A Different Spin

Thirty years ago, Spencer Haywood went to the U.S. Supreme Court and won the right to play in the NBA. Now, the poster child for the underage draft thinks there are too many teen-agers in the league.

“It has changed for the worse,” Haywood said. “It’s a bad thing. It’s bad for the league and bad for the young people who come in unqualified. These kids are immature. They’re not ready for the responsibility.”

Haywood believes players should be required to play at least two seasons in college before going to the NBA.

That’s what he had when he became the centerpiece in the war for players between the maverick ABA and established NBA. He was signed by the ABA’s Denver Rockets after a year of junior college and a year at the University of Detroit.

That was heresy. Here was a player, team and league flouting the established rules of the game that required players not to turn pro until their college class graduated.

Haywood wasn’t concerned with that. What he cared about was his family, nine brothers and sisters.

“I was 19,” he said. “All I was trying to do was help my mother get off her knees picking cotton in the Delta of Mississippi.”

There was no question that physically, he was ready. He had led the United States to an Olympic gold medal on a team that won despite a boycott by some of the country’s best players.

Haywood signed with the Rockets for $1.9 million over six years, most of it back-loaded in an annuity. The front load was a $100,000 a year salary that sounded pretty good to him. A year later, after he was the scoring champ, rookie of the year and MVP, the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics offered $250,000 a year over 15 years, which sounded even better.

With no concern for the draft or the college class rule, Seattle signed him. And then the fun really started.

Haywood was perceived as Public Enemy No. 1 when he challenged the status quo, shaking up both leagues, the NCAA, the University of Detroit and a few others.

“It was crazy,” he said. “They all sued me--the NBA, the NCAA. I think the NAACP sued me, too.”

Not really, but he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“The NCAA sued me for $600 million,” he said. “Where was I going to get that? The ABA sued for ‘unspecified millions.’ The University of Detroit sued for $50 million. The NBA sued.”

Haywood sued, too, fighting for the right to earn a living.

The lawyers were having a field day.

Haywood remembered how he’d be introduced for a game and before the tip-off the arena announcer said: “There is an illegal player on the floor. No. 24 must leave the premises.”

Another injunction filed and granted.

There was name-calling, phoned threats on his life, a whole lot of ugliness. Haywood was cornered.

“I had closed doors,” he said. “I couldn’t go back to the ABA because the war was so fierce. I knew if I lost, I would be hung out to dry.

“My mother was in the Delta, making $2.50 a day. My sisters and brothers were still there. The whole family worked from sun up to sun down, making $30 a week.”

First, Haywood won his case. Then, he lost on appeal. Eventually, the issue reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices ruled 7-2 in his favor. He was the classic hardship case, free to play, allowed to help his family.

After the decision was announced, Haywood was invited to lunch by Justice Thurgood Marshall. This was a man who had been in the middle of Brown vs. Board of Education, America’s landmark civil rights case in 1954.

“Marshall told me to make every effort to get the decision sealed, to make sure it stayed the way it had been written--the Spencer Haywood Rule. He said if I didn’t, the players will never know who you are.”

Haywood looked at the justice. “I said, ‘This was not about me. This was about a revolutionary act.’

“Can you imagine, me telling that to Thurgood Marshall?”

Marshall was right. The Spencer Haywood Rule became the hardship draft and then the underage draft. He had been the Curt Flood of basketball, willing to fight powerful forces and an entrenched system, a trailblazer for the rights of players.

Now, when he meets the current generation of players and introduces himself, there is a blank look, no recognition.

“They have no idea who I am,” Haywood said, a little bemused by the whole situation. “They look at me as If I’m crazy.”