The Punch Read online

  Praise for John Feinstein’s

  The Punch

  ONE NIGHT, TWO LIVES,

  AND THE FIGHT THAT

  CHANGED BASKETBALL FOREVER

  “Every NBA player, if not every pro athlete, should be required to read The Punch, John Feinstein’s chilling book about how a 1977 fight in a Lakers-Rockets game changed the lives of Kermit Washington and Rudy Tomjanovich. If current NBA players read this book, maybe they’ll realize the potential physical and psychological consequences of the fights that occur in NBA games every so often between these huge, powerful athletes. Maybe they’ll realize that they could be haunted for the rest of their lives by one punch, as Washington and Tomjanovich have been.… Maybe if enough NBA players read The Punch, there won’t be another punch like it.”

  —Dave Anderson, New York Times

  “Just when you think John Feinstein couldn’t possibly top himself, he goes and does just that. In The Punch, Feinstein offers a behind-the-scenes look at how one of the most infamous fights in modern professional sports annals affected the lives of the combatants, onlookers, teammates, and ultimately the National Basketball Association.”

  —Steve Goode, Hartford Courant

  “The Punch delivers an incisive look at a critical moment in sports history.”

  —Rodney Price, Rocky Mountain News

  “Feinstein has carefully documented one of the key events that helped civilize professional basketball.… He spends the first chapter setting the stage and then delivering a literary punch of his own with a captivating account of the incident. The story, already compelling on its own, sinks its hooks deep into the reader with the author’s wonderful fast-paced narrative.… The tale is rich with quotes and impressions from many who were present at the fight…. Expertly telling the story of two men, Feinstein is also chewing up a good bite of NBA history that offers insights into how the league handles on-court conflict to this day. The Punch will probably race up sales charts and find a wide audience among those who love sports, but those who don’t share that passion will find the book equally engrossing. Feinstein hasn’t delivered a ‘sports book’ but rather has used sports as a way to examine the human experience in what is truly a fascinating read.”

  —Larry Curtis, Salt Lake Deseret News

  “Feinstein is a fluent, facile writer. For the most part the pages go by quickly…. Feinstein is one of the country’s most respected sports journalists.”

  —Fritz Lanham, Houston Chronicle

  “Exhaustively researched and straightforwardly written.”

  —John Powers, Boston Globe

  “Instructive and likeable…. Feinstein, who intuitively understands the bonds of teammates, skillfully draws the repercussions of the Punch.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “It remains the touchstone for any discussion of violence in professional sports…. Feinstein captures not just the immediate aftermath of Washington’s thundering punch but also the years of pain, anger, and sideways glances that each man endured because of the episode….In an odd way, it may be Feinstein’s thoughtful, detailed examination of each man’s life—before and after the punch—that finally gives Washington and Tomjanovich the peace they both deserve.”

  —Mark Luce, San Francisco Chronicle

  “The Punch is a story of how men build and rebuild their lives in the spotlight’s glare…. It’s about how bad things happen to good people…. Feinstein tells a television-age fable of how, in a split second, two strangers became linked in a way that’s possible only when that moment is captured on videotape.”

  —Allen St. John, Washington Post

  “The Punch has all the hallmarks of a John Feinstein special—the candid interviews, the touching nuances that personalize public people, the friendships and feuds that fuel the inner workings of a team.”

  —Katherine Pushkar, Newsday

  “Feinstein’s approach is utterly thorough regarding the event and painstakingly fair to both parties involved….He convincingly proves his point that one punch in 1977 changed things for the men and the NBA.”

  —Susan Ellis, Memphis Flyer

  “A compelling, detailed account of a terrifying incident…. Feinstein is a reporter at heart and this, his 13th book, is a fine display of his curiosity and tenacity.”

  —John Wilkens, San Diego Union-Tribune

  “If you like sports, you’ll love this book. If you like psychological studies, or great character development and strong subplots, you’ll love this book.”

  —John Burr, Florida Times-Union

  “With his superb reportorial skills and layered insight, Feinstein has reigned as one of our nation’s top sports storytellers for nearly two decades.”

  —David Davis, Jewish Daily Forward

  “The Punch is a wonderful piece of reporting that is required reading for anyone who loves sports, or sports history.”

  —Mike Lupica, New York Daily News

  “Feinstein does a respectable job of reporting the details of the punch and presents competing evidence conscientiously… The biographies of Washington and Tomjanovich are the most interesting sections of the book….Washington’s story is particularly engrossing.”

  —Hugo Lindgren, New York Times Book Review

  “An excellent and engaging book.… Feinstein’s latest tears the scab off one of the deepest wounds in the history of professional sports…. He tells a moving story…. His research is sharp, and his time line jumps around effortlessly, like a good Quentin Tarantino film…. His portrait of each man is compelling.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “The Punch chronicles how this single, horrifying event forever changed the lives of the two men most directly involved. It also sheds light on how the NBA—and, indeed, all professional sports— has been affected as a result…. The Punch is more than a ‘sports book’; it raises questions about race, violence, and, ultimately, redemption. Gruesome at times, but always engaging, Feinstein’s latest book is a knockout.”

  —Todd Tobias, IMM

  Also by John Feinstein

  Open

  The Last Amateurs

  The Majors

  A March to Madness

  A Civil War

  A Good Walk Spoiled

  Play Ball

  Hard Courts

  Forever’s Team

  A Season Inside

  A Season on the Brink

  Running Mates

  (A Mystery)

  Winter Games

  (A Mystery)

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2002 by John Feinstein

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: March 2010

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2738-6

  This is for Dick Hall and David Sattler

  Neither is a relative by blood

  Both are brothers in my heart

  Contents

  Praise for John Feinstein’s

  Also by John Feinstein

  Copyright

  Introduction

  1. What Hit Me?

  2. An Overcast Friday

  3. That Was Then…

  4. Did You Hear About Rudy and Kermit?

  5. Who Hit Whom?

  6. Sixty Days and Ten Thousand Dollars

  7. Red to the Rescue

  8. Too Soon to Dream

  9. Welfare Memories

  10. Dreams C
an Come True

  11. From Hamtramck to Ann Arbor to San Diego

  12. The Bright Lights of L.A.

  13. Turnaround

  14. The Punch

  15. A New Life

  16. Recovery

  17. Life Goes On

  18. Time to Move On

  19. Starting Over

  20. Finding a Niche

  21. Troubles

  22. No Peace to Be Found

  23. Brothers

  Acknowledgments

  A note about the author

  Introduction

  It was a comfortable June afternoon and I was in my car en route to a meeting in downtown Washington, D.C. I was listening to my friend Jim Rome’s syndicated radio show when I heard him introducing Kermit Washington.

  Like anyone who follows sports, I knew the name well, and as with most people, the instant I heard his name one image came into my mind: The Punch. I don’t know how many times I had seen it on tape, but it was right there in my mind’s eye, Washington turning and punching Rudy Tomjanovich with such force that Tomjanovich appeared to fly backward through the air.

  The date was December 9, 1977, the place was the Los Angeles Forum. Washington was in his fifth year with the Los Angeles Lakers at the time. Tomjanovich, a four-time All-Star, was in his eighth season with the Houston Rockets.

  I probably knew a little more about Washington than most people, even though I had never met him. He was a graduate of American University, and a number of people I had worked with at the Washington Post knew him well. Mike Trilling, the Post’s late assistant sports editor, had worked with him at AU, and a number of the guys I had worked with at the paper had written about him through the years, since he was a local hero in the early 1970s. All said the same thing about him: “Sweetheart of a guy.”

  As Rome introduced Washington, talking about his accomplishments—two-time academic All-American; last player to average 20 points and 20 rebounds in a college season (1973); nine years in the NBA; charity work in Africa—and then brought up The Punch, I remembered reading a piece in the New York Times a few weeks earlier written by Washington, about how the night of the Tomjanovich punch still haunted him. I also remembered interviewing Tomjanovich on the subject for the Post during the 1981 NBA playoffs. He was very polite, but it was clear he didn’t want to talk about what had happened. Who could blame him?

  Rome had read the same piece in the Times, which led him to book Washington for the show. He began walking Washington through what led up to the fight and then the fight itself. As he talked, two things were apparent to me about Washington: he had done this before, and he was still in a lot of pain. By the end of the first segment, I had reached my destination and parked my car. I was a few minutes early, so I stayed in the car and listened to the second segment. When I heard Rome saying he was going to keep Washington for a third segment, I was surprised but not surprised. Rome almost never keeps a guest two segments, much less three. But there was clearly more to ask, and he knew it. By now, I was late for my meeting. I stayed in the car.

  By the time Rome finished, I was convinced there was a book to be written about Kermit Washington and Rudy Tomjanovich. Clearly this moment had changed Washington’s life and, I was willing to bet, Tomjanovich’s life too. Clearly it was a watershed moment in sports, because it has become the symbol of what can happen when fights break out among very strong, very athletic young men.

  “What this event told us,” NBA commissioner David Stern told me later, “was that we could not, under any circumstances, allow men this big and this strong to square off and swing at one another. We sometimes get criticized for the rules we have, especially when we have to suspend players for wandering off the bench during a fight in the playoffs [see New York–Miami, 1998]. But I would rather have that happen than have bench-clearing brawls that lead to serious injuries.

  “People forget, that was a tough time in the league. This was a monumental event when it occurred, because it appeared to symbolize everything people were saying about us. And it got so much attention at the time, which only made it more difficult for everyone.”

  I was fairly convinced that Washington would talk to me, given that the piece in the Times and the Rome interview both made it clear that he felt people did not understand what really happened that night or who the real Kermit Washington was. Tomjanovich, I believed, would be more difficult, and in my mind there would be no book without his cooperation. For better or worse, the two men were entwined in each other’s lives forever.

  With the help of Travis Rogers, Rome’s radio producer, I tracked Washington down at his restaurant outside Portland, Oregon. I explained that I thought there might be a book in his and Tomjanovich’s story if both would cooperate. “I’ll do it,” he said, “but I think you’ll have a tough time with Rudy. I know he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

  Tomjanovich had come back from the punch, after going through five surgeries, to play again in 1978–79. He had retired after the 1981 season and had been with the Rockets ever since as a scout, assistant coach, and, since 1992, the head coach. He had become a coaching star, winning back-to-back NBA titles in 1994 and 1995, and was about to coach the 2000 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, which would win the gold medal in Sydney.

  At that moment I had a contract with my publisher to do a golf book during 2001. My feeling was that I would take a shot at Tomjanovich, and if he didn’t want to do it, that would be that. I would be disappointed, because I really believed there was a good book to be done, but I would move on. I contacted Tim Frank, who was then the Rockets’ public relations director.

  If there is an unsung hero in this book, it is Tim Frank, if only because the one person who has put more time into seeing it reach completion is me. By the time I reached the finish line, Tim, who now works for the NBA, had taken to answering my phone calls by saying, “What’d you forget now?” Or, “Whose number did you lose this time?”

  I told Tim what I was hoping to do. His answer was direct: How can I help? At that moment, all I wanted was a guarantee that the letter I was going to write to Rudy telling him why I wanted to do the book would get to him, not end up in the trash next to a secretary’s desk. “Send it to me,” Tim said. “I’ll put it in his hands myself.”

  He did. The return phone call was, I thought, not surprising. “He just doesn’t feel like he wants to go through it all again,” Tim said when he called back. I understood. I thanked him for trying. Then Tim said one more thing: “John, I wouldn’t want to lead you down the wrong road here, but I honestly believe if you ever sat him down alone, face-to-face, the answer might be different. No guarantees. I could be nuts. But he didn’t just blow it off as if it was crazy.”

  I kept that in mind. Maybe down the road. I had a golf book to write. In January I began the research. The book, which I may go back to someday, was supposed to be about players who go through the PGA’s Qualifying School and what the next year of their lives is like. I put together my group of players and went to Tucson to start the year. Something was nagging at me while I was there. I liked the guys I was working with. I love golf. But it didn’t feel right. Maybe the idea was too similar to A Good Walk Spoiled. Maybe it was just too much travel with two little kids at home. Something wasn’t working.

  Two weeks later I was supposed to continue my research in San Diego. Now, San Diego in early February is not exactly a daunting assignment, especially when it is snowing and 25 degrees in Washington. San Diego is the best West Coast tournament to go to as a reporter: no pro-ams to deal with, great working conditions at the golf course, and the hotel is across the street from an excellent swimming pool. Perfect. I had plans to spend time with three of my golfers.

  And I didn’t want to get on the plane. My gut was telling me something. I sat back and pictured myself not doing the book. Immediately I felt better. I had been back and forth for weeks with this notion, but I decided to go with my gut feeling. I called Esther Newberg, my agent-for-life, and told
her what I was feeling. I was prepared for some serious moaning and groaning. “If that’s the way you feel, then don’t do it,” she said. “You’re allowed to do this at this point in your life.”

  I took a deep breath, relieved. “Do you want me to call Michael?” she asked, referring to Michael Pietsch, my editor at Little, Brown. “Absolutely not,” I said. This was something I felt I had to go and tell him in person.

  The next day I drove to New York, which I find much easier than flying most of the time. In the car I was flipping radio stations as I crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge, when I picked up a Philadelphia radio station. “And tomorrow,” a voice was saying, “the Sixers host the Houston Rockets in the First Union Center.”

  My eyes widened. Coincidence? Or karma? My meeting in New York went better than I could have hoped for. Michael Pietsch is, as my mother used to say, a mensch. He could have pointed out that I had a signed contract for this book and that he had willingly gone along with my off-the-wall idea to do a book on Patriot League basketball a year earlier and that I owed him this golf book. He did none of that. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “If your heart isn’t in it, you shouldn’t do the book. When you’ve got another idea, we’ll talk.”

  I said nothing about the outside possibility that I might have another idea in forty-eight hours. That night I tracked down Tim Frank in Philadelphia. Any chance, I asked, that Rudy would see me tomorrow? “I’ll get back to you,” Tim said. An hour later he did: “We’re shooting in the arena from twelve to one,” he said. “Rudy says you should meet us there.”

  Back in the car the next morning, on my way to Philly, I put together a Letterman’s list of the ten reasons why Rudy should cooperate for the book. I was going to give it my best shot. I knew this was a book I wanted to do. Whenever an idea truly excites me, I get hyper and can’t stop thinking about it. That was the way I felt turning into the parking lot at the First Union Center. I figured my odds were about 10-to-1 against.