An Old Hand Who Is Glad to Play Game Again

Norman Nixon was strolling over to stand beside his Clipper teammates at a party the other day, carrying a balloon in one hand and a cute, squirming little bundle in the other hand that happened to be 11-week-old Norman Nixon Jr., when he felt something attach itself to his left leg. It turned out to be his equally adorable, pigtailed daughter, Vivian, age 4, who was eager to tag along. She hooked her elbows and ankles around daddy’s knee as though it were a firehouse pole, and swayed back and forth.

Even though he is back playing basketball for a living instead of just watching it on TV while minding the children, Norm Nixon still knows how it feels to run a day-care center. The man is surrounded by kids, at work or play, all day long. Wherever he goes, younger people follow. He is the new Pied Piper of professional basketball, a man whose teammates, when they huddle, probably ask the coach if it’s OK if they fast-break behind Mr. Nixon.

Old jokes--jokes about being old, that is--have become Nixon’s lot in life, now that he has returned to the National Basketball Assn. after a 2-year injury-induced leave of absence. Everybody kids him about no longer being a kid. Everybody acts not only as though Nixon is the only veteran on the ballclub who remembers when Veterans Day was Armistice Day, but as though Norman was actually present when the armistice treaty was signed.

Even older guys kid him.

“I went to a game the other night and saw Norm Nixon, the ancient mariner, out on the floor doing stretching exercises,” NBA Commissioner David Stern said at the party Nixon attended. “I was surprised to see Norman. I thought he was in an old-age home.”

Elgin Baylor, no spring chicken, could not resist, either. Inquiring about the rehabilitation of Nixon’s surgically repaired Achilles’ tendon, someone asked the Clipper general manager what Nixon could do now that he couldn’t do a few months ago.

“He can get out of bed,” Baylor said. “Rigor mortis had set in.”

Poor, creaky old Norm Nixon.

Who just turned 33.

Thirty-three. Imagine that. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has socks that old. Mychal Thompson turns 34 next January. Michael Cooper turns 33 in April. Even Earvin Johnson turns 30 next summer.

“If I was still with the Lakers, I’d still be a baby,” Nixon said.

To the Clippers, though, Norman is as old as dirt. He is the guy on the bus who can tell them stories about when Michael Jackson was still with the Five, when Stevie Wonder was still Little Stevie, when Matt Dillon was not a Brat Pack actor but a guy on “Gunsmoke.”

Some of the Clippers probably figure that Nixon played with the Lakers when they were in Minneapolis. They must wonder how much he enjoyed passing the ball to George Mikan.

Asked if he appreciated the jokes, Nixon said it wasn’t so bad.

“I’m just glad to be working again,” he said, still holding infant in arms. “Baby needs milk.”

Those other babes, the Clippers, need parental guidance. Benoit Benjamin, Gary Grant, Charles Smith, Reggie Williams, Joe Wolf . . . there isn’t a one of them who was born earlier than 1964. Only Quintin Dailey and Greg Kite come semi-close to Nixon’s generation, and they were born in 1961. Danny Manning was born in 1966. Abdul-Jabbar was, at the time, a sophomore at UCLA.

It must be strange to have teammates who are 8 years younger than you, Nixon was told.

“Eight? Try 11,” he said.

Norm Nixon is the last vestige of the NBA’s past, a craftsman on a roster full of apprentices. He doesn’t feel old and won’t until someday somebody on the bench asks him who Kenny Carr was, or Earl Tatum, or Charlie Scott.

“I used to give Lou Hudson stuff about being the old man,” Nixon said. “And now the shoe’s on the other foot.”

Which reminds us of an old line by George Burns about being old. “I was always taught to respect my elders,” it went, “and now I’ve reached the age when I don’t have anybody to respect.”

Nixon, who on Saturday night made his first appearance since 1986 on a Los Angeles court, finds himself trying to supply some guidance for a basketball club that is gifted but green. Poor Norman must endure the indignities of losses to the Charlotte Hornets and other lousy clubs without being certain that he will still be around, as many of his teammates will, that sunny day when these juvenile delinquent Clippers finally turn their youthful promise into sweet success.

Distraction from all the defeats is provided by the satisfaction of at least being back in action. Nixon just wishes he could get his hands and legs to obey his every command.

“It’s a pleasure just to get back on the court, but just now, when my body is rehabilitated, my game is still in therapy,” he said.

Although recovery was long and arduous, it was not nearly so tedious as it might have been, because Nixon’s wife helped make it more fun. Debbie Allen, of “Fame” fame, encouraged him into a type of conditioning that is a little more stimulating than just lifting barbells and grunting. She danced him back into shape.

Magic Johnson may have a basketball court in his house, but Debbie Allen and Norm Nixon have a dance studio in theirs, so Nixon trained more like a Laker Girl than like a Laker.

Now he is back on the basketball court, ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Yes, they did have rock ‘n’ roll in Norm Nixon’s day. No matter what anybody tells you, he ain’t so old. Nixon, like Elvis, lives on.