EPISODE 244: "Dixieball" - With Thomas Aiello

Valdosta State University Professor of History and African American Studies Thomas Aiello ("Dixieball: Race and Professional Basketball in the Deep South") joins our first podcast of the New Year - with an intriguing look into the tortuous history of pro hoops in America's Deep South.

While NBA fans take today's Hawks and Pelicans as historical "givens," their very existences belie the Sunbelt South's complicated economic and social relationship with professional sports during the modern era - especially with respect to basketball.

We dig into the sport's tenuous first professional incursions into both New Orleans (the ABA's charter Buccaneers) and Atlanta (the NBA's relocated St. Louis Hawks) during the culturally and politically charged late-1960s - as well as why it took so long for those franchises to even materialize in the first place.

​Aiello also takes us through the similarly challenged exploits of the NBA's New Orleans Jazz (today domiciled in Utah) of the 1970s - who, despite the dazzling on-court wizardry of adopted LSU native son Pete Maravich, found the going in the Big Easy to be anything but.

Dixieball: Race and Professional Basketball in the Deep South, 1947-1979 - buy book here

EPISODE 242: Pittsburgh's Civic Arena ("The Igloo") - With Dave Finoli

Our "tour" of lost pro sports venues continues with another stop in the Keystone State, this time for a loving look back at the life and times of Pittsburgh's legendary Civic Arena - aka "The Igloo" - with Steel City native Dave Finoli (editor, "Pittsburgh's Civic Arena: Stories from the Igloo").

Originally constructed in 1961 for the city's Civic Light Opera, the Arena was an ahead-of-its-time architectural marvel - distinctively adorned by a massive 3,000-ton retractable steel-roof dome that was world's first of its kind - making not just an attractive venue for music and entertainment, but big-time sports of all kinds.

Over time, the Igloo became synonymous with its longest-running tenant - the NHL's Penguins - who became the building's main occupant as an expansion franchise in 1967, and saw three (of its total five) Stanley Cup title runs.

But, of course, we remember the other teams that also called the Civic Arena home - including: basketball's Rens, Pipers & Condors; World Team Tennis' Triangles; soccer's Spirit & Stingers; arena football's Gladiators; lacrosse's Bulls & CrosseFire; and even roller hockey's oft-forgotten Phantoms.

And don't forget Dr. J's Pisces too!

Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena: Stories From the Igloo - buy book here

EPISODE 232: DC Hoops History - With Brett Abrams

It's a return to the Nation's Capital this week as we take a romp through Washington, DC's surprisingly rich pro basketball history with Brett Abrams (The Bullets, the Wizards, and Washington, DC Basketball).

While today's astute District hoops fans know the current Washington Wizards were once known as the Bullets - the name under which the franchise won its one and only NBA title back in 1978, and from which it converted to its mystically less violence-connoted label in 1997 - lesser devotees of the team are aware of its previous home (Baltimore: 1963-73), let alone its origins as the NBA's first-ever expansion club in 1961, the Chicago Packers.

Of course, true Washington basketball connoisseurs know the city's relationship with the professional game runs far deeper - dating all the way back to the mid-1920s American Basketball League "Palace Five" - owned by future Washington NFL football owner George Preston Marshall.

And in between, a host of teams - all domiciled in the NE quadrant's history-drenched Washington Coliseum (née Uline Arena) - attempted to keep pro hoops in the local sports spotlight:

• The Red Auerbach-coached Capitols (1946-51) of the NBA-antecedent Basketball Association of America;

• The half-season-lasting Tapers of Abe Saperstein's not-much-longer-lasting "new" American Basketball League (1961); and

• The exceedingly curious single season (1969-70) American Basketball Association "Caps" - the peripatetic franchise that began its life (along with the ABA's) in 1967 as the Oakland Oaks, and ended as the regionally-oriented Virginia Squires until the league's demise in 1976.

The Bullets, The Wizards, and Washington, DC Basketball - buy book here

EPISODE 223: ABA Hoops & More - With Jim O'Brien

Pittsburgh’s dean of sportswriters Jim O’Brien (Looking Up: From the ABA to the NBA the WNBA to the NCAA - A Basketball Memoir; Looking Up Again - A Basketball Memoir) has seen it all in his more than 50 years of chronicling stories across the pro and collegiate sports landscape - but perhaps no more deeply than in basketball, and in more detailed fashion than during the old American Basketball Association.

Throughout the life of the league, you could find O’Brien’s reliable ABA reportage and musings seemingly everywhere: essential weekly columns in The Sporting News; meticulous pre-season team & player profiles in the annual Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball; and the hugely influential Street & Smith’s Basketball Yearbook (which he co-founded in 1970) - where he strove to ensure the challenger circuit's coverage was equal to that of the legacy NBA's.

We merely scratch the surface of O'Brien's treasure trove of stories from the old "red-white-and-blue" in this week's episode - where you'll hear personal reminiscences of legendary ABA figures like Connie Hawkins, Julius Erving, and (Episode 132 guest) Dan Issel; the significance of the former league's recent fiftieth anniversary; and why Pittsburgh was (both in the antecedent American Basketball League, and thrice-versioned in the ABA), and then wasn't a great pro hoops city.

Looking Up: From the ABA to the NBA, the WNBA to the NCAA - A Memoir - buy book here

EPISODE 217: The Other Side(s) of Wilt - With Robert Cherry

We dial up Robert Cherry, author of the definitive biography of legendary pro basketball great Wilt Chamberlain ("Wilt: Larger Than Life"), to delve into the lesser-known (but enormously fascinating) aspects of the "Big Dipper"'s athletic career - including intriguing stops and stints with:

• The Harlem Globetrotters (1958-59) - where Chamberlain effectively played out his senior college year after two years (and an NCAA Tournament Final) with Kansas, before becoming age-eligible for the NBA Draft;

• The Philadelphia Warriors (1959-62) - "Mogul" Eddie Gottleib's burgeoning NBA franchise where Chamberlain was preordained to join by way of the league's territorial rights framework, and where he quickly shattered all kinds of scoring records - including a history-making 100-point game against the NY Knicks on 3/2/62;

• The San Diego Conquistadors (1973-74) - the rival ABA's first (and only) expansion franchise that lured Chamberlain away from his remaining option year with the LA Lakers (after two consecutive NBA Finals appearances and a title in 1972) with a $600,000 offer to be the Qs' combo player/coach; and

• The International Volleyball Association (1974-79) - where Chamberlain wore a myriad of hats as a founder, investor, owner, player (Southern California Bangers, Orange County Stars, Seattle Smashers), coach, and even league Commissioner.

Wilt: Larger Than Life - buy book here

EPISODE 172: The Forgotten Pro Teams of New Orleans – With Nick Weldon

We point our GPS coordinates this week to the endearingly enigmatic city of New Orleans, for an overdue look into the Big Easy’s chaotic pro sports franchise history – with Historic New Orleans Collection writer (and recovering sports scribe) Nick Weldon (“A Streetcar Named Basketball”).

Although a mainstay of baseball’s minor and Negro leagues since the dawn of the sport’s professional era in the late 1800s (including Louis Armstrong’s well-outfitted, attention-grabbing, but largely lamentable 1931 barnstorming “Secret Nine” club), Louisiana’s largest city has been considered more of a football town over the last half-century – especially after the arrival of the NFL Saints in 1967.

But it’s the pursuit (and occasional success) of pro basketball that has captured the fancy of local sports entrepreneurs most in the intervening decades – providing the Crescent City with some of its most fascinating, yet oft-forgotten sporting exploits:

• The American Basketball Association’s Buccaneers (1967-70) – a charter member, who came within one game of winning the league’s first-ever title, before moving to Memphis two seasons later;

• The National Basketball Association’s Jazz (1974-79) – an expansion franchise known mostly for the dazzling on-court wizardry of local LSU hero “Pistol” Pete Maravich, and not much else;

• The Women’s Professional Basketball League’s Pride (1979-81) – ready-made to take advantage of the region’s strong female collegiate roots and presumptive US women’s success at the (eventually boycotted) 1980 Olympics; AND

• The arrival of the NBA’s Hornets (now Pelicans) in 2002 – finally cementing the long-term viability of pro basketball in New Orleans.

Weldon helps us dig in to all of these points on NOLA’s pro hoops history curve – but also some tantalizing tangents like the one-year incarnation of the USFL’s New Orleans Breakers, and even the “Sun Belt” Nets of the original mid-1970s World Team Tennis.

EPISODE 137: Basketball’s Marvin “Bad News” Barnes – With Mike Carey

Marvin “Bad News” Barnes was considered a future Hall of Fame basketball player before he even graduated from college.  A standout at Providence (averaging 20.7 points and 17.9 rebounds a game, and leading the Friars to the NCAA Final Four in 1973), Barnes was a consensus 1974 All-American with the world at his fingertips.

Although Barnes enjoyed two flamboyantly successful years in the American Basketball Association with the colorful Spirits of St. Louis – where he won 1974-75 Rookie of the Year honors, as well as All-Star accolades both seasons – his career quickly fizzled in the post-merger NBA, where he wore out his welcome with the Detroit Pistons, Buffalo Braves, Boston Celtics, and San Diego Clippers in just four years.

By 1980, Barnes’ unpredictable idiosyncrasies – fueled by chronic drug and alcohol abuse – had turned a can’t-miss pro basketball superstar into a prematurely past-his-prime has-been.

Longtime Boston sportswriter Mike Carey ("Bad News": The Turbulent Life of Marvin Barnes, Pro Basketball's Original Renegade) joins this week’s show to delve into the tragic story of a supremely gifted athlete whose self-destructive nature took him from sure-fire basketball greatness to a life of homeless panhandling, drug dealing and pimping on the mean streets of East San Diego, and five years in prison.

Even with seemingly limitless chances to turn things around, Barnes was repeatedly undone by predictable slides back into addiction and reckless behavior – ultimately succumbing to acute cocaine and heroin intoxication in 2014 at age 62. 

The story of Marvin Barnes is one of squandered talent, met by tragically unconquerable inner demons.

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“Bad News”: The Turbulent Life of Marvin Barnes, Pro Basketball’s Original Renegade - buy here

EPISODE 132: ABA Basketball Memories – With Hall of Famer Dan Issel

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame legend Dan Issel joins this week’s ‘cast to discuss his All-Star career in the American Basketball Association with two of the league’s most (relatively) stable franchises – the Kentucky Colonels and the Denver Nuggets.  And a brief cup of coffee with one its shakiest, in between.

After an outstanding, twice-named All-American collegiate career at the University of Kentucky (where he still remains as all-time leading scorer) in the late 1960s, Issel spurned a draft call by the NBA’s Detroit Pistons for a chance to stay in the Commonwealth with the John Y. Brown-owned, Louisville-based Colonels.

Joining an already solid lineup (including future Hall of Famer Louis Dampier), Issel immediately lit up the 1970-71 ABA with a league-leading 29.9 points-per-game – powering Kentucky to the ABA Finals (losing to the Utah Stars in seven games), and a share of the league’s Rookie of the Year title.

An eventual six-time ABA All-Star (including his and the league’s final season with the later NBA-absorbed Nuggets), Issel’s prolific scoring touch help lead the Colonels to its first and only league championship in 1975 – later “rewarded” with an unpopular Brown-directed trade to Denver, by way of curious detour to the Baltimore Claws – a franchise that lasted only three pre-season games. 

Issel ultimately became the ABA’s second all-time leading scorer (behind Dampier), and upon his retirement from the NBA Nuggets in 1985, only Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Julius Erving had amassed more points (he now sits 11th all time).

We obsess with Issel about his trials and tribulations across the ABA – as well as his current role in helping Louisville return to the pro game with its pursuit of a long-elusive NBA franchise.

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EPISODE 129: ABA Basketball's Origin Story – With Founder Dennis Murphy

The American Basketball Association was not founder Dennis Murphy’s original intent. 

Thwarted in his attempt to get the fast-growing city of Anaheim, CA (he was mayor of nearby Buena Park) into the fledgling American Football League during the mid-1960s, Murphy quickly pivoted his attention to basketball – reasoning that with only 12 teams in the staid, yet long-established National Basketball Association, there surely must have been room for more.

“What the hell,” Murphy told author Terry Pluto in his seminal 1990 oral history Loose Balls.  “The AFL had worked, hadn't it?  Maybe we could force a merger with the NBA."

By the end of the ABA’s ninth season in 1976, Murphy’s unwitting prescience had become reality – and along with it, a validating blueprint for how to modernize professional sports in North America.

The legendarily inveterate sports entrepreneur (Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues) joins the podcast to discuss how the iconically idiosyncratic ABA got started, as well as hints of how other future pursuits – like the World Hockey Association, World Team Tennis, the World Football League, and Roller Hockey International – would similarly come to be. 

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Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association - buy here

Murph: The Sports Entrepreneur Man and His Leagues - buy here

Game Changer: The Dennis Murphy Story - watch here

EPISODE #101: New York Yankees Broadcaster John Sterling

Legendary New York Yankees baseball play-by-play man John Sterling joins host Tim Hanlon for a cavalcade of career memories from his 50+ year journey in sports broadcasting – including a treasure trove of stops along the way with previously incarnated or otherwise defunct teams (and leagues).

Now celebrating his 30th consecutive season with the Bronx Bombers, Sterling’s unique vocal stylings have become synonymous with some of the Yankees’ most signature moments during that time – including the team’s dominant run of American League and World Series championships across the late 1990s and much of the 2000s. 

The path to becoming one of baseball’s marquee team broadcasters was far from direct, however, and we (naturally) obsess over some of Sterling’s more memorable “forgotten” gigs along the way, including:

• Falling into radio play-by-play with the NBA Baltimore Bullets as a late fill-in for Jim Karvellas;

• Becoming the almost-voice of the ABA Washington Caps (until a hasty move to Virginia to become the Squires);

• Hustling to secure radio rights to the upstart WHA New York Raiders for Gotham’s talk powerhouse WMCA - and the irony of later calling games for the NHL Islanders;

• The highs of the ABA New York, and lows of the NBA New Jersey Nets;

• “Phoning it in” for the World Football League’s short-lived New York Stars; AND

• The ahead-of-its-time Enterprise Sports Radio Network.

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Classic John Sterling audio clips courtesy of Eric Paddon; follow him on YouTube here

EPISODE #48: How the ABA’s Indiana Pacers Helped “Change the Game” – with Bob Netolicky & Robin Miller

Four-time American Basketball Association All-Star Bob Netolicky and former Indianapolis Star sportswriter Robin Miller join host Tim Hanlon to share some of their most memorable (and heretofore untold) first-person accounts of playing and traveling with the thrice-ABA-champion Indiana Pacers – and promote their upcoming book We Changed the Game, penned in partnership with original team co-founder/owner Dick Tinkham.

Despite three championships, five finals appearances and the strongest fan base in the league, the Pacers – and by extension, the ABA itself – barely survived a number of remarkably close calls and dire financial situations during their collective nine-year pre-NBA-merger existence that nearly sank both the franchise and the league more than once. 

Yet, in the end, the team and the city improbably (and inspirationally) rallied together to keep the team (and the league) afloat – to ultimately become one of the four surviving franchises in the landmark merger with the National Basketball Association in 1976, as well as a source of deep, lasting and transformational civic pride for the city of Indianapolis that lasts to this day.

In this revealing, eyebrow-raising conversation, Miller and “Neto” set the record straight on numerous Pacer and ABA mythologies, and wax nostalgically authoritative on what really happened during the first nine years of the team’s pre-NBA existence.

We appreciate SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, Podfly and Audible for their support of this episode!

We Changed the Game - buy book here

EPISODE #45: The ABA’s Indiana Pacers with Sportswriter Mark Montieth – Part Two

Veteran sportswriter Mark Montieth (Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis) returns to the podcast (Episode #41) to help complete the story of the Indiana Pacers’ nine-year sojourn through the American Basketball Association – including its shaky transition into a merger-expanded NBA in 1976.  

Arguably the most stable and successful franchise in the ABA’s short but colorful history, the franchise nearly collapsed under its own weight after its inaugural National Basketball Association campaign – if not for a hastily arranged 1977 Independence Day weekend telethon fundraiser devised by head coach Bobby “Slick” Leonard and his wife Nancy, that miraculously saved the team and cemented its place in the Indianapolis cultural landscape.

Along the way, however, the ABA Pacers made indelible marks on both the city and the basketball establishment, including: barn-burning rivalries (especially with the Kentucky Colonels and Utah Stars); stellar local collegiate talent signings (including Purdue All-American and Sports Illustrated high school cover boy Rick Mount, and Indiana University standout and eventual Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer George McGinnis); a downtown-revitalizing, franchise-stabilizing, state-of-the-art Market Square Arena; and the acrobatic, yet distinctively ‘fro’ed Darnell “Dr. Dunk” Hillman, who just may have been able to leap high enough to nab quarters off the top of backboards, according to sportswriter legend.

Plus: Pacers general manager Mike Storen answers his own letter; Bob Netolicky secures a trade, then begs to come back; the WHA hockey Racers nearly sink the franchise; and why Indianapolis' Pacers made the NBA cut - but Louisville's Colonels did not.

Thank you Podfly, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com and Audible for supporting the show!

Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis - buy book here

EPISODE #42: Entertainer Pat Boone and the ABA’s Oakland Oaks

We usher in the holidays and round out our debut season with the inimitable Pat Boone – an American entertainment legend and inveterate business entrepreneur, with a life-long passion for the sport of basketball.  In a career spanning over six decades (and counting!), the incomparable Boone has just about done it all in the fields of music, film, television, and stage, as well as the pursuit of a wide variety of business interests – including being the majority owner of the American Basketball Association’s charter Bay Area franchise, the Oakland Oaks.

Denied the ability to play its NBA All-Star marquee signing (and cross-town San Francisco Warriors star) Rick Barry for the inaugural 1967-68 ABA season, Boone’s Oaks endured a league-worst 22-56 record, amid dismally low crowds at the brand-new Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena.  Barry’s official arrival the next season (despite a knee injury that curtailed his play after only 35 games), paired with the hiring of two-time NBA champion head coach Alex Hannum, and an influx of future perennial All-Star talent like Doug Moe and Larry Brown, instantly rejuvenated the club’s competitive profile, as the Oaks zoomed to a league-leading 60-18 “worst-to-first” regular season record and a dominating run in the playoffs to capture the 1968-89 league championship.

Despite the reversal of fortune on the hardwood, Boone lost a fortune at the box office (in excess of $2 million in just two seasons), as neither Barry nor a title provided any significant lift in ticket sales – or visible hope of near-term future improvement in the competitive Bay Area market.  Former Baltimore Bullets NBA owner (and later Major Indoor Soccer League co-founder) Earl Foreman purchased the franchise (and its debts) from Boone for $2.6 million in August of 1969 and moved them to the Nation’s Capital, where they became the one-year Washington Caps, replete with a reluctant Barry in tow.

In this revealing conversation, Boone recounts: the events that led him to become a pro basketball owner; the tortuous journey of landing Rick Barry; the thrill of winning an ABA championship; the unwitting blank check that kept the Oaks financially afloat, but nearly sank Boone personally and professionally; and why, despite his continued passion for the sport, he never pursued another professional basketball ownership opportunity in the decidedly more stable NBA in later years. 

Plus: a ring more expensive Elizabeth Taylor's; dunking over Bill Russell; comparing pro titles with Mark Cuban; and our quest for footage of the 1978 CBS/NBA Three-on-Three Tournament!

This week’s episode is sponsored by our friends at Podfly, Audible and SportsHistoryCollectibles.com !

EPISODE #41: ABA Basketball’s Indiana Pacers with Sportswriter Mark Montieth

Long-time Indianapolis pro hoops beat reporter Mark Montieth (Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis) joins host Tim Hanlon to delve into the intriguing story behind the efforts of late-1960s civic leaders to re-establish a top-tier professional franchise in the capital city of basketball-mad Indiana after a curious 14-year absence.   

One of eleven charter franchises in 1967’s upstart American Basketball Association, the Indiana Pacers literally and figuratively “set the pace” early and often during the league’s nine-year existence – amassing three ABA championships, five finals appearances, and a dazzling array of All-Star talent including the likes of Freddie Lewis, Bob Netolicky, Billy Knight, and future Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Roger Brown, Mel Daniels, George McGinnis, and head coach Bobby “Slick” Leonard.

In a league synonymous with wild games, outsized personalities and vagabond franchises, the Pacers were a uniquely steady constant on the court, in the stands and with the local Indianapolis community – which later rewarded them with a downtown-transforming arena of their own in 1974, and ultimately, helped bolster their case to become one of only four ABA clubs to be included in the post-merger National Basketball Association in 1976.

Our thanks to SportsHistoryCollectibles.com , Audible and Podfly for their sponsorship of this week’s episode!

Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis - buy book here

EPISODE #08: Documentarian Dan Forer & the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis

Emmy Award-winning TV producer and ESPN Films 30 For 30 sports documentarian Dan Forer (Free Spirits; Mike and the Mad Dog) joins Tim Hanlon to discuss the curious two-year odyssey of the American Basketball Association’s colorful Spirits of St. Louis franchise, whose impact still continues to haunt the modern-day NBA, forty years after the team’s demise.  Forer describes the importance of mercurial star forward Marvin “Bad News” Barnes to both the club’s success and the making of the Free Spirits documentary; why Spirits brother-owners Dan and Ozzie Silna declined to participate in the making of the film; how a baby-faced kid out of Syracuse named Bob Costas got his first professional sportscasting gig; and how three of the team’s most talented players effectively lost their careers to the evils of drug addiction. 

ESPN Films 30 For 30: Free Spirits (DVD) - buy DVD here

ESPN Films 30 For 30: Volume 2 (including Free Spirits) - buy digital video here