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As a professional basketball player, my second training camp was with the Virginia Squires, and it was very interesting.  During the summer, the Squires had signed an underclassman by the name of Julius Erving. 

Very little was known about him. We knew he had big numbers, but very few people had ever seen him play.  I know that is hard to believe these days with so many games being televised, but back then, not that many college games were televised, especially for the smaller schools.  Julius went to the University of Massachusetts, and the only time he was on a national broadcast was when U Mass. played the University of North Carolina in the NIT.  Unfortunately, he got into foul trouble, did not play a lot and fouled out early. 

We, as players, were very curious about him. Signing an underclassman was unusual.  We first met Julius at the first dinner before camp started.  First impression was he had a huge afro, and even bigger hands.  When I shook hands with him, his hands enveloped my hand and it was also easy to see that he was nervous, not knowing what to expect.

Training camp was held at Fort Eustis in Virginia.  It was just us and the troops and the troops were great.  They were permitted to come to the night practices, and were very enthusiastic.  I was pleased to get to know a few of them.

The first practice was a drill work practice, mainly in the half court.  Some full court running, but mainly   1on1, 2 on 2 work in the half court.  Julius was highly impressive.  It was like “holy sh*t. What about this guy?” After practice I was eating lunch with some other veterans.  The consensus was that Julius was very impressive, especially as an athlete, but there was also “a let’s see” attitude.  Let’s see what he can do in a scrimmage, running full court and playing with 4 others.

So we scrimmaged that night.  Julius was great.  He did stuff that I had never seen in person before.  Basically the same group of veterans got together for dinner, and still there were some guys that wanted to see more of Julius before they gave a solid opinion.  Yeah, he was good, but how would he do when it got more physical?  Could he defend?  How about his shooting?

After the second day of two practices, we were at dinner again.  The consensus was, “yeah, he’s going to be in the Hall of Fame.”  We were dealing with a different animal here.  In two days, he was doing some things  at which we just marveled.  It’s hard to impress veterans, but that is how great he was in two days.  What a pleasure it was for me to get to see him play so early in his career.  A bigger pleasure was to get to know him as a person, and I am very proud to have him as a friend.

Veterans can be very clever when it comes to making a team, or solidifying playing time.  We had three interesting happenings in this camp.  Before camp started one of the Squires’ draft picks was a guard out of the University of Southern Cal.  He didn’t start at USC, but played behind 2 guards who eventually played in the NBA.  When camp started, a couple of the veteran guards came up to me and asked me,”what’s up with your boy?”  “What boy?”  “The guy from USC.”  Well these guys were from the East coast who just assumed that because I was from the West coast, a guy from USC would be my boy.  Wrong.  What they were talking about was that the USC rookie had said in an interview that he was tired of not starting, and was planning to start with the Squires.  Not smart.  Rookies should follow Doug Moe’s philosophy which was shut up and listen.

These veterans were not pleased.  They went after this guy in every drill, and every scrimmage like dogs.  He couldn’t turn around without a guy in his face.  They literally destroyed him and his confidence.  He didn’t last long.

At the same time, we had a battle between big people for a spot on the team. The Squires had drafted a center, Willie Sojourner, along with Julius. They had also invited some free agent big guys.  We had a veteran center on the team, an old NBA player who had joined the Squires the year before.  His name was Ray Scott, who was at the end of his career.  A very smart player but Ray had bad knees and was not in the greatest of shape.  He knew it was going to be tough to make the team because of the number of big people trying out along with the draft picks I have mentioned.

After the second night of scrimmaging, where Ray had a good night, Ray started missing the morning practices with an assortment of injuries.  So Ray would sit out the morning drill work and conditioning session, and then scrimmage at night.  He also would take a lot of the young big people out to dinner at night, and then go out to some local clubs.  Every night they were out late, and they thought Ray was great.  A vet taking them out. What a guy.  Of course, they had to practice in the morning, while Ray slept in and sat out.  After a few days they were exhausted, and Ray was kicking their butts in the scrimmages. Before long all but Sojourner were gone.  Can’t trust those veterans. 

A couple of days into the camp, a new rookie come in.  A 6-5 swingman from Puerto Rico by the name of Hector Blondet.  The owner, who knew him somehow, had sent him to the camp.  So now the veteran guards attention went up, including myself.  Remember, back then only a few guys were on no-cut contracts.  The rest of us were competing for jobs first, playing time second.  

Hector had a way of trash talking, that didn’t go over well.  One night we were scrimmaging.  The way it went was, if your team lost, you had to run laps and then play the next game.  Lose again, run more laps and play again. Lose again, same thing.  This night, Fatty Taylor was the point on our team, Hector and I were the wings.  Well, in the first two games, which we lost, Hector had been shooting every time he touched it, with Charlie Scott all over him.  Charlie liked to be the one to talk, not some rookie.  Anyway, after the second game, I went up to Fatty and asked what the hell he was doing feeding Hector the ball everytime.  We were going to lose every game.  Fatty just said,”let him shoot himself out of camp.”  Sure enough the next day he was gone. 

Two lessons here.  Rookies should shut up, and you can’t trust those veterans.

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