Life on the Run Read Online Free Page A

winters and sparse soul cooking. After a few swings around the league he realized that he
really was
as good as most of the white stars he had read about. He also knew that he was not equally paid. During those years, a quota system for black players operated on each team in the NBA as an unwritten rule. It limited the number of black players on a team, and even the number that could be on the floor at the same time.
    When the American Basketball League was formed in 1961, Barnett left the NBA for the ABL’s Cleveland franchise, which was coached by his old Tennessee State coach John McClendon, the first black professional coach in any sport. The Cleveland franchise went bankrupt within a year, and Dick Barnett returned to the NBA, this time to play for the Los Angeles Lakers. During six years there, as third guard behind Jerry West and several (as Barnett put it) “white hopes,” he remained underpaid, under-publicized, and unappreciated.
    The day businessman Robert Short sold the Lakers to businessman Jack Kent Cooke for four million dollars, Short told the Laker players how much he appreciated their loyalty and hard work. To show his gratitude he said that everyone could have a steak at the hotel and charge it to him. Barnett went back to the hotel and ordered twenty steak dinners from room service. He stacked them up in the hallway and left them there. “Man just made four million dollars and he’s going to buy me a steak dinner—shit,” he says.
    In 1966, Barnett was traded to the New York Knicks, where he became less a shooter and more a complete ball player. He promptly became a star—too late to be known as a superstar. He had already spent his best years as a substitute in Los Angeles. When the Knicks won the title by beating Los Angeles in 1970, Barnett’s wife told me, “They never would understand. Jerry [West] and Elgin [Baylor] always had to be the stars. That’s why they never won and that’s why I’m glad we beat ’em tonight.” Once during those same play-offs, a referee called a foul on Walt Frazier, giving Jerry West two free throws. Barnett, who was on the bench for a brief rest, and who very, very rarely yelled at players or officials, shouted, “He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve it. That sucker doesn’t deserve it.”
    Barnett, still making excuses for his lack of discretion with the ten dollar bill, walks to his locker carrying a plastic suit bag. He is wearing boots, blue jeans, a black turtleneck, a tan outer shirt with yellow and black suspenders, and a Dutch boat captain’s hat. He asks Danny for a jock and changes to a practice outfit. He goes out for some exercise, one-on-one, with a chosen rookie, before the game.
    DeBusschere reads his mail, much of which arrives in yellow and red envelopes with flowers around the edges. Walt Frazier tapes his ankle as if he were a master mason building a wall. Willis sits in street clothes talking to reporters. I undress, spray adherent on my leg, tape my ankle, put my uniform on, get a leg massage from Whelan, wash my hands, and sit waiting for Red Holzman’s pregame talk, wiping my hands with a towel and biting my fingers. A few minutes before Holzman starts talking, Barnett walks in with the rookies who have been working out before the game. Perspiration rolls down his face and arms and legs. His face is wrinkled and he looks drawn, worn, old. “Chump, rookie,” he says.
    “Mothahfuckin’ old man don’t guard nobody,” the rookie says after losing the one-on-one game. “He holds you—anywhere closer to the basket than 20 feet and he’s got his arms pushing your hips, knocking you off balance.”
    “Hey, Barnett,” says Frazier, “that belt’s gettin’ bigger and bigger. All that running isn’t gonna do no good unless you stop eatin’ all those chocolate bars and nuts.”
    Barnett looks dissatisfied with the comment. He walks over to his locker. One by one, pieces of his equipment come off: his shorts, jock,