100 Things 76ers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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100 Things 76ers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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Overview
100 Things 76ers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Gordon Jones reveals the most critical moments and important facts about past and present players, coaches, and teams that are part of the storied history that is 76ers basketball. Scattered throughout the pages, you'll find pep talks, records, and Sixers lore to test your knowledge, including:
* The franchise’s beginnings as the Syracuse Nationals before moving to Philadelphia in 1963
* Both NBA Champion Sixers teams—1966-67 led by Wilt Chamberlain and the 1982-83 led by Julius Erving and Moses Malone
* The memorable Sixers teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s led by Barkley
* Profiles of unforgettable Colts personalities such as Billy Cunningham, Allen Iverson, and Maurice Cheeks
Whether you're a die-hard fan from the early days of Chamberlain and Dr. J or a new supporter of Jrue Holiday, this book contains everything 76ers fans should know, see, and do in their lifetime. If you bleed red, royal blue, and white, then 100 Things 76ers Fans is for you. It offers the chance to be certain you are knowledgeable about the most important facts about the team, the traditions, and what being a Sixers fan is all about.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781623682811 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2014 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
100 Things 76ers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
By Gordon Jones, Eric Stark
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2014 Gordon Jones and Eric StarkAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62368-281-1
CHAPTER 1
Fo', Five, Fo'
Engraved on one side of the 76ers' 1982–83 championship rings are the words "Fo', Five, Fo'," an unwieldy (yet historically accurate) variation on Moses Malone's pre-playoff prediction of three four-game sweeps.
With memories dimmed by the passage of time, there is some dispute about exactly when and where the Sixers center uttered those truncated words. Some even question whether he said them at all. "My vote is, if he didn't, he should have," retired Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Bill Lyon once said.
But Malone insisted he did, and several reporters confirmed as much. It was never intended to be a battle cry or bold prediction, but the team almost made good on his claim, sandwiching sweeps of the Knicks and Lakers around a five-game defeat of Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference finals.
"We had played so many games during the regular season, and I just felt, why play 21 more in the playoffs?" Malone said. "Just win 12 more and go home to rest up for the next year. I spoke to a group of writers, and I was serious. It was no joke, because I felt we could go fo', fo', fo' and have a big ending."
As assistant Matty Guokas said, "It wasn't brash. It was just his way of saying, 'We won 60. If we do what we normally do, we should go right through it.'"
"He said it in a very matter-of-fact way — no big deal in his tone of voice or speaking style," said Roy S. Johnson, who then worked for the New York Times. "Moses just believed it and laid it out there."
Coach Billy Cunningham nonetheless remembers Malone mouthing those words in the trainer's room of the Spectrum, raising the possibility that he said them twice. And a radio reporter named Don Henderson swears Malone made his prediction after a practice at St. Joseph's University, while strength-and-conditioning coach John Kilbourne said he did so from the driver's seat of his GMC Jimmy.
Jack McCaffery, a sportswriter then working for the Trenton Times, believes it happened in the Spectrum locker room on the eve of the playoffs.
"My recollection is, it was some sort of pre-playoff media event," McCaffery said. "There were a lot of people in the room at the time. ... My recollection is, he said it's going to be a long process. We have to win four, then another four, then four again."
Henderson was just as sure that it happened in the same way — but at the locker room at St. Joe's. And Kilbourne's version is the most theatrical of all. He recalled a group of reporters following Malone out to the parking lot at St. Joe's, when Inquirer beat writer George Shirk asked Moses how he thought the playoffs would go.
Malone, who by this point was behind the wheel of his Jimmy, rolled down the driver's side window, spouted, "Fo', fo', fo'," rolled the window back up, and drove off.
Shirk, who was also there, did not recall that exchange.
Billy Cunningham is just as insistent about the trainer's room scenario. And Phil Jasner, the late Daily News beat writer, recalled Cunningham's bemused expression as he emerged from the room wondering what Malone might have meant.
Whatever the case, the impact of Moses' words was widespread. The Lakers' Michael Cooper said he hated the fact that Malone made such a bold prediction. Others, like Milwaukee's Paul Pressey, secretly admired it. "Just like Muhammad Ali, Moses put it right out there in everyone's face," Pressey said, "and almost backed it up."
But it wasn't intended to be anything other than a statement of fact. "Moses wasn't real cocky," said Bobby Jones, the team's sixth man. "He was telling you what he thought. Moses was never one to exaggerate or blow things out of proportion."
The statement nonetheless took on a life of its own. "It turned into Babe Ruth pointing into the bleachers and hitting a home run there," forward Marc Iavaroni said.
CHAPTER 2Julius Erving
Former 76ers general manager Pat Williams is a gifted storyteller, having written dozens of books and, in his guise as motivational speaker, given hundreds of speeches. And one of his favorite tales is about when Julius Erving came to town.
Erving had already become a legend in the old American Basketball Association, yet it was a league that operated far below the radar. TV coverage was rare. Crowds were sparse. Much of what was known about the league was passed along through word of mouth, and so it was with Erving. Could the man known as Dr. J really fly as high and score as creatively as rumored? Why, yes. Yes, he could.
The ABA merged with the NBA in 1976, and the New York Nets, Erving's employer, had cash problems (not uncommon for an ABA team). Not only did Nets owner Roy Boe need to scrape together $3 million for his team to become one of four ABA squads to join the NBA, he was also at odds with Dr. J, who claimed Boe had promised to renegotiate his contract if the two leagues ever merged.
A holdout ensued, and Williams contacted the Nets' general manager, ex-Sixer Billy Melchionni, to declare the Sixers' interest in him, should things ever deteriorate to the point that New York might be willing to trade. Two weeks into Dr. J's holdout, Melchionni called to say it would take $3 million to pry Erving away. There was also the prospect of paying him $450,000 for each of six seasons under a renegotiated contract, no small sum in that day and age.
Williams paid a visit to the Sixers' new owner, Fitz Dixon. Dixon, who died in 2006 at age 82, was by all accounts a wonderful and generous man. Born into wealth — his mother was a Widener, a family that built a transportation empire — he nonetheless taught and coached at his alma mater, Episcopal Academy. He gave to charitable causes. And at one time or another he had a stake in all of Philadelphia's sports franchises.
But he was still learning basketball in 1976, which led to the following conversation that fateful day:
Pat: "Fitz, there is a player available from the other league. [Dramatic pause.] And his name is Julius Erving."
Fitz: "Now tell me, Pat, who is he?"
Pat: "He's kind of the Babe Ruth of basketball."
Sold.
Erving not only gave the franchise 11 seasons of spectacular play but also an identity. He was the team's focal point, leader, and primary drawing card. And he was an ambassador not only for the club but the entire sport.
Only later would the clouds emerge. Only after he was done playing would there be revelations of infidelity; he fathered professional tennis player Alexandra Stevenson in 1980 with journalist Samantha Stevenson, which led in part, years afterward, to the dissolution of his marriage. Only later would he lose a son, who appeared to be overcoming a drug-addled past, only to drown when he accidentally drove his car into a retention pond near the family's Florida home. Only later would it be revealed that he sold some $3.5 million worth of memorabilia, leading to speculation that he had financial problems (which he denied).
Eventually there would be evidence that Julius Erving wasn't everything he was thought to be. During his playing days, sportscaster Al Meltzer once said, Dr. J seemed to possess "the perfect combination of talent and poise — a once-in-a-lifetime package." He appeared "more comfortable in his own skin than any other superstar" as former Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ray Didinger once put it. "He took the business of being an ambassador of basketball seriously," Didinger said.
"He could walk through a crowd of 1,000 people and make everybody feel he cared about them," said Mark McNamara, who played for the Sixers in 1982–83 and again from 1987 to 1988. "It was amazing."
Williams had seen that for himself dozens of times, but never more vividly than one summer's day in Schroon Lake, New York. Erving had flown overnight from Denver to help out at a basketball camp, and despite sweltering heat he spent the entire day working with youngsters, offering encouragement and signing autographs. Williams was moved to tears upon returning to his hotel room that night.
Another time the late Phil Jasner, who for years covered the Sixers for the Philadelphia Daily News, watched as Erving made his way to baggage claim in the Dallas — Ft. Worth airport. Dozens of high school cheerleaders, in town for a competition, noticed him immediately and begged for his autograph. He said he would be happy to do so, but only if they agreed to perform their routines. They quickly obliged, and he sat down on a suitcase and signed for every last one of them.
He was no less gracious with the reporters who crowded around his locker every day, and remarkably cordial to those with whom he worked most closely. Consider two plane flights, years apart. The first came in 1976, shortly after he arrived in Philadelphia. Matt Guokas Jr., later a Sixers assistant coach, was just starting out as a broadcaster. His first chance to introduce himself to Dr. J came when he sat down next to him on a flight out of Kansas City, after a game in which Erving had played poorly.
Erving was paying his bills, but put his checkbook aside and settled into a conversation. He somehow remembered crossing paths with Guokas years earlier, when the Nets faced the Chicago Bulls, for whom Guokas had played. Guokas was immediately impressed with how gracious he was, "where most players would be mad."
"He acted," Guokas said, "the same way as if he'd scored 35 points. He had the ability to keep himself under control and be nice to people. That stuck with me the whole 11 years."
The other flight came in 1982. This time Erving invited rookie forward Russ Schoene to sit alongside him. And for starters he told Schoene that in some ways he reminded Doc of himself.
"That kind of blew me away," Schoene recalled. "Quite honestly, I don't remember the next five minutes of what he said. It was like, What? How in the world could I ever remind him of himself? It was pretty uplifting. It gave me a spring in my step."
Erving did the same for opponents. When Billy McKinney broke into the league with Kansas City in 1978, Erving went out of his way to welcome him to the league during warm-ups before a game against the Sixers. And Mark Eaton, Utah's 7'4" center, marveled at Erving's "statesmanlike demeanor."
He was, Eaton said, "the ultimate gentleman" — to a point, anyway. Once the game started, Eaton said, Dr. J would "go out and dunk on my head."
Eaton certainly wasn't alone in that regard. Erving was an All-Star every year he played in Philadelphia, an All-NBA choice seven times, and the 1980–81 MVP. But his disappointments were no less profound. The Sixers lost in the Finals in '77, '80, and '82, and after the last failure Erving found himself weeping in the locker room of the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles, where the Lakers closed out the Sixers in Game 6.
Moses Malone arrived the following season, bringing with him the keys to the vault. The Sixers stormed to 65 regular-season victories and swept 12 of 13 playoff games, nearly fulfilling Malone's "fo', fo', fo'" prediction.
Game 4 of the 1983 Finals unfolded in storybook fashion, with the Sixers rallying from deficits of 14 at halftime and 11 after three quarters. Erving scored seven critical points in the closing minutes, including the three-point play that put his team ahead to stay with 59 seconds left and a clinching jumper over Magic Johnson moments later.
"I didn't find that shot," Erving told reporters afterward. "It found me."
Looking back, sportswriter Jack McCaffery observed, the entire team seemed to take on Erving's late-game persona for an entire season. "Late in the game, he seemed to have a different face," McCaffery said. "He went into another personality. He didn't have to say he wanted the ball; he gave a walk and a little sneer, which meant: 'Give me the ball. I'm going to find a way for us to win.' ... He went from someone who was enjoying the game to almost anger. The '83 year was an entire year of that, an entire year of Doc's look."
The success didn't last. The Sixers remained a strong team the last four years Erving played for them, and he remained a viable (if diminishing) player. He retired after the 1986–87 season, and was accorded a farewell tour of the league, as well as a parade through the streets of Philadelphia.
It had been clear long before that that Pat Williams' called shot on "the Babe Ruth of basketball" had sailed well over the fence.
CHAPTER 3Wilt
His is a complicated legacy. Even now, 41 years after his retirement and some 15 years after his death, it is hard to comprehend Wilton Norman Chamberlain. One hundred points in a game? An average of 50 for an entire season? More than 31,000 points and 23,000 rebounds in 14 NBA seasons? How do you wrap your mind around all that?
And while you're trying, how do you figure the numbers at the other end of the spectrum? Just two championships? And 51 percent free-throw shooting for his career?
He was a larger-than-life figure, so often cut down to size. And still is, really. It is now universally accepted that Michael Jordan was the greatest player of all time, without discussion. (Or none, at least, until LeBron James gets a little more seasoned.) Wilt, the first of the one-name superstars, is seldom mentioned, even though he revolutionized the game, rewrote the record book, and still has his name scrawled all over it.
"Nobody loves Goliath," he once said. But that's not completely true, for despite his legion of detractors — those with short memories, and those who gleefully point out that he could take the measure of Bill Russell's vaunted Celtics just once in eight playoff meetings — he has just as many people in his corner, eager to preserve and protect his memory.
"There's only one Big Fella," Fred Carter said. "Everybody else was just tall. When it comes to basketball, Wilt was the Colossus of Rhodes."
Carter is, like Wilt, a Philadelphian, and during his eight-year career played against Chamberlain. (Carter also played for the Sixers, notably on that 9–73 team in 1972–73, and coached the club in the '90s.)
"Wilt I swear by," Carter said. "I hear guys say that Shaq's the most dominant player to ever play, and I say, 'Father, forgive them; they know not what they say.' That's basketball blasphemy."
Carter's is a view shared by another Philadelphian, Wali Jones, one of Chamberlain's teammates on the Sixers' 1966–67 championship team. "The greatest basketball player ever is Wilt Chamberlain," Jones said in an interview for this book. "The greatest winner of all time is Bill Russell. One of the greatest players to play the game: Michael Jordan."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 100 Things 76ers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Gordon Jones, Eric Stark. Copyright © 2014 Gordon Jones and Eric Stark. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Pat Williams,1. Fo', Five, Fo',
2. Julius Erving,
3. Wilt,
4. Charles Barkley,
5. Allen Iverson,
6. Moses Malone,
7. Dolph Schayes,
8. Hal Greer,
9. Chet Walker,
10. Wali Jones,
11. Bobby Jones,
12. Maurice Cheeks,
13. Mike Gminski,
14. Hersey Hawkins,
15. Guarding the Greats: Bobby Jones on Julius Erving,
16. Guarding the Greats: Nate Thurmond on Wilt Chamberlain,
17. Guarding the Greats: Malik Rose on Charles Barkley,
18. Guarding the Greats: Matt Harpring on Allen Iverson,
19. Guarding the Greats: Danny Schayes on Moses Malone,
20. Bond between Doc and A.I.,
21. Where's the Ball?,
22. Game Night: Tom McGinnis,
23. Andre Iguodala,
24. Lou Williams,
25. Game Night: Marc Zumoff,
26. Danny Biasone,
27. Irv Kosloff,
28. Fitz Dixon,
29. Dr. J As Trendsetter,
30. Iverson As Trendsetter,
31. Harold Katz,
32. Pat Croce,
33. Game Night: Matt Cord,
34. Alex Hannum,
35. Billy Cunningham,
36. Brett Brown,
37. Jack Ramsay,
38. John Lucas,
39. Game Night: The Dream Team,
40. Warm Memories of 9–73,
41. Box Score Double Take,
42. Doc Defies Gravity,
43. "The Line for Apologies Forms Here",
44. Erving, Bird Square Off,
45. Uniform Success,
46. Iverson Gets the Better of Jordan (Briefly),
47. Mark Hendrickson's 15 Minutes,
48. We're Still Talkin' 'Bout Practice,
49. A Brief History of Iverson's Caddies,
50. Cheeks' Greatest Assist,
51. Game Night: Allen Lumpkin,
52. Manute Bol,
53. Armen Gilliam,
54. Breaking Down the 76ers Greats,
55. Jack McMahon,
56. Phil Jasner,
57. The Spectrum,
58. Harvey Pollack,
59. Lousy Trades,
60. Al Domenico,
61. Darryl Dawkins,
62. Iverson Announces His Retirement,
63. World B. Free,
64. Game Night: The Flight Squad,
65. Derek Smith,
66. The Son Also Rises,
67. Family Matters: Harvey Catchings,
68. Joe Bryant (aka, Kobe's Dad),
69. Michael Carter-Williams,
70. Luke Jackson,
71. George McGinnis,
72. Caldwell Jones,
73. Andrew Toney,
74. Hinkie's Rebuild,
75. Leon Wood,
76. Johnny Dawkins,
77. Rick Mahorn,
78. Rick Mahorn on the 1989–90 Team,
79. Shawn Bradley,
80. Derrick Coleman,
81. Todd MacCulloch,
82. Eric Snow,
83. Theo Ratliff,
84. George Lynch,
85. Aaron McKie,
86. Elton Brand,
87. Hotel Lures Sixers,
88. Steve Mix,
89. Jerry Stackhouse,
90. Scapegoating Scott Brooks,
91. Pat Williams,
92. Doug Collins,
93. Sixers Fans,
94. Where to Buy a Jersey,
95. Thaddeus Young,
96. The Practices of Legends,
97. The Prodigal Coach ... Hovers,
98. LeBron James Says A.I. Is the Greatest,
99. Where to Watch the Game,
100. List-a-Palooza,