The Big O Read online

  “As one of the NBA’s all-time greats, Oscar Robertson has much to pass on to both his old fans and young basketball enthusiasts perhaps unfamiliar with his legacy.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Oscar was one of basketball’s great leaders, and his life is one of basketball’s great stories. He was unafraid, unabashed, and unmatched in everything he did. There will never be another like him.”—Bill Russell

  “Known as an intelligent player and respected by his peers as an intelligent man, Robertson puts an exclamation point on the accolades with this thoughtful reflection on a life lived without compromise. A well-written, entertaining, and thought-provoking sports autobiography—but would we ever expect less than a triple-double from the Big O?”—Wes Lukowsky, Booklist

  “Oscar Robertson was never a rookie. He was the measuring stick for how a player should play. It is an honor to know him and to have competed against him. He is a man for the ages.”—Jerry West

  “Every time I get on a basketball court, I’m chasing Oscar Robertson’s legend. He set the standard for guys like me. I can only hope, when I’m done playing, that I’ve come close to what he’s accomplished.”—Jason Kidd

  The Big O

  My Life, My Times, My Game

  Oscar Robertson

  University of Nebraska Press

  Lincoln and London

  © 2003 by Oscar Robertson

  All rights reserved

  Except where otherwise credited, photographs appearing in this book are from the personal collection of Oscar Robertson.

  Credit and additional permission information is located on page 333.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Robertson, Oscar, 1938–

  The big O: my life, my times, my game / Oscar Robertson.

  p. cm.

  Originally published: Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, c2003.

  ISBN 978-0-8032-3463-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-5323-0 (electronic: e-pub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-5324-7 (electronic: mobi)

  1. Robertson, Oscar, 1938– 2. Basketball players—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  GV884.R6A3 2010

  796.323092—dc22

  [B] 2010013129

  To the one true love of my life and my friend, my wife, Yvonne, who has been a tremendous beacon for me to grow culturally and intellectually.

  To my daughters, Shana, Tia, and Mari. I deeply appreciate being your father.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  CHAPTER ONE: The Crossroads of America: 1938–1951

  CHAPTER TWO: Li’l Flap: 1951–1954

  CHAPTER THREE: “They Don’t Want Us”: 1954–1955

  CHAPTER FOUR: “Talk Is Cheap”: 1955–1956

  CHAPTER FIVE: Collegiate Life: 1956–1958

  CHAPTER SIX: “What They Eat Don’t Make Me Fat”: 1958–1959

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Gold: 1959–1960

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Rookie Stardom: 1960–1961

  CHAPTER NINE: The Triple-Double: 1961–1963

  CHAPTER TEN: Union President, NBA Royalty: 1963–1968 (Part One)

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Sixties Continued: 1963–1968 (Part Two)

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Moving On: 1969–1970

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Milwaukee, Lew Alcindor, and the Championship: 1970–1971

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Do Not Go Gently: 1971–1974

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Endings: 1974–1976

  Epilogue

  Credits

  Acknowledgments

  MY THANKS TO Charles Bock, Jeremy Katz, and Rodale for fulfilling this project. And special thanks to Zelda Spoelstra.

  To my grandparents Early and Pearl Bell and all my Bellsburg, Tennessee, family. To my hardworking mother and father and my brothers, Bailey and Henry, for providing an innocent, happy childhood.

  To Crispus Attucks High School for those wonderful growing and learning years—two state high school basketball championships, one undefeated—and for providing the catalyst for the black population of Indianapolis to be proud. My greatest teachers were from Crispus Attucks High School, who showed me the great value of education. It certainly made it easier for me to compete in college.

  The success I enjoyed came from those teammates and those I played against. Thank you, all those players from Colton Street, Lockefield Gardens, and “Mr. Lockefield,” James “Bruiser” Gaines.

  Thank you, Coach Tom Sleet, Albert Spurlock, and especially Ray Crowe for helping me achieve against odds that I had not even met yet.

  To George Smith, my coach at the University of Cincinnati, for letting me use all my talents on a national level. I am grateful to the University of Cincinnati for an indispensable role in my educational growth. I appreciate those talented professors who did not hinder me from achieving academic excellence.

  I owe Jimmy and Para Lee Brown deep appreciation for providing a safe haven away from home. My heartfelt thanks to Austin and Gladys Tillotson for their love and many kindnesses, to Art Hull for his friendship, and to Dr. Odell Owens for his enthusiasm.

  Thank you to Mrs. William C. Swatts Sr. for all your care; for producing my best friend, Dr. William C. Swatts Jr.; and for helping to shape my childhood.

  To all those special friends . . .

  To Walter Paul for his persistence in getting me to the University of Cincinnati. Thank you for being a sensitive, supportive, and wonderful friend. To J. W. Brown, my attorney and dear friend, who provided guidance, wise professional advice, and loyalty. Jake understood people and made our personal talks so very enjoyable. I sincerely miss his presence. To his son, Robert, my attorney now, my profound indebtedness for writing the Milwaukee Bucks contract and for being a steadfast supporter and lifelong friend. And special thanks to Larry Fleisher.

  Thank you, Michael O’Daniel, Ira Berkow, Leonard Lewin, and Tom Collins—the elite of sportswriters. A special thanks to another special writer, Milt Gross, for his wisdom and advice starting when I was a shy, young player and continuing on to the end of my career.

  Preface

  I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT that a wonderful thing about sports is that they give everyone a chance. A child doesn’t have to be the best. He or she doesn’t have to make the team in high school or college. A child can decide if he or she doesn’t want to play, doesn’t like the sport, or doesn’t want to do the work it takes to improve. But all people should be given the opportunity to go out and compete and see what they can do in comparison to others. That’s one of the wonderful things about America as well. This country promises everyone a chance. It is a promise that has not always been kept. A promise many of us had to fight for, even die for. But the promise has always been here, a shining beacon down the road.

  And when some shy, small boy somewhere gets a chance and picks up a ball—say, a basketball—who knows what can happen, what heights to which he might rise? If he is dedicated enough, talented enough, strong enough, he just might do things on the basketball court that no one has ever seen before. Things no one has done since. He might wind up changing how the game of basketball is played.

  Maybe, just maybe, if he works hard enough and is strong enough, he could be called the best who ever lived.

  And maybe this would be just the beginning.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Crossroads of America

  1938–1951

  THE WORLD OF MY CHILDHOOD has as many ties to the Civil War as it does to today. My great-grandfather Marshall Collier was born in 1838, less than two years after Davy Crockett died at the Alamo. Marshall was raised in slavery, in rural Dickson County, smack-dab in the center of Tennessee’s western highland rim, some thirty miles outside Nashville. Collier was the surname of the estate’s landowner, and I don’t know
what Marshall’s family name might have been. Family lore has it that Marshall ran off a lot when he was a slave. He would usually get no further than the Cumberland River. Marshall was always caught, but he was never beaten, or so I’m told. Whenever my father told me this story, he said that Marshall wasn’t beaten because he was the master’s son. He said that this was one of the small ways in which Marshall’s parentage was acknowledged.

  Some accounts have set his height at seven feet two inches. I don’t remember him being that tall, but he certainly was a long, lanky man, with light skin and high cheekbones. Marshall had keen features and mixed blood, no doubt about it: part Cherokee, West African, and white. As a boy, he heard of Nat Turner’s rebellion and as a young man saw his unacknowledged father and brothers go away to fight in gray. He saw Union troops in blue, manning nearby Fort Donelson. He lived through Reconstruction, the infestation of carpetbaggers, and later still, the Klan nights.

  With the end of the war and emancipation, Marshall received a stretch of land. Like all my other Tennessee relatives, my great-grandfather spent his life as a farmer, a genuine man of the land. He went out into the fields every day of his life, planting and harvesting crops. He worked those fields right up until the day his eyesight failed him and he could no longer recognize his own hand in front of his face. Daddy Marshall lived to be 116. When he passed from the earth, he was the oldest man in the United States, and he had never traveled above the Mason-Dixon line.

  My father came from the little nearby community of Bellsburg, a town of just a few hundred residents in the north end of Dickson County. I once did some research and discovered that the town was named after a settler named Shadrach Bell during the early 1800s. Supposedly, Shadrach founded the territory while selling slaves, many of whom also ended up taking the Bell surname. Meanwhile, one of the area’s first white settlers was a man named James Robertson. In 1799, this particular Robertson undertook a minerals survey in the area. On that first expedition, James Robertson brought a Negro man with him. Soon after, he returned with a number of slaves to build a fort on the bluffs of the Cumberland. Not long after this, James Robertson started the first iron furnace in that area. To this day, the names of Robertson, Bell, and Collier—names that white settlers and farmers brought with them to Tennessee—can still be found there, carried by their descendants, whether acknowledged or not.

  One of Daddy Marshall’s daughters, Lonnie Collier, married a former slave from Virginia named Ed Robertson. Ed wound up in Tennessee because the man who owned him died. Not long after that, the man’s widow had to take a mule to Tennessee. My grandfather helped her, and when they got to Tennessee, she freed him. Ed Robertson became a minister at the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church. He and his brother, Herschel, often took to the road, driving around in an old rumble-seat car, preaching the word of the Lord, often running into members of the Klan. But everyone knew Ed Robertson was doing holy work. “That’s just Ed,” someone would say, and they’d let him go. Later, he married Lonnie. Their son, Bailey Robertson Sr., is my father.

  Ed Robertson and Lonnie Collier split up after their children were born. For a time, Ed and his children kept traveling the road with Herschel, preaching, until Ed passed away. I was never told what did him in. My dad was raised by his aunt, Ever Robertson. Dad called her Aunt Ever. For a long time, my father thought Ever was his mother. When he graduated from sixth grade, Dad joined the rest of his family, friends, and pretty much everyone else in Bellsburg, working full-time, farming tobacco and corn out in the fields. The work was honorable, Dad used to tell me, and the white farm-owners treated him pretty well. Dad wasn’t especially tall, five feet eleven inches or so. If you look at a picture of him as a young man, you can see my cheeks and build. I could easily be mistaken for his brother.

  Among whites, Mom’s parents went by the nicknames of Uncle Early and Aunt Pearl. Pearl worked as a domestic in white homes, even breastfed white children. The whites refused to call my grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Bell. Nobody in my family—or the rest of the black community, really—called them Aunt and Uncle. Papa and Mama Pearl were the names we knew them by.

  As a young man, Papa worked on the Ohio River as a sharecropper. He read the Bible every night, and he worked hard in the fields all day, walking behind a mule and a plow. A white man, Blake Span, and my grandfather worked together in the bottomland. Though they were good friends in the fields, it ended there. Other white people who lived nearby also thought highly of my grandfather, but outside of certain accepted places, such as the fields, socializing between races simply was not accepted.

  My grandfather worked the fields and over a stretch of years saved up enough money for a down payment. He bought a plot of land from the white farmer who lived across the road from him. His three hundred dollars, quite a bit of money back then, bought him less than twenty acres. Papa dug his own 187-foot well on the property. He worked his own mills and milked his own cow; he raised hogs and a kitchen garden—one he kept in the wintertime as well as the summertime. He grew crops of corn, black-eyed peas, hay, and tobacco, using a horse and mules even when most other people got tractors. Papa also worked twenty acres along the Cumberland River for a white man named Lightfoot.

  Papa wasn’t a complex man. What he did with his life was raise the crops that kept his family and the animals fed, make a little money, and pay off his farm so that his family had something that belonged to them. He read the Bible every night, sang church songs, and talked about the Bible. I have distant memories of him leaving the house before sunrise and returning after dark. He used to sit on his porch all night and rock in his favorite chair, shelling peas and singing hymns.

  I wish I could provide a romantic story about how my parents met. But the truth is, I don’t know. Bellsburg, as well as the other bottomlands outside Charlotte, Tennessee, was and remains farming country. Its people are farm people. There aren’t too many ways to meet folks out there, and, when you get down to it, not too many folks to meet. But my paternal grandfather, Ed, had been the minister at Mount Zion; my mother’s side of the family was numerous and spread throughout Dickson County, with the church a center of their social lives. So if I had to guess, I’d say there’s a good chance that my parents met at church.

  They were young when they met. My mom, Mazell, was less than twenty, and Dad was somewhere around the same age. Once they were married, they lived with Mama Pearl and Papa Bell in their small farmhouse on State Highway 29 in northern Dickson County.

  My older brothers, Bailey Robertson Jr. and Henry, were born in that farmhouse. And on a snowy Thanksgiving Day, 1938, exactly one hundred years to the day after Daddy Marshall’s birth, I was born there too. It was a tough birth, and I was a frail, sickly infant. According to my mother, nobody thought I would survive. If I did somehow make it, then it looked like my left foot would be deformed. Mom and my grandfather took turns massaging that foot during the first weeks of my life, telling each other that I had to pull through.

  My childhood memories of Tennessee are of stretching fields of grass and corn, with trees and mountains lining the distance, and a blue sky thick with clouds. We lived what I imagine was, back then, the typical life of a Negro family in the rural South. The Klan was active in Tennessee, but we never saw them, and no one talked about our conditions. We were simply happy to be around our families, see our relatives, go to church, work in the fields, and get together on Sundays and socialize. There were cakes and chickens and other food. My memories of those days are wonderful ones, and it’s not crazy to imagine that my family could have stayed on that patch of land forever, passing the farmhouse and the chores down from generation to generation, with nothing changing except the names on the birth certificates and the names on the gravestones.

  But the 1930s were a brutal decade for American farmers—harsh on whites, and you know that only deepened the hardship for blacks. As the decade came to a close, farming throughout the South was in the middle of something of a revolution. Tracto
rs and harvesters were replacing mules and manual labor, and mechanization was in the process of making black tenant farmers and sharecroppers expendable. Though Daddy Marshall and Papa Bell kept working their land, my father started traveling twenty-five miles a day to Nashville to work. Over time, Dad came to understand that no black man had a realistic chance of getting the money necessary to purchase any of the expensive machinery now needed to make a go of farming. He had a wife and three kids, and we were growing. Bailey Jr. was about ready to finish grade school, and Henry and I were not that far behind. I was too young to be attending classes, but rules or not, I’d started going to school with my brothers at nearby Mount Zion, where I was taught by Lizzie Gleaves. She had to be god-sent. I knew the alphabet, could count to a hundred, and listened to a lot of the Bible.

  No nearby white high school admitted black children, and none of the black high schools were close enough for us to attend. My father was intent on making sure his children had more chances at an education and a better living than he’d had.

  Dad had an aunt named Inez who lived in Indianapolis. She constantly encouraged him to try his luck up north in Indiana, the self-proclaimed Crossroads of America. This was 1942. The attack on Pearl Harbor had the draft board busy issuing letters to every available white male. Logic followed that someone was going to have to stay at home and manufacture those tanks, bombers, and battleships. President Roosevelt had issued executive orders barring discrimination in defense-industry hiring, so all of a sudden, something of a duplication of the chain of events from World War I was underway, and all sorts of jobs were available for black folks in most of the big cities. Inez made sure that my father knew that there were jobs to be had in Indianapolis, and after a cursory stint in Nashville, trying to find work, Dad listened to Inez and ventured over to Indianapolis.