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The punch still packs a wallop

Sporting News, The, Nov 11, 2002 by Dave Kindred

When something told Kermit Washington he was about to be attacked from the rear, he wheeled and threw a punch. In time he would explain the punch as an instinctive reaction to a fear acquired in a schoolyard fight. Never again, he had resolved, would he allow himself to be jumped by an unseen assailant.

What he didn't know, couldn't know, may not have cared to know--for by then he had become an NBA "enforcer" whose unwritten duties included the delivery of punishment for slights against Lakers teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar--was that the man running toward him had no intention of fighting.

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Rudy Tomjanovich only wanted to break up a fight between a teammate and Washington. He had run some distance to midcourt. Shadowy videotape of the moment shows Tomjanovich raising his hands in self-defense as he sees Washington's punch coming. That, he doesn't remember. He does remember asking the Rockets' trainer: "What happened, Trick, did the scoreboard fall on me?"

Washington's punch, a straight right, had landed square in Tomjanovich's face. A doctor would explain that Tomjanovich's injuries were those of a man who had been thrown through an automobile windshield at 50 mph. Abdul-Jabbar would say the sound of Washington's fist against Tomjanovich's face was that of "melon landing on concrete."

As Tomjanovich lay unconscious, blood spread under his head. Facial bones were broken, his skull displaced. Worse, spinal fluid was leaking into the skull capsule. That night, December 9, 1977, he might have died on a basketball floor.

NBA players still throw punches. Adrenaline, testosterone and competition all but guarantee events such as Rick Fox's recent pursuit of Doug Christie. But the Washington-Tomjanovich incident now can be seen as a before-and-after moment in NBA history.

Before, the fighter was a gladiator.

After, he is a fool.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is advised to run, not walk, to the bookstore and bring home John Feinstein's The Punch. The book will scare you straight.

So rich in detail as to be a model of the reporter's art, it's 'also an account so frightening it ought to be required reading for every NBA player. Feinstein not only recreates the sickening moment when a game became a death watch, he reports its consequences even as they today touch Tomjanovich, Washington and the NBA.

The recent Rick Fox-Doug Christie dustup, in which those fools began a fight on court and continued it in an arena corridor, is small potatoes alongside the old-time NBA wars. Yet commissioner David Stern suspended Fox for six games and Christie for two, a penalty that amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost salary.

No surprise there. Feinstein: "After Kermit and Rudy, Stern told me the league knew it could not allow men this big and strong to square off. It could be fatal. Then last year, (deputy commissioner) Russ Granik said, `What if Shaquille O'Neal, as strong as he is, ever landed a punch like that?' Shortly after, of course, Shaq took a swing and, luckily, just grazed Brad Miller."

After missing the rest of the 1977-78 season, Tomjanovich came back to play three more years, though never again the shooter he had been. He stayed in the league as a scout and assistant coach. He's now in his 12th season as the Rockets' coach, winner of the 1994 and '95 NBA championships.

After the punch, bitterness lived in Tomjanovich, who forgave Washington only after entering an Alcoholics Anonymous program. "Someone once told me that hating Kermit would be like taking poison and hoping someone else died, Tomjanovich told Feinstein. "I've always tried to remember that."

Washington, after serving a 60-day suspension (with Stern then serving as NBA counsel), would play three more full seasons, the best of his career. He then drifted in retirement, working briefly as a college assistant coach, failing as a restaurateur, always seeking a return to the NBA.

"I've told Rudy I'm sorry, and Rudy has forgiven me, which is all that really matters" Washington said to me. "But I've sent 300 job applications to NBA teams and received eight replies. It's still the punch. It's what people think I am."

Some people know better. Pete Newell, whose famous Big Man Camp profited from Washington's presence for 15 years, believes Washington "is a very bright man who can teach, who with his soft-spoken personality and experience as a player can reach today's young players. The NBA absolutely needs more Kermit Washingtons."

Perhaps more telling, this fall Tomjanovich invited Washington to bring to the Rockets' training camp a player Washington had worked with during a 2001 sojourn in China.

"Rudy did that as a favor" Washington says. "He told me the player didn't have a chance to make the roster, but he could learn what he needed to learn. For Rudy to do that for me says a lot about Rudy."

Oh, full disclosure is due here: Feinstein is my friend of 20 years standing, or, as Bob Knight once said, "I forget you're so close to that (deleted)." So close, in fact, that with impunity I can quote Danny, the 8-year-old son of John and Mary, who explains his daddy's work this way: "He writes books. He goes down in the basement. It takes him about 20 minutes."

The punch still packs a wallop

Sporting News, The, Nov 11, 2002 by Dave Kindred

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