The most
common refrain you’ll hear about the greatness of former players is something
along the lines of, “Sure, he dominated then, but there’s no way Player X would
be able to do that now. The players are just much more athletic now.”
Usually,
that’s an accurate assessment. Clearly, George Mikan would not lay waste to
centers today the way he did half a century ago, and if you’ve ever watch any
highlights of late 60s/early 70s basketball, it’s pretty clear that the game
today is played in a completely different gear.
There
are some players, though, for whom the opposite is true, that rather than
benefitting from the times, they were punished by them, and were they born 40
years in the future, their careers would be much, much stronger.
Take,
for instance, Al Tucker.
What if
he was born at the wrong time? What if, instead of coming into this world in
the midst of World War II, he arrived during Desert Storm? What would Al
Tucker’s legacy be, then?
You see,
Tucker never fit into the NBA in the late 1960s and early 1970s, not the way he
would have in the 1990s and 2000s. A 6’8” center at Oklahoma Baptist, Tucker
dominated the NAIA like no player before or since, three times taking his team
to the championship game, winning once, and earning tournament MVP twice.
You look
at his ridiculous numbers in college (the 30 points a game, the dozen boards),
and you see a heavy, a tough, a “big” man … and you’re not even close. Because
“Airline” Al Tucker was more than that, so much more.
He was
the kind of guy who could, while just messing around with his brother, invent a
play so integral to late 20th century basketball that to think of it
not existing would be impossible. The kind of guy who could toss passes that
would be talked of 40 years later. The kind of guy who could shoot a 3-pointer
like Dale Ellis on one end, then block shots like Marvin Webster on the other.
The kind of guy … wait, stop, let me go back a little further, let me tell you
the whole story of Albert Ames Tucker, Jr., member of the inaugural Seattle
Sonics.
Al
Tucker may have been born in 1943, but his basketball roots go back 20 years
before that, when his father, Al Sr., became the first black man to suit up for
Roosevelt High School’s basketball team. Senior’s abilities – developed as a
child with a tennis ball and a wooden basket nailed to a pole - led him to
Alabama State Teacher’s College, then the Harlem Globetrotters (or the Savoy
Big Five as they were also known for a time). Senior spent a number of years
traveling all across the country for the Trotters, including, believe it or
not, a game in January 1941 against the Enumclaw Merchants in Enumclaw (where
Brian Scalabrine’s red-headed grandfather, Obadiah Scalabrine, watched in awe
at the very end of the bench next to two cows and a three-legged sheep. Okay,
that part’s not quite true). The skills his son would show on a much larger
stage 30 years later were evident even then.
“I had a special basketball move,”
Al told a reporter in 1998. “It was a little deal where I’d come down just
beyond the foul line and when the defense moved in on me, I’d give a fake and
kind of swing over and slip away from ‘em. It worked so much they tried to make
a rule ‘round here. Said I was traveling. Truth is, I was just running in the
air. It was something they weren’t used to seeing and they said ‘Al, you are
pretty slick.’”
And so, “Slick” Al Tucker was born.
Less than five years later in Dayton, Ohio, Al Jr. came along, followed close
behind by a younger brother, Gerald (Al’s wife was Geraldine; whatever
creativity the Tuckers had on the basketball court did not, alas, extend to
baby-naming).
It was
no surprise when the Tucker boys showed an aptitude for hoops, what with their
father around to show them the way.
“When we
were coming up, we used to play at Blairwood Elementary and the city guys would
come out to play the Tucker boys,” Gerald said in 2005. “And we'd run 'em right
back down to the city."
After
dominating at Jefferson Township High School, young Al surely thought he’d have
a good shot at starring for the University of Dayton, but it didn’t work that
way, not for a young black man in the mid-1960s.
“Tom
Blackburn was the (Dayton) Flyers' coach when we got out of high school and
back then I don't think he wanted too many blacks on his team." Gerald
explained.
So, rather
than starring for his hometown college, Al was off to the College of Knoxville.
Tennessee. The early 1960s.
I think
you can guess where that was headed.
“We had what they called the Tennessee Theatre,” Al recalled in
2003. “And we would give the lady a dollar or whatever it cost to get in and
she said 'Sorry, we don't allow Negroes in.' Next thing they're going to call
the paddy wagon and take us to jail."
That essentially put an end to the College of Knoxville, and,
seemingly, to Al Tucker’s basketball career. He headed back to Dayton to play
for an AAU team with his brother and to await whatever fate destined for a
19-year-old black kid without a college degree in America.
In other words, nothing.
Luckily for Tucker, Gerald "Corky" Oglesby, a
scout from Oklahoma Baptist University, came to Dayton in 1963 to visit a
couple of prospects. While that didn’t pan out, he had heard that two other
young kids might be worth seeing. His eyes popped when he saw the Tucker
brothers in action, and Oglesby quickly got word to Bob Bass, OBU’s head coach,
that he’d found something special. Now he just had to convince Al Jr. that
Oklahoma Baptist wasn’t the College of Knoxville.
Gerald
remembers the encounter: "I was more outgoing than my brother and said,
'Let's go.' Al wasn't sure, but after Daddy talked to Corky, he told Al, 'Get
out of here and give it a try. You aren't doing nothing here but moppin' floors
at Concord City.' "
Junior agreed, and just like that, Al Tucker had taken his first
steps towards stardom.
An NAIA
school, Oklahoma Baptist University lies 30 minutes east of Oklahoma City on
Interstate 40 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, a town of no more than 30,000 people. (Coincidentally, three months after Tucker
arrived in town, Brad Pitt was born in Shawnee. It’s unknown if the young Pitt
ever made it to see one of Tucker’s games.)
But back
to our story. Al and Gerald arrived in town in the fall of 1963, not sure of
what to expect. After his experiences in Knoxville, no one would have begrudged
Al’s nervousness, especially when the Bisons went to play Southeastern
University and he got called “Buckwheat” by the crowd.
Tucker,
never one to retaliate with words let his skills do the talking, scoring 31
points in an OBU victory, his only acknowledgement of the painful taunts a
raised fist after every made basket.
Helped
by Coach Bass, who did his best to keep the Tuckers sheltered from racial
epithets and taunting – an impressive effort for a white coach in the 1960s
south – Tucker flourished at OBU, taking the team to the 1965 NAIA Tournament,
which he proceeded to dominate by scoring 25 points per game as the Bisons
advanced to the Championship before losing to Central State.
The next
year, Airline Al exploded, averaging 36.4 points per game in the tournament as
OBU claimed a massive 88-59 over Georgia Southern.
And,
before you dismiss the competition entirely, know this: In the three years
before Tucker’s three years at OBU, the NAIA Tournament featured a
tough-as-nails center from Grambling, who averaged 22.8 points per game,
including 27.4 his senior year. That center? Willis Reed. Or that other
tournament MVPs included Dick Barnett, Lucious Jackson, Zelmo Beatty, Lloyd
Free, all of whom posted solid NBA careers.
To further cement Tucker’s abilities, compare Reed’s 27.4 ppg as a
senior in 1964 to the numbers Tucker put up in his three years at the tourney:
25.0,
36.4, 32.8
Not bad,
right?
Tucker’s
final year proved to be frustrating, as the Bisons fell 71-65 to #1 seed St
Benedict’s despite Tucker’s 47 points in the championship game. And, yes, you
just read that Tucker scored 47 of his team’s 65 points, even though St.
Benedict’s knew they had to stop him, as Sports Illustrated observed:
“Coach Ralph Nolan figured he had to keep Tucker away from the
basket and started off playing him man-to-man. But Tucker beat that strategy.
When he was not firing in long-range jumpers he shuffled inside for hooks,
drives, reverse layups and stuffs. Tucker jammed in 47 points to earn acclaim
as the tournament's MVP, but not quite enough to give the Baptists a victory.”
I think it’s pretty safe to say that Tucker’s bona fides as a
college basketball player are solid. He spent three years at OBU, he was named
All-American all three years, took his team to the NAIA Championship all three
years, was named Tournament MVP twice, set a record for Tournament scoring that
stood for more than a decade, and generally dominated the crap out of everyone.
So, yeah, I think Al Tucker was a good college player.
But even having said all that, I haven’t said enough, because
when he wasn’t setting all sorts of crazy records, he was busy inventing the
most exciting play in basketball with his little brother, Gerald.
You see, legend has it that Al (6’8”) and Gerald (6’1”) were
messing around and came up with the idea that, hey, wouldn’t it be neat if
Gerald lofted the ball up in the air and Al slammed it through the basket?
Yes, in addition to all the accolades, in addition to the
tournament glory, Al Tucker invented the
alley-oop.
The play
would gain greater acclaim with David Thompson at NC State a few years later,
but it is generally accepted that it was Tucker & Tucker that first came up
with the idea. And while that sort of thing is generally tough to accept as
hard fact, if you were to brainstorm about the perfect scenario for creating the
alley-oop, wouldn’t a 6’8” dunking machine and his younger, smaller
passing-oriented brother make a bit of sense? When you throw in that their dad
was a former Harlem Globetrotter, well, it just makes a whole lot of sense.
Add it
all up and you can see why an expansion team from Seattle was so eager to
select Al Hunter with the 6th pick of the 1967 NBA Draft.
PART II
– After Graduation
In the
spring of 1967, the Seattle Sonics and the San Diego Rockets flipped a coin to
determine the teams’ placement in the upcoming NBA draft. With a smidgen of
luck, the Sonics won the toss, giving the right to select 6th, and
consigning the Rockets to 7th.
(Quick
tangent: See Vancouver fans, this is how it can work. Even though you don’t get
to pick first, you can still keep your team for 40 years before David Stern
rips your heart out.)
Anyhow,
the Sonics’ GM, Don Richmond, was faced with a bevy of possibilities with that
pick: Kentucky’s Pat Riley, New Mexico’s Mel Daniels, North Dakota’s Phil
Jackson, even local product Tom Workman of Seattle U. Instead, Richmond went
with a 6’8” center/forward from OBU, Al Tucker. But, of course, you already
knew that.
Tucker’s
speed and outside shooting, to go with his height, made him an asset to the
young team. The Sonics planned on being a team that put up a lot of shots that
first season (and succeeded, as they finished third behind only the Lakers and
Sixers in points per game); with Tucker, they had a “speedy forward to fill the
lanes on the break,” as SI put it.
Tucker
began the season in fine fashion, and as you can
see from this yellowed clipping from the Seattle PI, he managed 10 points
and six rebounds in his first game in a Sonics jersey. (Note that the Warriors
had their way in the paint, grabbing 81 (!) rebounds, although, with 131 missed
shots between the two clubs, they certainly had their opportunities).
The
rookie forward didn’t waste his time in contributing to his rookie team, pacing
the Sonics with 18 points in only his sixth NBA game, then following that up
with the team lead in rebounds in three consecutive November contests.
Tucker
maintained his contributions throughout the season, going on to lead the team
in points seven times, including a 35-point night against the Lakers on
December 10, and 28 against the Warriors in March. By the time the season
ended, Tucker had finished with 13 points and 7.5 rebounds a game and the third most total rebounds on the club.
Admittedly, his advanced numbers were a bit pedestrian (he finished in the
middle of the team in Offensive Win Shares and 8th in PER), but for
a skinny rookie from an NAIA school, he came through just fine.
Voters
for the All-Rookie Team felt so as well, deeming Tucker’s performance worthy of
a starting spot on the squad, where he joined fellow rookie Bob Rule, Walt
Frazier, Phil Jackson, and Earl Monroe.
His
career underway, a All-Rookie Team trophy on his mantle, if you were Al Tucker,
the summer of 1968 had to be a pretty good one, no? You have to imagine he came
back to Dayton to see the family, talk with his dad about his exploits … and
you have to think that Al Tucker Sr. must have had a whirlwind of emotions. His
eldest son was experiencing everything he, the father, had been denied 20 years
before. The steady paychecks, the notoriety … Al Sr. missed out on that simply
because he was black. But now everything was different. And while Geraldine was
probably more concerned about her younger son, Gerald, being off in Vietnam
experiencing God knows what terrors, Al Jr.’s success had to have been a
blessing to both parents.
Strangely,
though, that summer would prove to be the last one in which Al Tucker Jr.’s
basketball career would have any sort of upwards arc. In the next four years he
would play for six teams, be waived multiple times, and finally call it a
career at the age of 28.
What
happened?
Part III
later today
Part III
The
aftermath
In Al
Tucker’s last game as a Sonic, he registered 0 points and 2 rebounds. His
denouement came in a 119-112 win over Atlanta; he spent the last three quarters
of his Sonic career on the bench as a spectator in a frustrating end to a
frustrating sophomore season.
Who
knows why Coach Al Bianchi chose to sit Tucker – it could have been the 12
points he allowed Lou Hudson to score in the first period, or (more likely) it
could have been that he had been traded to the Cincinnati Royals for John
Tresvant.
The
reasoning for the trade, as viewed by the Times’ Georg Myers, was simple – the
Sonics needed to get tougher and “Supertwiggy,” as Myers and thousands of Sonic
fans had dubbed Tucker, wouldn’t cut it anymore.
“The
principal difference distinction between Tucker and Tresvant,” wrote Myers, “is
that John has the heft and the temperament to be authoritative and aggressive,
especially on defense.”
A
withering portrait of Tucker, to be sure, and one echoed by an anonymous scout
40 years later. Tucker was “blessed with talent but not a lot of motivation,”
the scout told the Times’ Bill Reader in 2006 (and if that scout isn’t Henry
Akin, I’ll eat my keyboard).
Ironically,
less than a year before, in June of 1968, Myers had nothing but good things to
say about Tucker.
In the
afterglow of his All-Rookie accolade, the rookie admitted to Myers his first
NBA season was “tougher than I thought it would be. And I knew it was going to
be tough.”
Tucker
explained to Myers that he learned in his first year that the major difference
between college and pro ball was that he was on his own.
“Nobody
is looking after to you except yourself,” Tucker explained. “The coach isn’t
going to hold your hand.”
Myers’
fawning piece went to great lengths to show how Tucker was going to bulk up
over the summer, but, more importantly, that he understood what it took to be a
successful NBA player.
How,
then, did this strong relationship between young player and team fall apart so
quickly?
---
When the
Sonics ran off a win against Boston in mid-January, Tucker’s strong effort was
counterbalanced by a comment in the Times that he had been a “major
disappointment most of the season.” Almost every story the paper ran after the
trade was consummated held some reference to the “slender” Tucker, how Seattle
was a “tougher” team now that Tresvant was on board, how the Sonics were better
at rebounding and defense, and so forth.
It’s a
puzzler, isn’t it? On the one hand, you have Airline Al Tucker, hero to
thousands in Shawnee, Oklahoma, where 40 years after he led OBU to a national
championship he’s revered by one and all, not just as an athlete, but as a
friend.
On the
other, you have Al “Supertwiggy” Tucker, who apparently wasn’t interested in
utilizing his “God-given” talents (a useless phrase if there ever was one).
Consider,
for a moment, the obstacles Al Tucker overcame to become an NBA player:
-
Not
recruited by his hometown university because he was black
-
Forced
to play at an NAIA school
-
Endures
racial taunts by opposing fans and ignores them
-
Battles
people much heavier than he as a center, and dominates the competition, earning
three All-American awards in three years
-
Comes
up huge in crucial games, including 47 (!) points in the NAIA championship his
final year at OBU
-
Rebounds
like no one before or since a OBU
And
we’re supposed to believe he just showed up at the Seattle Center Coliseum and
quit trying? That he just took the money and ran? That he wasn’t capable of
grabbing rebounds all of sudden?
Further,
if we’re to swallow the notion that Tucker just didn’t care about anything,
then explain why he spent the summer after his rookie year studying chemistry
at Oklahoma Baptist? And if the idea that Tucker was a hindrance to the team
were true, if Tucker was such a disastrous underachiever, why would Bianchi go
with him for the entire 24 minutes of the second half just two weeks previous,
a victory over Cincinnati?
I think
the real answer is that the Sonics were falling apart. The team had gone 2-18
from mid-December until late January, and even though they rattled off three
consecutive wins to end that streak of misery, the front office and coaching
staff obviously had to do something. In the manner of the time, clichés ran the
day and the Sonics needed to get “tougher.” Tucker, a 190-pound small forward
with glasses, an art lover who loved sculpture, was deemed expendable.
Which is
why, on January 31, 1969, Al Tucker found himself a Cincinnati Royal and John
Tresvant found himself a Seattle Supersonic.
In a
way, it was a homecoming for both players. Tucker, a native of Dayton, now
found himself playing less than an hour’s drive from his parents’ home, while
Tresvant, the former Chieftain, would now be able to play in front of his
college classmates in Seattle.
Bizarrely,
the two would meet on the court less than a week later when the Sonics and
Royals faced off in Seattle. The Sonics, led by Lenny Wilkens’ 32 points and
Tresvant’s 19 rebounds, knocked off Cincy 102-97, although Tucker had some
small revenge with 13 points, including 11 in a short span of the second period.
“As long
as we won,” Coach Al Bianchi said after the game, “I
was happy to see Al have a good game.”
And with that, Al Tucker’s voyage through the nether
regions of professional basketball circa 1970 began.
---
Up first, Cincinnati. With Oscar Robertson, Jerry
Lucas, and Tom Van Arsdale, the Royals had a strong roster, but were in the
midst of a seven-year absence from the playoffs. Fans didn’t exactly flock to
Cincinnati Gardens to take in the games, either; the team ranked last in
attendance for the ’68-’69 campaign.
Still, considering what Al Tucker was leaving behind,
it wasn’t that bad of a deal. The Sonics were even worse than the Royals, and
with Lucas averaging nearly 20 boards a night and Connie Dierking almost 10,
Cincinnati didn’t need any help grabbing rebounds. They needed scoring, and the
slender small forward from Dayton seemed to fit the bill.
It didn’t work, though. 27-25 when they acquired
Tucker, the Royals went 14-16 down the stretch, finished out of the playoffs,
and waived their new acquisition at the end of the season in an ignomious end
to Tucker’s return to Ohio.
June ’68 to
June ’69; America switches from Lyndon Johnson to Richard Nixon, and Airline Al
switches from All-Rookie Team to nobody.
---
Tucker spent the summer wondering where his future
would take him, before landing that October in Chicago for the woeful (29-53
the previous year) Bulls. Chicago had hired a new coach, Dick Motta, to replace
the outgoing Johnny Kerr, but it made little difference in the club’s fortunes.
By the time January rolled around, the Bulls were well
below .500 and in need of a change. So, figuring that Tucker – a bit player
averaging 7 points in 17 minutes off the bench – was expendable, they Chicago sent
him to Baltimore for Ed (father of Danny) Manning.
Unlike Tucker’s previous stops in Chicago and Seattle,
the Bullets were a good club, and led by fellow draftee Earl Monroe and the
previous season’s MVP, Wes Unseld, Baltimore was primed to improve upon their
4-0 flameout against the Knicks the previous year.
Al Tucker, however, was not to be a crucial part of
that experience, though. While he managed to get his first taste of playoff
action in Baltimore’s 4-3 loss to New York, the eventual NBA Champions, it was
only five minutes in four games. Strictly mop-up duty.
Now 27, Tucker returned to Baltimore the next year,
hoping to get some more action in what was his fourth NBA season. On his fourth
team in as many years, the young man from Dayton must have been wearied from
his nomad existence, frustrated at his lack of success.
31 games in, the Bullets had seen enough, waiving him
and ending Tucker’s NBA career. The only thing left for him at that point – 27
years old, college superstar, professional washout - was the ABA.
So that’s where he went.
Part IV – The ABA and The End
His NBA
career in disarray, Al Tucker was at a crossroads. Was he a professional
basketball player? Everything he had worked for in the past decade – past two
decades, really – was seemingly for naught. Sure, he had made it to the NBA,
he’d been named a member of the All-Rookie Team, but four different franchises
had dumped him in the past four years.
Did he
really need this anymore? At that point, fate intervened and reunited Al Tucker
with someone from his past.
Coach
Bob Bass, who had been such a friend to Tucker back at Oklahoma Baptist, had
been named the head coach of the Floridians (they didn’t bother with the
“Miami” at that point) in the ABA in mid January, and had converted an 18-30
team on his arrival into a more potent force.
Still,
Bass needed some extra firepower to go with Mack Calvin and Larry Jones, and
his prior relationship with Tucker must have held some sway, as the Floridians
picked up Airline Al for the final 14 games of the season.
Tucker
delivered, averaging 12 points in only 24 minutes, and by the time the playoffs
rolled around, Tucker was a crucial part of the rotation.
The
Floridians lost in the first round to Dan Issel and the Kentucky Colonels, but
Tucker tallied the fifth-highest minute total on the team in the post-season,
and, just as it did 10 years before in Shawnee, the future seemed bright for
Tucker and Bass.
In the
1971-72 season, Tucker returned to Miami and played in all but 3 games for the
team, knocking down 30 of 82 3-pointers for the best percentage on the team,
and averaging his usual 18 or so points per 36 minutes.
Something
happened in the second half of the season, though, and Tucker seemingly wound
his way into Coach Bass’ doghouse, as the 28-year-old only played in three of
the team’s four playoff games, and even then for only minor action. While the
year before he was one of the five regulars in the playoffs, in 71-72 Tucker
played the next-to-fewest among the Floridians.
After
the Floridians were knocked out of the post-season in the first round (again),
the team folded, and in June Tucker was picked in the third round of the ABA’s
dispersal draft by the Denver Rockets.
He never
played another game.
---
And
that’s all we know about Al Tucker. For the rest of his life, he’s invisible,
on the internet, anyways, until May 2001, when he was struck by a brain
aneurysm and died in Dayton, Ohio.
Four
years later, his younger brother, Gerald, who had teamed up with Airline Al at
OBU so many years before, still wasn’t over his brother’s death, forcing him to
cut short an interview with the Dayton Daily News.
We’ll
let John Parrish, longtime member of the Oklahoma Baptist family, and author of
a book which details even more the story of Al Tucker as it relates to OBU to
have the final word about Airline Al.
“An old guy was in there and I said, 'You remember who this is?' And he just grinned, 'Oh course. Nobody forgets Al.’”
References:
