Life on the Run (16 page)

Walt Frazier selects his major endorsements with care. He has become the corporate spokesman for Ripley Clothes, Puma sneakers, Seamless Basketball, and Pioneer Stereo. Each company pays Frazier for the use of his name and image. Willis Reed endorses Pro Ked shoes and Alka Seltzer. Monroe has Volkswagen and Simba Clothes. DeBusschere has M & M Candies, Miss Clairol Hair Coloring, and Lite Beer. Lucas does United Airlines and Jackson has Webfeet Shoes. It takes one day for a player to do a TV commercial for which he can earn as much as $30,000. For a luncheon he can make $2,500—no speech, just chitchat.

“Promptly after December 31 in each year commencing December 31, 1967, Player shall pay to Club 25 percent of net income (after applicable expenses but before income taxes) received by player during the 12 months ended on such December 31 from any sale of his ancillary basketball rights and services made at any time after date hereof and on or before May 31, 1971. For purposes hereof, income from sale of Player’s ancillary basketball rights and services shall include, but not by way of limitation, all income from endorsements, pictures, public appearances, books, magazine and newspaper articles, and radio and television programs, provided that such income shall be directly related to Player’s activities as a basketball player.”

My negotiations with the Knicks in the Spring of 1967 had reached an impasse until that clause solved all the problems. My attorney, Lawrence Fleisher, and I were sitting in a dark booth in the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel with Irving Mitchell Felt, Ned Irish, and Bill Jennings, the respective presidents of Madison Square Garden Corp., The New York Knickerbockers, and The New York Rangers. They suggested that they would meet my contract request if I agreed to give 25 percent of my ancillary income to Madison Square Garden. I was 22 years old. I looked at Fleisher, a man I’d known only two months. He was looking at the table. The salad was crisp, the seat soft. “Twenty-five percent of my ancillary rights,” I said. “Well, let me think about it.” We left the hotel, and as we walked toward Sixth Avenue, Fleisher said, “Well what do you think? You ready with the ancillary?”

“Ancillary?” I said, “What are ancillary rights?” I had almost asked at the table but remembered my Abe Lincoln.

“That’s the money from commercials and endorsements,” he said.

“What? I told them I wasn’t going to do any; in fact I insisted on that clause about limiting my publicity appearances.”

“Looks like they don’t believe you,” said Fleisher.

“Looks like I got what I wanted; 25 percent of nothing is nothing,” I said.

Two days later, I signed a four-year contract to play professional basketball.

Agents have told me that by choosing not to do endorsements I lose fifty thousand dollars every year I play professionally. I have had some unusual offers, and a few times I was close to agreeing to a deal, but when it came down to the crunch I said no. Perhaps I wanted no part of an advertising industry which created socially useless personal needs and then sold a product to meet those needs. Maybe I felt that endorsement offers came to me because I was a great white hope for some people and not because I was a great player, and that offended my sensibilities. Chalk one up for America’s two favorites: original sin and guilt. More probably, I wanted to keep my experience of basketball pure, as innocent and unpolluted by commercialism as possible. For many years basketball was my only passion in life. I was immune to the normal profusion of interests that accompany adolescence. I pressed my physical and emotional life into basketball alone, and it made for a very intense feeling. I felt about the court, the ball, and playing, the way people feel about friends. Playing for money compromised me enough. Taking money for hocking products demeaned my experience of the game. I cared about basketball. I didn’t give a damn about perfumes, shaving lotions, clothes, or special foods.

“Bill, is DeBusschere there?” said the man from the Knick office.

“No. Why?”

“Got an offer for him.”

“Tell me.”

“No, you’re not interested in this stuff.”

“Yeah, I am, maybe, tell me.”

“Well, there’s this broad who’s looking for a Knick to go into business with. She’s operating a hair salon on Eighth Avenue. I’ll give you the address.”

I took the elevator to the top floor and then walked directly into a shag-carpeted waiting room. Dark, heavy Spanish furniture cluttered the small space. (Do they really have this kind of taste in Spain?) A girl with a pallid complexion stood behind the glass display case, silhouetted against a large mirror with thick iron borders. The only light came from a few spotlights, shining on the magazine rack and on the ties arranged on the top of the glass case.

“Hi, I’m Lois,” said the woman. “You’re Bill Bradley. Come on back to my office.”

We walked past some rubbing tables and into the barbershop area, where two snow white manicurists with big red lips and tight uniforms were helping the barber care for a customer. We entered a cubicle 8 by 8 and sat facing each other across her desk.

“Let me tell you. My friend, he’s from down on Wall Street you know, and me, we want to start a health club. I know him personally. You see, he set me up in this and said it was mine all alone and he only wanted 50 percent of my shares. I trust him. He’s smart. He knows finance. I know the clientele—the Jewish men from the garment district. I know their mentality. I know what they like and that’s why this place is decorated like it is.

“But how to get ’em here is another question. That’s where you come in. If we called up one or two places over there and told ’em that Bill Bradley of the Knicks was getting his hair cut here or just hung around here for a few hours in the afternoon, they’d be over here in a minute. That’s just the way they are. We’d give you 20 percent of the business for doing that.

“We expect to make most of our money with the line of clothes in the boutique. You know, we’d have Bill Bradley ties and shirts. We expect to franchise this all over the country after we get going, so there could be some big money in it for you; $20,000 a year minimum.”

“I’ll think about it and let you know,” I said as I rang the elevator bell. The button I pressed was nestled carefully in the crotch of a carved wooden nymph nailed to the wall.

“Yeah, fucking A,” said the ad man, “I know what you mean. You want somethin’ that will make money and yet not compromise your values as a person. I see. Yeah, we’ll think about it.”

Two weeks later at a window table in the Four Seasons around 3
P.M
. after a long lunch he said, “You want somethin’ that’s class, and sports, and still you. Here it is.” His partner unveiled a 3′ by 4′ placard on which were written the words: BILL BRADLEY BRAINSTORMS INC. “You can put anything under that. It can be a holding company for operations like a computer school for ghetto kids, an education film company, or anything else. We would provide the advertising and some of the business management.

“We’ll want 80 percent. See, we have to have 80 percent for our own conglomerate reasons.”

“You will appear three times in a national magazine and all you will say is that you drink milk. How can milk be bad? It’s as American as apple pie,” said the man from Campbell Ewall in Detroit.

“Who pays me to say that?” I asked.

“The Associated Milk Producers of America and The American Dairy Association.”

“
Hi, Bill. Stan here. Let me explain a little about us. I came
over from Random House to manage this operation here for Playboy. The magazine is called
Oui
and it has sold 200,000 copies in three months. It is so good it’s frightening, but this market has been hurt by the recent surprise court ruling on pornography. During the last month we’ve cut deliveries to a couple of places in the South. Overall, though, there’s enormous demand for our product. We’ve conducted an in-depth survey on American sexual mores, an update of Kinsey. We want
Oui
to aim at the sophisticated college student, cosmopolitan and young. There’s a gap between the
Playboy
audience and the
Oui
audience. Europe will be a real part of
Oui
, both in style and stories. We have correspondents in the big European capitals.”

“What do you want from me?”

“We need image help. We want you to speak at selected luncheons in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Our key advertisers will attend. You won’t have to push the magazine or have pictures of you in it. We want to keep it subtle; low profile, you know. Just talk about sports or politics and answer questions. It will be good exposure for you. We’ll pay $2,500 a speech and guarantee you ten speeches a year, at least. Let me assure you that even if some people in Canton, Ohio, or Springfield, Missouri, don’t like
Oui
, the fact remains we sell a lot of copies there.”

Every good Celtic team has run a fast break, which means moving the ball downcourt before the defense gets ready. Rebound, outlet pass, pass, lay-up. The Knicks and Chicago use defensive pressures, but Boston generates offensive pressure, creating situations in which one defensive man must cover two offensive players converging on him at full speed from different directions. Every time you shoot against the Celtics your team must worry about retreating to counter the stampede which will ensue if the shot misses. If you get into a running game with them, you’re finished: An opponent will work eighteen seconds for two points and the Celtics will match that in five. That’s Celtic basketball.

When we force Boston to slow down the tempo of the game, they resort to the same seven plays that Red Auerbach instituted during his tenure as coach. They have maintained a style and approach to the game, even though there has been a generational change of personnel. Their system requires the following kinds of players: an offensive forward who runs well, a defensive (power) forward who rebounds well, a good-shooting forward ready on the bench, an offensive guard who shoots well, a defensive guard who is strong, a swing-man who can play either forward or guard, and an aggressive center who plays defense well and directs the flow of action.

Tonight, Boston is hitting. Havlicek, who gets two quick baskets, does not usually assert himself this much in the first six or seven minutes. The Celtics run three plays in to Cowens, clearing a side of the floor and allowing him to work at the low post on Lucas. Jo Jo White, the offensive guard with great quickness, hits two jumpers and beats Monroe to the basket on a drive. Havlicek then scores two more jumpers and two foul shots. The Celtics blow us out and win by thirty points. We say to ourselves afterwards that we lost because Lucas was feeling sick and Monroe was injured. But being candid, I wonder if the Celtics are not better than we are this year. The locker room is quiet.

The press files in.

“What happened to the offense?”

“Will you be able to beat the Celtics in the play-offs without Willis?”

“Where would you say they beat you? Rebounding or defense?”

“Have you ever seen Havlicek play better?”

I shower and dress quickly, saying very little to the reporters. Because we are in second place with only 15 games remaining in the season (and because Willis has made little improvement), they expect us to provide a witty observation about our own funeral. The only alternative is to parrot comments on the game as if our sputtering efforts are of no concern to defending champions. On my way out of the Garden, near the big automatic aluminum door on 33rd Street, I sign twelve autographs for young fans. There are fifty asking. I keep walking and signing, until I’m at a cab in front of the Garden. One little kid starts screaming, “Come on, Bradley, I waited. Don’t be like Monroe. Come on, Bradley, come on.” His voice has the tone of petulance. I’ve heard it before, too many times. Suddenly, I turn on him and say, “Why don’t you learn some manners? If you would have asked politely I might have signed it.” (And I would have.) As I get into the cab a teenager says, “Why don’t
you
learn somethin’?” and another yells, “What’s the matter, we only want your autograph, not your money, you bum.” As the cab pulls away and moves through the New York streets to a restaurant where I’m meeting some friends for dinner even my conscience turns on me. I begin to feel sorry for the little kid. He looked surprised when I scolded him. Maybe I was too abrupt.

The game depressed me. I keep saying to myself that we’ll be ready when the play-offs come, that these games only qualify us for the post-season competition. Yet, I can’t convince myself to take
this
evening’s defeat so cavalierly. Injuries affect our play but they are not our main worries. Timing and teamwork can’t be turned on and off as if they were spigots, and we didn’t have much of either tonight.

The cab pulls up in front of the restaurant, and as I pay the driver, he says, “You’re Bradley, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You guys better get on the ball. The play-offs start soon. Shit, what am I sayin’, forget the play-offs, I lost fifty dollars tonight. How’s Reed? Gonna play next week?”

The talk at dinner turns to things other than basketball. Good friends always bring up other things. I begin to forget the worries of the cab ride. We make plans for a summer trip. The conversation rooted in years of close association is about family and friends. The economy is damned, briefly. Money worries. Political anecdotes. Music. A long story about the training of quarter horses. Laughter. A few sarcastic puns. Communal eating.

In the middle of dinner a woman walks up and asks for my autograph. I tell her I’d be glad to do it later, after dinner. She walks away. Two minutes later, a man about 5′11″ with husky shoulders and a flat nose walks up to me at the table. “Hey, Bradley, you Bradley,” he says. He’s had too much to drink. I smile, thinking of the time a drunk reporter walked with his coat to the front of a plane on a transcontinental flight and told everyone he was getting off. We were over Kansas.

“What’s the matter, think you’re too good?” the drunk blurts. “The lady just asked for an autograph. I was pro fighter. I ought to knock you out, you son-of-a-bitch. You’re all alike. Lady has a kid….” He can’t stand still. He sways back and forth as he talks. I take a piece of paper without even nodding at him, scribble my name on it, and thrust it in his pocket.