bubble. I mean, I'm soproud of you. I'm so proud of
the NBA and what they have done, how they have like comported themselves.
And I'm watching because you know,the NFL uses my rule as well.
They're going to be the next oneto know about what Spencer Hayward did.
(41:21):
So it's going to be this typeof podcasts. It's not going to be
like your regular you know, likehey, here we go, we just
do something. No, this isfor real. This is the real,
real, real deal. So thankyou for joining me on the first one. Peece
How does one start to understand thevalue of his sacrifice in life? All
the accolades and the wards, No, all the money and the fame.
No, it's through all the sufferingand pain and make his voice heard.
(00:36):
It's from others love and support whichgives him strength beyond measure. It's his
action that plants seeds, which bearsfruit, which in turn makes a difference
in the lives of others. Andwhether these rules have in common the Spencer
hayrew a rule, I am SpencerHey, what name Smith? Basketball Hall
(00:57):
of Famer, Olympic gold medalists andthe US Supreme Court Haywood versus the NBA
which enabled players to leave college orhigh school to come into the NBA at
an early age. I was bornin civil City, Mississippi. And remember
there is no silver and it wasn'ta city. It was three hundred people
(01:22):
in the cotton fields of Mississippi.And I was born into indenture slavery.
I know it sounds strange in today'ssociety, but that's the way it was.
I was born in nineteen forty nineand my first memory of life in
itself was looking up at a cottonfield because my mother had me on her
(01:45):
sack of cotton, and as Iwas just maturing into a fully grown baby,
I was just looking at cotton,and that was our life. And
I often wondered why, as Iplaced there, what how did I get
out of there to the Supreme Courtand to the NBA and to the Olympics.
(02:07):
I look at it like this.You know, when I was nine
and ten years old, I waspicking cotton, and I wanted to be
the best cotton picker that state hadever seen. So that was my big
dream. It wasn't basketball, itwasn't music or anything, because all I
(02:28):
knew was cotton. And so Iknow sometimes people look at it and say,
well, you know, you're sayingthe Lord put you there, God
put you there, the higher powerput you there so you could develop into
a basketball player. And I'll tellyou why it happened like that. Because
I was this young player or thisyoung person in the cotton field picking cotton.
(02:53):
My legs developed, My strength developedbecause I was pulling the sack of
a hundred pounds and I was workingfrom two rolls of cotton. My hand
and eye coordination were working. Andso later on, when I started playing
basketball and I had started playing basketball. It came pretty easily to me,
and I was well developed. Iworked twelve hours a day as a kid,
(03:16):
and so playing two hours a daypracticing was nothing. That was like
I'm on vacation. And so whenit came time for me to move from
Mississippi to Detroit, I moved withoutmy parents or without my mother. And
my father had passed, so Imoved to Detroit. I didn't have a
(03:39):
place to stay, and before Igot there, I had to go to
Bowling Green State University, where mybrother and his roommate was staying. And
that's where I went to school fora minute, but I didn't go.
I didn't enroll in the school.They had a tutor in section for me
when I was fourteen. So whathappened. My brother said, let's go
(04:01):
into Detroit. And we went intoDetroit with the idea that I could play
in this all star game for highschool players. And they had, of
course college players and pros and atthe crunk outdoor facilities, and most people
look at crunk outdoor facilities like,well, you know there was Tommy Hearns
(04:23):
boxing and Lennox Lewis boxing and allof that, but no Cronk had an
outdoor facility where we had played tennis, baseball, and basketball. So I
played in the first All Star gameup there at the age of fifteen,
and those young men were in thelocker room and I was in the locker
(04:43):
room with them. They were like, you know, man, I can't
wear these Converse. I want someAdida's shoes and stuff. And I was
looking at my shoes. I goton these Converse, but I had some
cardboard in the bottom of my shoebecause my shoe had a big hole in
the bottom. So I grabbed mea pair of those Converts and put them
on, and I was like,oh my god, I feel like Superman.
(05:08):
And so I went out and played. I got like twenty six points,
twenty and fifteen rebounds. And WillRobinson, the high school coach that
we were trying to show boat for, he came on the scene and he
ended up being the first black coachin NCAA Division One, and he came
(05:29):
to me and was like, ohmy god, you were this good and
you could run all day. Canyou play another game? I was like
yeah, And so we played againstthe college player that was that All Star
team was Cazzie Russell, all ofthe guys from Michigan, Michigan State,
and Bill Buttons and all of thoseguys. So I played against those guys
(05:49):
and I did pretty good. Ihad like sixteen points and eight rebounds.
And then my brother got braggadocious andhe said he could play again the pros,
and so they threw me out thereagainst the pros and they had all
of the great Piston players day beingReggie Harding, all of those great players
(06:10):
out on the floor. And Igot out there and I got fifteen points
and eight rebounds again, and allof the coaches from high school was like,
hey, we gotta have this guy, we gotta have this guy.
And Will Robinson said, no,he's mine, and we're going to bring
about a championship to this high schoolbecause we had been out of championship contingency
(06:34):
from the city of Detroit for thirtyfive years. And then all of a
sudden, I was registered at PersianHigh School and my first year and I
didn't have my mom there because mymom was like, baby, you know,
I'm not coming up to Detroit likethat. I'm not going to live
(06:57):
in that city. What about mychurch? Your dad had built this church
I'm not leaving the civil city inMississippi to come to Detroit where all of
those people are moving so fast.I can't live like that. And so
so she signed over my papers forwill Robinson and James and Idabelle to adopt
me. And Lloyd behold, hereI am in Persian High School. And
(07:21):
because I had been picking cotton andin the South, when you when you're
working in the fields, you don'tget a chance to get fully educated because
you're doing field work your field hand. And so I had to prep up
real fast. And then prepping upreal fast, we found doctor Wayne Dyer
(07:46):
who was teaching at the school,and doctor Wayne Dyer said, I'll take
him on the arm and I willteach him how to read and write over
again, and found the English teacherand taught me the voice and the talk
and stuff. And then basketball.I mean, they looked at me,
those students when high school looked atme like I was some kind of stupid
(08:09):
country bunking, like I was goingmopal in Detroit. And so I always
used to tell them, you're gonnalike me. And when the basketball season
come around, and Loyd and Behold, the season came around and we just
started playing and playing and playing.The first year we did real well,
and the second year we won theClass A state championship. And I was
(08:33):
off to college. And I wantedto go to college at the University of
Michigan or Michigan State. But thenI convinced myself that I need my mother
needs to see me play. SoI signed with the University of Tennessee out
of high school. And when Igot down there, the Kentucky coach Adolf
(08:58):
Er up and all of those coacheswere like, you know he was I
was supposed to get the first guy, not Tennessee, And so there was
a lot of issues that's going on, and we were debating whether we should
stay, what we should do,and Will Robinson came down. I got
a deal for you. I'm gonnasend you off to this junior college and
(09:18):
on the border of Colorado and NewMexico. I didn't know, so I
gotta get it down at this juniorcollege, Trinidad State Junior College. And
Will didn't tell us that we were, like now three hundred and sixty miles
from Denver, four hundred and twentymiles from Albuquerquet. So I was out
(09:39):
in the country. So I justplayed and studied, played and studied,
because I knew if I maintained aB average, I could leave after one
year and lower and behold. Thiswas nineteen sixty eight and the nineteen sixty
eight Olympics were upon us and rightaway Kareem due with Jibar. It was
(10:01):
lou L Sender at the time,said no, I'm going to boycott the
sixty year Olympics. Alvin Hayes,Wesleyan Sell, those guys signed a professional
contract. And for you young folksout there, if you signed a professional
contract, you could not play inthe Olympics because it was all amateurs at
the time. And so the Olympiccommittee decided, well, let's bring a
(10:26):
junior college team because we have allof the major university we have the NA
we have all of these schools comingin, but we need to not be
sued by the junior college players.So they said, well, you know,
you got to be a sophomore.And Jerry Tarkanian, who was the
coach at UNLV, says, well, you know, our best player as
(10:48):
a freshman and we want him tocome down. So we go down to
Hutchinson, Kansas and there these guysare in the middle of shooting in Cold
Blood with Truman Capote. So we'relike on the movie set looking at this
guy shooting and cold Blood and welike had our trials and Hutchinson, Kansas.
(11:11):
So I killed all the junior collegeplayer and they developed a team from
the junior college team. Let's takethem down to Albuquerque and showcase my junior
college team. So we went downthere and we started playing against all of
the nc to A Division one,Division two three and NIA and military,
(11:33):
and we killed all of them.It was like all of the Renegades was
in this junior college team. Andso Hank iber was the head coach of
the Olympic team. He said toJerry Tarkanian, look, whatever you do,
don't get that boy hurt, becauseI think we're gonna take him first
(11:54):
as the number one player for theOlympic team. And so I'm trying to
figure out why my time is gettingcut down, but they were trying to
preserve me. And then when theyselected the team, all of a sudden,
they said Spencer Hayward and I waslike, oh my god, what
am I going to do for abirth certificate? Because we had to go
(12:16):
to Russia into Yugoslavia in different places, and I had no birth certificates.
So we get on the phone andsay, Mom, what are we gonna
do about the birth certificate? Andshe said, baby, don't you worry
about a thing. I got toyour birth certificate right here in my bible
on the John twenty one. Andthe coach and the Olympic committee was like,
(12:41):
well, didn't send the bible upand we'll get it all certified.
Oh no, no, no,we are not going to send my bible
out of this house. I gotto take it to church so you can
come down here and take a pictureof it. So the Jackson Daily News
in Mississippi, they send this contingencydown to the home to our home in
(13:01):
mississ in Silver City, and ittook a picture of it. They get
it back to the vital statistics andthey look at what the midwife had put
on. Because I was born bymidwife and my mom's bed, so it
wasn't like I mean, everybody calledit natural birth these days, but it
(13:22):
was a midwife. And so shespelled my name Spency, and so we
had a problem because I was knownas Spencer in the world. But then
the birth certificates said spency, andso we had to get all of that
straight. And then we off toRussia, Yugoslavia and came back to America.
(13:43):
We played against the Knicks, weplayed against Oscar Robinson and the Cincinnati
Royals and on into Mexico City.And we arrived in Mexico City in nineteen
sixty eight, and the coaches andeverybody's telling us, well, look they
just had a meeting with Martin Luther, King, Jesse ORNs and all of
(14:05):
those great and I was like,yeah, so what so anyway, he
because I'm still young, I'm aMississippi boy, I don't know all of
this, you know, historical stuffthat's going on. And then and then
I walked. We went over tothe commissary and there was George Forming over
there, just pushing food and thisman. He was like, hey,
(14:28):
man, men, you can hangbecause we're the youngest dudes on the team,
because we were nineteen and so sowe started hanging. And then Tommy
Smith and John Carlos. John Carloswas like this fly dude from New York.
He was talking. And by theway, John Carlos and Tommy Smith
are the guys who did the BlackClub and the protests for human Rights and
(14:50):
sixty A Olympics. So those guyswas talking and John was just talking up
a storm, and then we knowwe had the big meeting. Whoever,
we were doing a survey for whowas going to protest and if there's going
to be a protest. Once theyvoted, Martlin at the King and Jesse
and all of them voted not forus to protest. But then the players
(15:13):
decided we were going to have alittle meeting. Then Jesse ORNs came into
the room and we were like,oh my god, Jesse ORNs, and
so we started He started talking about, well, you know, you got
to stand up for America and yougotta do these things. And so we
were like, yeah, yeah,little uncle Tom, dude, what is
(15:35):
he talking about? And he kindof like heard us, you know,
like, and he got like alittle bit teed off and he said,
hey, how would any of youso obs felt if you had to run
in the front of Hitler? Andthat's when we all said, oh shit,
e Don went to the Hitler plan. So we started getting our gears
(15:58):
together and saying, hey, we'regonna now this life is on, and
so doing the Olympics you know,Tommy Smith and John Carlos finished in their
prospective track events first and third,and they got up on the podium and
they put on the black glove andthey did the salute, and then here
come all of the Olympic Committee andthe Olympic in charge. They kicked them
(16:25):
out of the commissaries, out ofthe dorms, and out of the Olympics,
and they had to catch a planeto go back to San Jose and
San Jose State people protesting and actingreally nuts. And so there I was.
I had to play the final game, and I was nervous because Howard
(16:47):
Coselle told me like, what's goingto happen to you when you get back
to Detroit? Those black folks aregonna be mad at you. And my
nerves got shattered again. I'm like, oh, Howard. And then then
then the coaches were like, whywould you do that, Howard? He's
a kid. And so you cansee in the game itself, I make
(17:10):
a lap and I run straight intothe locker room, threw up, came
back out on the floor in thechampion in the championship game for the gold
medal, and just kept right onthe play and we won the gold medal,
and the Mexican fans and Americans,I mean, they just started cheering
and and people were crying. Andbecause we wasn't supposed to win the sixty
(17:34):
eight Olympics. We were supposed tofinish fourth, I think a third,
but we won it, and allof a sudden, they were calling off
my numbers. And we have anew record set by Spencer Hayward, and
he leads the world in points,and he also leads the world and rebounds,
(17:56):
and he also has set another recordin field gold percentage. And I'm
like, I did all of that, and so so it was really a
cool thing. And then I walkedup on the podium when they put the
gold medal on your neck, andI just all of this stuff that happened
in my life and in my world. I just started balling and crying.
(18:21):
I couldn't stop crying. And Iwas thinking back now here I was three
years ago, four years ago,I was picking cotton. I didn't have
a name. I would just callthe inn word down in Mississippi. And
here I am now a savior forAmerica and I'm just on top of the
(18:45):
world. We got the gold medalon my neck and I'm looking at my
teammates and they it was like,we did it. We did it,
young blood, you did it.And I was just saying, man,
America is truly a wonderful place,because how can I come from this place
at this fast time and to bean American hero? But I had one
(19:08):
issue. I mean, like,what are they gonna think about me when
I get back to Detroit because thatHoward Cosale thing was in my head,
like or you know, they're gonnaget you when you get back to Detroit.
And so we flew in will Robinson. Now, we flew into Metropolitan
Detroit Airport and low and behold,when I got off, I had my
(19:30):
metal on and all of the blackfolks and white folks came out to the
airport and Olympic you know, wow, an Olympic hero in, the mayor,
the governor, everybody was there.It was just like wow, what
(19:52):
a what a what a what awonderful country we live in? And and
then I decided, well, rightthere, because we were pushing the idea,
they were trying to push the ideathat we need you to come home
and play, not go to UCLAwith Kareem. I introduce people. You
need to come home and play becausewe have had a We've had a riot
(20:17):
in Detroit. Our city got burneddown basically in sixty seven. So we
need this uplifting spirit here and youare certainly the uplifting spirit. And I
came to Detroit, to the Universityof Detroit, with the idea that Will
Robinson would get the coaching job next. And I played, and I averaged
for thirty three points a game andtwenty two point five rebounds, and I
(20:41):
was the Outstanding Player of the yearand Kareem was the MVP, and we
was all American together, and rightaway they renigged on the deal with Will
Robinson. So I was really hurtand felt betrayed by that idea. And
the same thing happened when and thedraft came out. The ABA went after
(21:03):
Kareem, and Kareem decided, no, I don't want to play over there.
I want to play in the NBA, and he didn't. He didn't
take their offer, and so theythen came to me, Hannah Storm's father,
Mike Storm, said, well,look, you know we could pay
you and we will fight the caseif you want to come into the ABA,
(21:25):
And so I said, well,you know, I can't stay here
because they have renegued on will andmy feelings are crushed, and I can't
transfer because if I transfer, itwould you know, if I transfer to
another college or university, I wouldhave to set out for a year.
So all of a sudden, I'min Denver and they said, well,
(21:49):
you know, at the press conference, this guy could prove himself. If
he gets five points and maybe noseven points and five rebounds, it would
be great, and then we cango out and get all of the young
players like Julius Irvin had he wantedto come, George Gervin, all those
guys wanted to leave, Moses Malone, all of them wanted to leave and
(22:11):
come into the ABA earlier. Butthey needed someone to break down the rules.
And so that year I ended upaveraging thirty points per game and nineteen
point five rebounds. I was theRookie of the year, the leading score,
the leading rebounder, MVP of theleague, MVP of the All Star
(22:33):
Game, and I did clean floorsjust to let them know I was a
hand the man too. And sothey said, oh Jesus, we got
to make you the highest paid playerin the world. So they gave me
this contract for one point nine milliondollars. I'm like, yeah, I'm
a rich yeah, but anyway,David Chappelle anyway. So I'm thinking,
(23:00):
yeah, you know, I signeda contract without an attorney anybody. And
I was like, man, I'mthe MVP. They're gonna have to take
care of me. So then Igot an attorney to look at the contract
and he said, this is abunch of garbage. And I'm like,
how's it a bunch of garbage?I get paid a hundred thousand dollars a
year for four years, and thenthe rest is deferred. He said,
(23:23):
read this part here, and Iread the other part, and I was
like, wait a minute, youmean I got I have to be in
the employmanship of the rings until Iam seventy years old. So it was
like one point five million dollars woulddeferred. And the way that we were
going to derive at that money wasthrough the stock market. It was going
(23:48):
to put ten thousand dollars in thestock market. So when I get to
be aged fifty, the money wouldbe able. I would be able to
elect one hundred thousand dollars from agefifty to age seven. But there's a
catch. I had to be inan employmanship of the owner of the team,
which was a truck line. SoI had to be an employmanship of
(24:11):
the Rings truck to receive all ofthe money. And so we went in
and said, okay, we gotout to straighten this out. I took
my lawyer with me and my blackself going in to talk to these here
billies and these hardcore I don't knowwhat they were, but anyway, so
we go in there and we're talkingand al Ross is just talking, Yeah,
(24:33):
we need to change this contract.You need to get this. And
he looked at us and said,you know what, You get your nigger
ass and take that jew lawyer withyou and get the hell out of my
office. We got you on thecontract. You can't go to the NBA,
you can't go anywhere. You arehere with us. We got you.
(24:55):
And I said, oh, it'sback to Mississippi again. I'm like,
I'm gonna again. And so SamSchumann heard about this, and he
was the owner of the Seattle SuperSonics. He said, hey, you come
join my team and I'll pay youyour salary what the contract is worth,
(25:17):
and I will fight the legal caseand I'm like, but I played it
all every one year in the NBA, so why would i have to have
a legal case if I'm already inthe set precedent for playing. And it
was like, now the NBA hada four year rule that you must abide
by or we can fight it incourt. So I was like, well,
yeah, well I'll probably miss tengames, you know, so yeah,
(25:41):
let's fight. And I filed forthe injunction for the rights to play
in the lower court, and theNBA in the NC two A they filed
with the n C two A wasalways under the level of like, you
know, we don't want to loseall of this money from players in the
University of Detroit was like whining,like, oh man, we lost so
(26:04):
much money, but we can't payathletes, wink wink, and so so.
So my first ten days I wassitting in the hotel because I had
a ten day injunction, a tengame injunction against me, and so I
couldn't play. And then when Igot the injunction to play, and I
(26:25):
walk out on the floor the announcement, but say, ladies and gentlemen,
number twenty four, this game isbeing played on the protests, and your
fans can throw things, do whateveryou want to do, but that player
number twenty four is an illegal player. And so I played, and then
(26:45):
players would come up hurt and saythat I did it because I was on
the floor. And then they getanother ten day injunction. And then I
sat. And then the next timeI come back, they says, ladies
and gentlemen, we have an injunctionbecause they went back on there in junction.
And once we got an injunction,they came back, and we have
(27:07):
another injunction that reeves he must beout of the arena on the bus in
which he came in here. Sothey threw me off the floor, and
people throwing real bottles, not theclassic stuff that's going on today. They
threw real bottles and called me allthose names that I heard in Mississippi.
You know you sorry, you're killingcollege basketball. You're killing basketball as you
(27:33):
know it. And I'm like atwenty year old kid, I'm like,
what am I doing. I'm justtrying to play so I can get my
mother out of the cotton field.Come on, let me play, and
and so and the next time Igot an injunction, just before I was
headed to the Supreme Court because Ihad to go through all of the court
system. I got an injunction,and Cincinnati, Cincinnati Royals, they slamming
(28:00):
with an injunction that says, ladiesand gentlemen, he must be off the
grounds in which this arena set out. So they put me out in the
out of grounds in the snow.So I'm standing out there with my warm
up on. I didn't get achance to put all my clothes because in
Jackson read you got to put himout of here. I mean, this
(28:21):
is just court battles and stuff,so you have to go figure out what
was going on at that time.And so he put me out into the
snow and I'm standing out there snowthis cold, crying what am I doing?
And then they all of the legendsof the NBA. They had been
brainwashed that if this guy wins thiscase, you guys are going to be
(28:48):
put out a capacitory because we're gonnabring in all these young players. So
they were against me, and guyswere hurting me when I did play.
So I went through just this miserablehell hell. But again because I was
I'm from Mississippi, Silver City,Mississippi, there ain't no silver, and
there ain't no city. It's apopulation of three hundred people. So it
(29:11):
wasn't that harsh. But then Iwon the case and they said, you
know, this case is one underthe Sherman Anti Trust Act because we can't
stop a person from making a living. And then I said, oh my
god, I'm ready to play.But the old heads in the NBA was
(29:33):
like, yeah, let's rough himup some more. And then Kareem Abdul
Jabbar, who was Luel sender atthe time, he walked out on the
floor and said, hey, Iwant to play against him. I don't
show him that he you know,he ain't that tough. And so we
got into a you know, wewe embraced at the half court line before
the jop ball, and that's whenOscar and everybody said, oh, let
(29:56):
him play. It ain't gonna hurtthe game and stuff. Let's just play.
And that's when I started to play. I had like maybe fifteen games
or twenty games left for the season, and I played a total of thirty
games that year going through the courtsystem. And the next year it was
like a ball because I would hadthe freedom to play, and the next
(30:18):
year I had my freedom back,and I averaged twenty nine and twelve in
Seattle, and it was the firstteam, All Pro and all of that
stuff, and so it just continuedto roll. And then eventually we got
Bill Rosso as a coach and playersstarted in Seattle with the Seattle SuperSonics.
They were backstabbing me and him,and I ended up being traded to New
(30:42):
York. So I get to NewYork. I don't know anybody. I
don't I had my family in Seattlewho had came up from the South,
and everybody was there. It waslike a right place. And then when
I got to New York, Ididn't know anybody, and I was just
lonely and and I I didn't havea girlfriend or nothing. And then I
(31:04):
had a date setup for me,and then I went to Kleiol's restaurant on
sixty fourth and Broadway, and therewas the date that I was supposed to
meet this girl from Atlanta, butshe had brought her roommate with her,
and her roommate had on this Africangarb and it was like and I kept
(31:26):
looking at her, like, Wow, she's so pretty. And it was
Zemon the Model, and we justfell in love and got married and that
was my refuge. But I gotmyself lost a little bit because I fell
in love. So I went awayfrom sports for a minute because I was
(31:47):
just I was in love and Iwanted to experience different things. And we
traveled. I did all of thefashion shows and fashion weeks in New York
and stuff like that. This islong before these players doing it today.
And I had a wonderful time.But I lost myself a little bit with
my basketball because I wasn't training asmuch and wasn't doing what I should do.
(32:10):
And then after five seasons, Iended up in Los Angeles with the
Lakers. And when I got toLA, I was really in the mood
for some party and because we hadmagic. We had he had just came
in as a rookie. Kareem,I'm Dual Jabbar, Jamal Wilkes, Michael
Cooper, I know him, Nixon. We had a squad. I mean,
(32:35):
it was serious. And so Itrip over and I decided, well,
let me just hang out a littlebit. Let me go over to
this Hollywood part of the people Iknew from television and screens and everything.
I go to this party and theygot all this coke and stuff flying around
cocaine, and so I'm thinking,well, let me taste it, and
(32:55):
so I taste the coke and notknowing and that my family history is that
this addiction was there in alcohol andwhatever else. So I did cope that
night, and I watched my gamedisappear because I think I was hooked that
(33:16):
night because I hit that pipe andit did something to me my metabolism,
my brain or something that made mefeel like, you know, this is
this is like something that's gotten yougot you, and it grabbed me and
it choked me. It is likeit was like a disease I had for
(33:37):
that year. And at the endof the year, I ended up coming
in here with twenty four and twelveand then I dropped down to the seven
and the seven and five that Iwas supposed to do in the ABA and
was a shell of myself. Sothe NBA and the ownership of the Lakers
(33:59):
Society will we're going to exile it. And I didn't get a chance to
go to Dallas and the expansion,but they exiled me to Italy, to
Venice. I was like Old BroRabbit, you know, down south year
the name of Old Bro rabbit.They when you when you're trying to get
into the brow patch, and he'salways trying to get there. And so
(34:22):
he said, whatever you do,please don't throw me in the brow patch.
And so they threw me in thebrow patch. Because when I got
to Venice, I mean I wasplaying three games a week at max or
two. And my wife came overand she scheduled all of her shows and
in Milan and in Bologna and allthroughout Italy and also in Paris, so
(34:47):
I could fly up because everything isso close in Europe, and I could
take a train or whatever and hangout with her and go back and play.
So I got myself together. Andthose Italians, man, they they
took care of your brother. Theytook care of this boy, and they
loved all of the anger, allof the hate, all of the coke
out of me. Everything. Igot my life clean. I got I
(35:12):
learned to live with what I hadbeen brought up with, because I was
brought up with in a good Christianhome, you know, like the Bible
was like, you know, likeyou would not do anything because this is
Almighty God watching you, So whywould you even slip up? So I'm
thinking hey, back watching me again, and my mom is watching me.
So I ended up doing real wellover there, dominating and just and then
(35:39):
the NBA says, hey, youknow what, we got to get him
out of there because he's blowing upItaly in terms of like, you know,
everybody want to go to Italy,these players like, uh, let
me go over there. And sothey brought me back to to Washington,
d C. And I felt prettystrong about that because I up my case
(36:00):
was one at the seat of government, and now here I am back at
the seat of government. So wehad a great time in Washington, DC
and low and behold of my secondseason after we had made the playoff and
did all these wonderful things. Inmy second season, my wife was in
an automobile accident in New York andthat was like traumatic because she was like
(36:22):
a real bad accident on her faceand she was it was distraught. And
I also had her brother and twosisters living with me, and I had
my young daughter and they were inNew York and you know, like some
time, the languages wasn't as greatas it should be because they are from
(36:42):
Somalia and so, I mean,so I felt a need to take a
break and come home to take careof my family. And I tried to
explain it to Washington and that,you know, maybe it'll give me a
chance to go into treatment and lookat myself a little bit better, and
they weren't having it. So Ileft basketball for a while and thought I
(37:06):
would come back after a year,and I never made it back. And
so my life has just been atthis thing of like, you know,
one of these days if I doall of the great things in life and
stay clean and sober. This ismy thirtieth year in the program of sobriety,
and I got a got a chanceto learn about my family. Why
(37:30):
was my brothers and sisters dying ofalcoholism? And I and I began to
go into the gene pool and understandwhat had happened with our family. And
they go back to cotton picking days, back to slavery days. It was
a lot of alcoholism in order tocope and to deal with life. And
so I learned that and Loyd Behold, my young daughters were like looking at
(37:54):
me going through programs and stuff.So one of them came out turned out
to build psychology. Just now she'sa licensed therapist in New York City.
And so I have four daughters,which I'm so proud of. They all
graduated. They have two doctors,and I'm just proud. And then my
(38:15):
current wife, I've been with nowfor thirty years. She's great, but
she's a vegan. That's another world. So I've been in this vegan world
for a while. But now Ieat fish and and I'm just feeling grateful
because today, all of a sudden, now I came out with this book.
(38:39):
The Commissioner Adam Silver gave me abig endorsement with the book, and
like here it is today. TheJump did a special army. Rachel Nichols
did a special army. It's justGod, it's working these incredible miracles in
my life. And I'm just I'mjust so grateful to be alive and be
well. And I always said thatI didn't want to because it was three
(39:04):
of us that went to the SupremeCourt, Kurt Flood for baseball, Muhammad
Ali with boxing. We were basicallythere at the same time. And I
remember Kurt I spoke with him whenhe came back and he left the country.
So I did get a chance tostay in the country and play some
ball after I finished the court case, but he left the country and he
(39:27):
came back sort of like a brokenman. And then baseball was like,
you know, bringing him around.And then just as he was getting his
glory for what he had did andhow he stood up to the system to
change the game, he passed.And I always had that in my mind,
like I don't want to do that. I just want to I'm gonna
I'm gonna stay holy as best asI can, you know, and be
(39:51):
the best person that I can.I'm gonna eat right, I'm gonna treat
people right. I'm gonna do goodand see what happened, see if good
come back, because my mom alwaystaught me, you know you do good,
boy good, it's going to cometo you. And so here I
am today was so much good,so much love, and I was able
to be the chairman of the boardfor the NBA Retired Players. I fought
(40:14):
hard for our players are retired playersto have health insurance and low and behold
Chris Paul Lebron, James, StephCurrier, the executive committee from the NBA
PA. They jumped around and gaveus like sixteen million dollars a year for
health insurance which has saved so manyof our players lives and I'm just living
(40:39):
my best life at this time.And i want to thank you all for
joining me on this podcast, myvery first, and it's just I'm letting
you know it's going to be thisway. Every week you're going to get
something really special and we're going tobe talking about things that are relevant today.
(40:59):
And I'm must say too for theyoung players that are playing in the
bubble. I mean, I'm soproud of you. I'm so proud of
the NBA and what they have done, how they have like comported themselves.
And I'm watching because you know,the NFL uses my rule as well.
They're going to be the next oneto know about what Spencer Hayward did.
(41:21):
So it's going to be this typeof podcasts. It's not going to be
like your regular you know, likehey, here we go, we just
do something. No, this isfor real. This is the real,
real, real deal. So thankyou for joining me on the first one. Peece
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