Editor’s note: In the Colorado Classics series, The Denver Post takes a weekly look at individuals who made their mark on the Colorado sports landscape and what they are doing now.
Everyone agrees Spencer Haywood could play basketball, perhaps as well as anyone.
He left little doubt of his prowess, whether it was at Trinidad Junior College, the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, the University of Detroit, the Denver Rockets of the ABA or a swing through the NBA and stops with the Seattle SuperSonics, New York Knicks, New Orleans Jazz, Los Angeles Lakers and the Washington Bullets. Anywhere he went, Haywood’s performance as a player was top drawer.
“I could take Carmelo Anthony’s place right now,” Haywood said, displaying a fire that hasn’t died. “I’m 58 years old, but I look 25. I could get you 20 points and 10 rebounds every game right now.”
Haywood retired 23 years ago, but remains close to the game. He left with an impressive résumé.
He led the U.S. men’s gold medal team in scoring and rebounding in Mexico City at age 19. The Denver Nuggets’ record book still lists him as the franchise leader in points for a season (2,519) and highest average points per game (30.3) from his only season with the Rockets (1969-70), and averaged 19.5 rebounds per game that season. The Rockets won a regular-season title and Haywood was the ABA’s MVP, rookie of the year and all-ABA first team. When he moved to the NBA, Haywood scored 14,592 points and grabbed 7,038 rebounds in 760 games in 13 seasons and played in two All-Star Games.
But as outstanding as Haywood was, he also was controversial.
After playing for a year at Trinidad Junior College in 1967 and sparking the U.S. to an Olympic gold medal, Haywood was ticketed for UCLA. But when he believed the Bruins backed out of a promise to give his father a coaching job, Haywood headed back home to Michigan and the University of Detroit. Then the ABA, a league that was foundering, came calling.
“There was a big push by the ABA to get Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” Haywood said. “I saw myself as a savior of the ABA if I came out. I wanted to stay in college. I really enjoyed college, but there were financial pressures. My mother had worked for $2.50 a day all her life in Mississippi.”
But there was a four-year rule that prohibited players leaving college before their normal graduating class had left.
Haywood signed a contract and said he wanted to play in Denver.
“Everybody came after us,” Haywood said. “The University of Detroit, the NCAA, the NBA, they all began legal action.”
Haywood’s lawyers argued, and won, that Haywood and his nine siblings were due benevolence as sons and daughters of slaves and he should be given the opportunity to make a living for them.
In winning the case, Haywood changed the four-year provisions in the drafting of college players. Most of the players in the NBA today have benefited from Haywood’s resolve.
But the controversy wasn’t over. After a year with the Rockets, Haywood jumped to the NBA and the SuperSonics. This time, Detroit, the NCAA, the Rockets, the ABA, and NBA filled the courtrooms, the NBA scowling since Haywood had not been drafted and had illegally signed a contract with Seattle.
Haywood believes his court battles overshadowed his achievements on the basketball court. He doesn’t hear any response from players of today who have benefited from his hard-fought, long court battles. He remembers the embarrassment of being escorted out of arenas where he should have been playing accompanied by an announcement that there was an illegal player on the floor. He believes the league remains so miffed that a spot in basketball’s Hall of Fame will never be open to him.
“I was bitter for years because it hurt so much,” Haywood said. “I’ve gotten over it and embrace it for what it is. I’m not bitter anymore.”
Haywood remembers an introduction to Denver that brings laughter to this day. While at Trinidad, two players from Denver, Rick Fisher and Rayford Tillis, who later changed his name to Sayyid Abdal-Rahman, brought him to Denver to see “the ghetto.”
“I made it to Denver with those two characters,” Haywood said. “There was a golf course at one end and I asked, ‘Where’s the ghetto?’ They said, ‘This is it.’ And I said this isn’t any ghetto. I couldn’t wait to live in this ghetto.”
Haywood looks at the Olympic gold medal as his high point.
“The Olympics put me on the map,” Haywood said. “All I heard was that we couldn’t lose to the Russians and the Yugoslavians. The Olympics are very personal to me. All of our best players should be there. As much as America has done for us and basketball has done for us, it’s a shame that I hear a player has something else to do. I’ll be in Beijing so I can count how many show up.”
Haywood divides his time between Las Vegas and a home near Ann Arbor, Mich. He has been involved in real estate over the years, but is working on a project that could lead to a movie of his life.
Who would play him in the film? Haywood’s choice … Carmelo Anthony.
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
