Three Seconds in Munich: The Controversial 1972 Olympic Basketball Final
264
Three Seconds in Munich: The Controversial 1972 Olympic Basketball Final
264Hardcover
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780803299962 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2019 |
| Pages: | 264 |
| Sales rank: | 661,637 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
The Guns of September
Strolling into a packed McDonald's restaurant in Munich, Tommy Loren Burleson cherished the chance to eat a familiar fast-food meal of burgers and fries far from home. A twenty-year-old North Carolina native abroad for the first time, his gait, along with his occupation, distinguished him from the standard tourist. Not only did he tower over seven feet tall; he and the eleven other young men who accompanied him to Munich were among the best athletes in the world.
Until this day — September 5, 1972 — their U.S. Olympic squad had won all of its games, extending its thirty-six-year winning streak in the quadrennial affair to a borderline-ridiculous sixty-two games. In seven contests in West Germany, Burleson had contributed only a handful of points, far short of his performances back home. In his first season playing for the North Carolina State varsity as a sophomore (back then, college freshmen were forced to wait a year before joining the top team, regardless of talent), Burleson averaged more than 20 points and 14 rebounds per game. The big man (the Wolfpack sports information department listed him at seven foot four rather than his actual seven foot two to engender publicity as the tallest player in the land) even nailed a decent percentage of his free throws, making two out of every three over twenty-six games. Back in that era, even Hall of Fame centers such as Wilt Chamberlain often failed to successfully sink 50 percent of their free throws.
Though unknown among McDonald's customers in Munich, Burleson's fame in the United States reached far: after all, as a teenager, the center had graced the cover of Sports Illustrated — an athlete's highest achievement aside from capturing a championship back then — under the billing "Year of the New Giants." The picture featured a serious-looking Burleson, with thick eyebrows and a mop of dark hair, dressed in Wolfpack red while cradling a basketball in his right arm. He gazed straight at the camera through a basketball rim, whose netting had been cut to give a clear view of his face. And in a successful nod to North Carolina State's public relations mavens, he was listed as seven foot four on the cover of the best-selling sports magazine in the nation.
Before that, Burleson had been touted during his high school days as the "Newland Needle," a gangly youngster from that hamlet of five hundred or so best known for being the seat of Avery County, North Carolina. Thanks in part to his prowess inside the paint, Burleson helped the Avery County High School team win more than eighty games while dropping only eight before he graduated.
A work ethic instilled by his father made his size even more imposing. During World War II, William Burleson landed on Utah Beach while serving with the U.S. Army, in a special outfit best known today as the Green Berets. During the next year he battled the Nazi forces all the way to Berlin, where the Germans surrendered in 1945. Only five years later, he served again — this time for the entirety of the Korean War.
"With all that combat time," Burleson said, "he came back here with a lot of discipline."
William instilled that discipline in his son. Often the elder Burleson woke his boy up at 5:30 a.m. so they could head out for a three-mile run. Then, after calisthenics, the younger Burleson and his father milked cows on the family farm. In addition, Tommy's uncle's farm nearby boasted two hundred head of cattle; he worked the fields there starting at age ten.
In addition to his rigorous early-morning schedule, growing up so tall (he wore a size 9 shoe in third grade) in a small town often was painful. In grade school, Burleson was picked on because of his height, teased because he stood a head above some of his classmates.
"Boys would beat me up, and I'd have to go get my head sewn up," Burleson recalled. "My dad would have to come and get me with black eyes and bloody noses. He wanted me to stand up to them.
"My best friend was going to help me stand up to the bullies. One time, we were standing by the agricultural building, all beaten up, and he looked over at me and said, 'It's really hard being your best friend.'"
When Burleson was fourteen and already standing six foot eight, he and his uncle, Ben Ware, visited the open house of the Agriculture and Life Sciences Department at North Carolina State in Raleigh. As an alumnus, Ware knew the campus well. They decided to stop by the basketball office.
"We had heard about him [Burleson] but we didn't know too much about him," said Sam Esposito, an assistant on Coach Norm Sloan's basketball staff. "Burleson walked in and he had to bend down to keep from hitting his head coming in the door. We almost had a heart attack."
Once Burleson's abilities flourished during high school, college recruiters drooled over him; hundreds of letters from interested universities, large and small, jammed the family's mailbox, and legendary basketball coaches such as the University of North Carolina's Dean Smith competed for his services.
But Burleson's lack of self-confidence steered him away from the big-name schools.
"I didn't think I was good enough to play at Carolina. I didn't think I was good enough to play at Duke," Burleson explained about his choice to attend a comparatively unknown basketball school, whose varsity team finished below .500 his freshman year. "I just wanted to be a good ball player."
With the U.S. Olympic basketball trials set to take place in Colorado Springs during the summer of 1972, Burleson seemed to be a realistic candidate to make the team. But he almost blew his chance before the tryouts began. In May, Burleson uncovered a key that could unlock three pinball machines on campus. He and a friend stole more than $100 from them. What happened next was a seminal moment.
Feeling guilty, he entered Sloan's office the next day to confess to his coach, who told Burleson to go turn himself in. To this day, Burleson considers it one of the lowest points of his life, especially after going to court and seeing the two children of the man who owned the machines.
"I realized I was taking food out of their mouths," he said. "I was messing with his livelihood. I've never felt lower in my life."
Forgiven by Sloan after his confession, Burleson arrived in Colorado Springs the next month. Joining him was UCLA center Swen Nater, a six-foot-eleven, 243-pound beast who backed up the best player in college basketball, Bill Walton. Their team had captured six straight National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) titles, a feat that had never before been achieved and is unlikely to be matched. Practically at will Nater scored throughout the scrimmages, meaning Burleson was really contending against Ohio State center Luke Witte for a backup spot during the punishing tryouts, where coaches such as Indiana University's Bob Knight, under head coach Henry Iba's orders, yelled as much as they could at players.
Four months earlier, Witte had been leading the Buckeyes to a crucial Big Ten win in Minneapolis before nearly eighteen thousand fans. After being flagrantly fouled, the Golden Gopher who had knocked Witte to the floor, Corky Taylor, started to help him up — before kneeing the seven-footer. Golden Gopher Ron Behagen leaped off the bench and kicked Witte in the head. Somehow energized by their heroes' ugly display, Minnesota fans stormed the floor with thirty-six seconds left and Ohio State up by 6. Defenseless, despite his sizable height, Witte was further demeaned when, as Sports Illustrated reported, "the fans had the audacity to boo Witte as he was helped, bleeding and semiconscious, from the floor."
Recovered from the beating, Witte was forced to fight another tough foe in Colorado Springs. Far from a pushover, Witte's statistics emphasized his proficiency at the center position. During his sophomore year at Ohio State, he had grabbed 331 rebounds, which led the team, and scored nearly 19 points a game. Almost eighteen months older than Burleson, at an age when that represented a huge gap in experience, he seemed to have an advantage.
In their final head-to-head battle in Colorado Springs, with a spot on the twelve-man squad on the line, Burleson excelled. He nailed 18 points to only 3 for Witte and outrebounded him, making the decision easy to put the first Wolfpack player in Olympic history on the team.
Then came training camp at a site of war: Pearl Harbor. Not only were the practices grueling; the accommodations were appalling.
"They put us in a barracks that was partially destroyed during the bombing of Pearl Harbor," Burleson recalled. "We didn't even have mosquito nets and we were getting eaten up. Sailors there who saw us said we had it worse than they did during boot camp."
But Burleson had survived Pearl Harbor and, after a handful of exhibition games on the mainland, flown a Pan Am charter to Munich with his teammates, who (at first at least) basically considered him a hillbilly. Yet here was this country kid in a historic European city, two wins away from a gold medal that would forever mark him as one of the best basketball players of the era.
The night before, Burleson's sleep had been significantly disturbed. Far from worrying about the upcoming semifinal game against Italy, he had been startled awake by a loud sound. When he arose that morning, he learned the truth: an undetermined number of Israeli athletes, coaches, and officials had been taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists. The noise that jolted him from his slumber the previous night was gunfire.
"I had a personal relationship with some of the athletes the terrorists had taken hostage," Burleson said, having met them in the Olympic Village. "One of the Canadian guys asked if I wanted to see the terrorists close up. From his balcony, we could see the terrorists. I realized if they turned and started shooting, that wouldn't be a good place to be."
After he called home following an hour-long wait for a phone to tell his family he was okay, Burleson toured Munich with his fiancée; how often would a farm kid from western North Carolina get a chance to see a spot infamous for its ties to Nazi Germany, after all? Adolf Hitler's beer-hall putsch had shaken Munich in 1923, and the agreement signed fifteen years later by Germany, the United Kingdom, and others led British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to inaccurately declare, "Peace is at hand." (Bolstered by that pact allowing it to annex part of Czechoslovakia, Germany started World War II soon after.) But that age was far removed from Burleson; he had not been alive during those historic events nor had the world-famous restaurant where he was dining even been created.
Soon after enjoying his McDonald's meal with his fiancée (whose presence at the Olympics would curtail one of Burleson's basketball dreams only days later), they visited the Black Forest — where Burleson picked up a Black Forest clock for his mother — and Munich's venerable cathedrals. Daylight began to fade. They took a bus to the apartment where his fiancée was staying, and then he boarded a train heading back to the Olympic Village. He sat in the last car next to two tall Brazilian basketball players. Surprisingly, the train stopped short of its destination.
"We three stood there in the back of the train, with no space between anyone," Burleson said. "Guards were facing forward with their backs to us, and I said to the Brazilians, "There's the parking lot."
Burleson was referring to a shortcut he often took to get back to his apartment. He and his two new friends walked out from the final car, aiming to reach a stairwell that would take them to their rooms.
Soon, a West German soldier encountered the trio in the underground parking garage, saying, "Nein." Burleson said he was simply going to his room, and they all kept walking. Another soldier soon appeared, also speaking German. The young men continued on their path. The soldiers had been instructed to keep everyone away from the parking garage, but the players did not understand.
Then one more soldier approached Burleson — one who spoke English.
"He said, 'Young man, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. We're bringing the hostages out at this very moment. I want you to face that wall.'" Burleson complied. He noticed the two Brazilian players were lying on the ground with guns pressed into their backs. Then it was his turn to get a rifle jammed into his back.
Burleson heard some strange language being spoken. He looked over, and he saw the main Palestinian terrorist, Luttif "Issa" Afif. Their eyes met.
"The West German guard saw me looking backward and said, 'I told you to look forward!'" Burleson recalled. "And he stuck the barrel of the gun into my head. I can close my eyes and still see the grooves in that wall."
Burleson began praying. Then, he heard more noise.
"I could hear the Israeli athletes around the corner. I could hear their shoes on the pavement. I could hear the crying and sobbing. I think one of them was hit by a terrorist because I could hear a moan or a cry of pain."
This time, Burleson didn't move. The gun remained shoved against his skull.
Sometimes, recounting a memory freighted with grief is too much to bear. Inconsolable while relating what happened decades ago — before leading North Carolina State to one of college basketball's most epic championships, before becoming a third overall pick in the NBA draft, before returning to the same county where he grew up to live out his days — Burleson summed up what was ahead for those he heard crying.
"They were walking," he said, his large hands pressed to his shuddering face to cover his burst of tears, "to their deaths."
CHAPTER 2A Noble History
Nearly three thousand years ago — well before paved roads, central heating, and yes, even the internet — the Olympics dawned in Greece. The games resembled the twenty-first-century version as much as a weightlifter straining to hoist four hundred pounds resembles a synchronized swimmer.
Recounted David Stuttard, author of Power Games: Ritual and Rivalry at the Ancient Greek Olympics, "To compete in this celebration of not just Greek (and later, Greco-Roman) identity but of proud god-fearing masculinity, you had to speak Greek, be free from the pollution of murder — and be male. ... Until 720BC, loincloths were de rigueur, but that year [a runner named] Orisippus raced so vigorously that his fell off. When he crossed the line to victory, it was seen as a sign from the gods and henceforth any kind of clothing was banned."
Given the propensity for irrational edicts (such as naked contestants), perhaps it's no surprise that the games petered out in the fourth century AD when a Roman emperor (Greece had been consumed by the Roman Empire by then) shut down pagan festivals. Few ventured to restart the Olympics over the next 1,500 years until, during the 1800s, well-meaning attempts in Greece failed.
Enter Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, who inspired the resurrection of the Olympics late in the nineteenth century. Born in Paris, on New Year's Day of 1863, Coubertin grew up in a château in Normandy. He was educated in Paris at the Jesuit College of St. Ignatius.
At twenty years old, Coubertin traveled to England, wishing to learn about the British education system. He was struck by the power of sport and its importance in a student's education. "To the merits of this [athletic] education we may ascribe a large share in the prodigious and powerful extension of the British Empire in Queen Victoria's reign," he wrote.
In November 1892, in a hall in the Sorbonne in Paris, a celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques took place. Lectures on the history of physical exercise and a talk about antiquity entertained guests. Coubertin was instructed to speak about modern times. In his book Olympic Memoirs he recounted,
Now I had decided to end my talk in sensational fashion with the announcement of the resolution to bring about an early revival of the Olympic Games. The time had come to take the plunge! Naturally, I had foreseen every eventuality, except what actually happened. Opposition? Objections, irony? Or even indifference? Not at all. Everyone applauded, everyone approved, everyone wished me great success but no one had really understood. It was a period of total, absolute lack of comprehension that was about to start. And it was to last a long time.
In fact, about a year after his bold pronouncement, Coubertin barnstormed across America, speaking at universities and clubs to generate enthusiasm for his idea. To his dismay, people yawned. He received the same reaction the following spring in London.
In 1894 he returned to the Sorbonne for the Congress for the Revival of the Olympic Games. The congress approved most of Coubertin's ideas, such as holding the games every four years. He opposed the choice of Athens as the first host, thinking Paris more suitable and financially viable.
Coubertin recalls what lead him to revivify the Olympics:
Their revival is not owing to a spontaneous dream, but it is the logical consequence of the great cosmopolitan tendencies of our times. The XIXth Century has seen the awakening of a taste for athletics everywhere.
At the same time the great inventions of the age, railroads and telegraphs, have brought into communication people of all nationalities. An easier intercourse between men of all languages has naturally opened a wider sphere for common interests. Men have begun to lead less isolated existences, different races have learnt to know, to understand each other better, and by comparing their powers and achievements in the fields of art, industry and science, a noble rivalry has sprung up amongst them, urging them on to greater accomplishments.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Three Seconds in Munich"
by .
Copyright © 2019 David A. F. Sweet.
Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Cast of Characters Chapter 1. The Guns of September Chapter 2. A Noble History Chapter 3. “The Games Must Go On” Chapter 4. Team Building Chapter 5. Going for Gold Chapter 6. Hornswoggled Chapter 7. “And This Time It Is Over” Chapter 8. Was the Fix In? Chapter 9. Taking a Stand Chapter 10. Picking Up the Pieces Chapter 11. Joyous Reunion Chapter 12. Searching for a Silver Lining Notes Bibliography Index
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