It Was a Game Played for Fun of It; Wooden Has Most Fun of All

As Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls was hacked on his way to the hoop, National Basketball Assn. official Hue Hollins blew his whistle, fingered the guilty party and said: “Fifty-five.”

Stuart Gray of the Indiana Pacers, the 7-footer who had fouled Jordan, was wearing the number 55 on his jersey. Kiki Vandeweghe of the Portland Trail Blazers, the 6-foot 7 1/2-inch forward who was playing alongside Gray, also happened to be wearing 55.

“Which one?” the official scorer had to ask.

“Tall 55,” Hollins said.

Seconds later, some substitutes came into the game. For one side, Jordan, James Worthy, Kenny Smith, Joe Wolf and Al Wood went out; Bob McAdoo, Sam Perkins, Dudley Bradley, Charlie Scott and John Kuester came in. For the other side, Gray, Vandeweghe, Andre McCarter, Reggie Miller and James Wilkes went out; Greg Lee, Rod Foster, Brad Wright, Gary Maloncon and Jamaal Wilkes came in.

It was the UCLA-North Carolina game of a lifetime.

There were guys with long hair, short hair, gray hair, almost no hair. There were guys with guts like beach balls and guys as hard-bellied as lifeguards. There were funky dunks and two-handed set shots, rainmaker jumpers by Lynn Shackelford and loose balls pounced upon by Phil Ford, power moves by Curtis Rowe and twists and shouts by Dudley Bradley. Even Gail Goodrich did a walk-on. It was time capsule basketb1634495534in an Afro.

The guys who mixed it up for a couple of 20-minute halves Sunday at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion could wear any number they liked, and, in most cases, chose the ones they wore in college. It could have been confusing, but it wasn’t, not really. Nobody needed a scorecard to tell these players. With some of them, their numbers could have been unlisted.

Take 52 over there, in the powder-blue Carolina costume, with the beard. That’s James Worthy. You would know him anywhere. OK, so he is supposed to be decked out in Laker gold and purple. Or 42, with the white tank-top and the big spare tire. That’s Walt Hazzard. OK, so he is supposed to coach the UCLA team, not play for it. A guy can go to his college reunion, can’t he? He can fish out the old uniform and see if it still fits, can’t he?

In something of a be-true-to-your-school command performance, Worthy and Hazzard and Jordan and Vandeweghe and dozens of others suited up in their old college colors as part of what was called the Collegiate Legends Classic Weekend, possibly the first of its kind, possibly the last.

Dean Smith, honorary coach of the North Carolina alumni, said: “It may be a one-time thing, but I hope not.”

John Wooden, coach eternal for UCLA, said: “I had some anxiety and trepidation about how it would be accepted, but it seemed to go off very well. I know if they did this sort of thing in North Carolina next year, they’d fill that 25,000-seat building of theirs.”

Alas, only 4,828 came to Westwood to see the Wizard, for whom it had been declared “John Wooden Weekend” by official proclamation from Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Proceeds from the benefit game went to a UCLA scholarship for post-graduates named after Wooden’s wife of 53 years, Nell, who died in 1985. North Carolina’s University Fund also reaped a buck or two.

Although Wooden and Smith occupied their accustomed places of honor on the benches, flanked by some of the finest soldiers it had ever been their pleasure to command, they had precious little to do except sit back and enjoy. Television sportscaster Billy Packer handled the lineup selections and changes. “Coach Wooden and I had the easiest jobs we ever had,” Smith said.

It got even easier for Smith--whose team won the game, 116-111--because Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the once-upon-a-time Alcindor, was not able to attend, and Bill Walton, his successor at center on some of Wooden’s 10 national championship teams, was able only to attend, and not play. The game might have been a different story if they had played, Smith admitted. Then again, the actual game meant very little.

It was the pleasure of their company that mattered. The pleasure of watching old acquaintances, not forgotten, get together and do the things they used to do, or at least try to do the things they did. Naturally, the spirits were in better shape than the flesh. But, just to see Greg Lee’s long hair flapping in the breeze again, or Jamaal Wilkes releasing a slingshot jumper, or Rod Foster flashing the speed that he hasn’t been able to show since a Jeep accident near the end of his 1986 Phoenix Suns season, these things alone constituted treats.

Better still was Lennie Rosenbluth, 54 years old and a high school history teacher from Coral Gables, Fla., taking his old sweeping hook shot out of mothballs and banking it into the basket from the free-throw line. Out there among superstars not half his age, Rosenbluth scored three baskets.

“You don’t have to be in real good shape to shoot the hook,” Lennie said, huffing and puffing.

He remembered seeing a Navy man shoot that hook just as he was beginning his first season at Chapel Hill, back in 1955. It looked like a good thing to Rosenbluth, looked effective. And it was. Then, once school days were through, Rosenbluth got into teaching and weekend officiating, and never even picked up a basketball for fun. At least not until he heard that they were gathering up the old-timers for a reunion.

About six weeks ago, he started fooling around with it, for a half-hour or so every day. He didn’t run or jog, but he took a daily constitutional. And, by game day, he was ready and eager to try it. The other guys on the court had no idea what to expect. “They’d never seen me before,” Rosenbluth said. “Back when I played, they didn’t even take film of the games.”

As he was chatting outside the locker room after the game, his teammate, Michael Jordan, happened by. “Nice game,” Jordan said.

“Thanks, Mike,” Rosenbluth said.

“Think you’ll be out there playing that well when you’re 55?” an onlooker kidded Jordan.

“I don’t even have a hook shot,” Jordan said.

Rosenbluth laughed. All he had really wanted to do was not make a fool of himself in front of an audience and in front of some pretty fine basketball players.

“It’s been 30 years, let’s face it,” he said. “And it’s a tremendous thrill to be remembered. But some of these people must have been asking, ‘Who’s this Rosenbluth?’ When I got here, the first thing I heard was that they were going to try to play at least one player from every era. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. I mean, that’s a very short court when you’re young, but when you’re older, it’s a mile.”

The old graybeard of the UCLA squad was Denny Miller, who played for Wooden as early as 1954, and eventually dropped out during his senior year to become an actor. He has appeared in about a zillion movies and television shows, even playing the title role in 1959’s “Tarzan, the Ape Man,” a version post-Johnny Weismuller and pre-Bo Derek. Mostly, though, Miller has been a character actor, and to date, “I’ve died just about every way you can imagine.”

Sunday, it was death by Rosenbluth. The old Tar Heel got past him to make those hooks. “Who is this Rosenbluth?” Miller asked, laughing. “He was my man. I could have stopped him, but somebody attached these old legs to my body when I wasn’t looking. I’d have to give myself a minus-4 for this performance.”

Miller was simply delighted to be playing for Wooden one more time. “I had the privilege of playing for one of the greatest and most innovative coaches who ever lived,” he said. “And he was also a non-macho man in the locker room, a perfect gentleman who never needed four-letter words to get his point across.

“Of course, the only reason he let me play for him was that I was dating Nancy, his daughter. He used to tell me, ‘I want you right here on the bench, next to me, where I can see you. That way I know my daughter’s safe.’ ”

Players even older than Miller got together with Wooden before Sunday’s game. They had brunch together on campus, he and several men with Wizard of Westwood charter memberships, players from Wooden’s 1949 UCLA team, his first. He had, if not total recall, at least a good recollection for their names and faces, as with most of the athletes with whom he has associated. “I believe that I could still name you my high school baseball team from South Bend Central in 1934,” Wooden said. “I couldn’t give you the starting lineup, but I could give you most of the names.”

It did Wooden’s heart good to see his old Bruins out there again. He smiled when Lucius Allen aimed a jumper, and when Sidney Wicks tried to make a layup drill with a hand swathed in bandages--Wicks broke a finger in a pickup game, preparing for this game--and Wooden laughed when Hazzard, who now holds his old job, pretended to yell about bad calls.

“A couple times, I called everybody together in the huddle and told them to look interested, like they were listening to what I was saying, so it would look good for television,” Wooden said, positively twinkling.

The only setup of the day came late in the second half when a bogus technical foul was called on Dean Smith. The “designated free-throw shooter” turned out to be Goodrich, who was so deadly when he played for Wooden’s teams. Goodrich came out of the crowd, peeled off his suit jacket and southpawed a free throw for UCLA. Times definitely had changed, though. He missed it.

Hazzard was guarding North Carolina’s young and swift Kenny Smith at one point when Smith did a shake-and-bake and left the UCLA coach-turned-player flat. “Did you see me go up to stop that shot?” Hazzard asked. “First time in history it’s ever been recorded: Negative vertical leap.”

Wooden spotted Hazzard after the game, in a hallway.

“Walt,” Wooden said, gently settling a hand on Hazzard’s shoulder, “Abraham Lincoln once said he never met a man from whom he couldn’t learn something. although I don’t know exactly what you can learn from today’s experience.”

“Especially considering that final score,” Hazzard said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Wooden said, and went off to wherever it is wizards go.