THE GROWLING

“Yeah, well, don’t get too worked up about all this radio stuff . . . I thought you wanted to be a veterinarian.”

Marge Simpson (my mom), January 1980

If the Detroit Pistons hadn’t stunk, I probably wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to cover them as a
teenager.

Eric Forest, Ric Blackwell, and I worked together as students at WBFH-FM, a high-school radio station in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a white-collar, middle-class to affluent area about twenty-five minutes north of downtown Detroit and about twenty minutes from the Pistons’ former home, the Pontiac Silverdome.

The experience started in tenth grade with Fundamentals of Radio Broadcasting class, also known among its graduates, and to the teacher, Pete Bowers, as “fun with mentals.” It was here we learned to disc jockey, to write copy, and put together two-minute news reports. We also learned the necessary FCC rules and regulations to get our operators’ licenses. Back then, you needed a license to be a DJ. This meant taking a government test, which was remedial once you had completed the fundamentals.

Eric was first to contact Bill Kreifeldt, then–public relations director for the last-place Pistons. “Mr. Kreifeldt,” as we will refer to him eternally, was very open to the idea of allowing young students the opportunity to be exposed to the world of professional media. I’m sure he was this generous with novices like us only because the Pistons were absolutely lousy. Our local NBA basketball team was in the midst of the 1979–80 season, which would see them finish with a franchise-record worst of sixteen wins and sixty-six losses. Media coverage for the club was apathetic at best. Tickets and media passes were easy to come by. Of course, we didn’t mind being in the right place at the right time.

On January 13, 1980, I was riding in Eric’s Chevrolet Chevette, a glorified golf cart, with a bit of an upset stomach. Not only did Eric’s erratic driving make me nervous, but I had only about ten minutes to get my thoughts together before arriving at the dome. The Pistons hosted the Chicago Bulls. The game meant little in the standings, but it meant everything to me: my first as a reporter. I was excited as I clutched my little brown sports bag with the white stripe over the top. In it, an oversized cassette recorder, a handy little microphone, two pens, and a note pad.

Eric parked the Chevette in the vast concrete pasture of the parking lot. We hopped out, made our way to the east gate, down the huge outdoor funnel of an entry area, and into the revolving doors.

“Dubbayu-bee-ef-aich,” Eric spat out into the slot at the will-call window. Eric had kind of a lispy speech impediment. The lady behind the plastic window shuffled some tiny envelopes and then slid one towards Eric.

“Thanks.” Eric turned and nervously tried to open the end of the envelope with his thumb. His hands were shaking as he turned the envelope in his hands, trying to get his finger under the fold. His chronic nervousness was making me anxious.

“Let me see,” I urged.

“I got it!” Eric tore the envelope open and pulled out two little square white cards. On the front was the Pistons emblem, beneath it a line with the date on it, and below that another line with “Chicago” stamped on it. The top of the card had a hole in it with a little white string tied through the opening.

I snagged one of the cards from Eric and attached the string to one of the belt loops on the front of my pants. We proceeded down a stairway leading through the huge main lower section of blue seats, stepping down about fifty or sixty rows from the top of the section all the way to court level. The further we descended, the bigger the Silverdome seemed to get.

It opened in 1976–77 as the home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions. The area at ground level that made up the football field was cut in half by a nine-storey blue curtain that hung along the fifty-yard line. On our side of the curtain, a hardwood basketball floor extended out from the corner of the end zone. People sat in the football stadium seats on one side and end of the court, while temporary grandstands were rolled in and set up along the other side and far end of the court. I can’t seem to recall why the Pistons moved from downtown Detroit, from the acoustically perfect Cobo Arena, to play basketball inside a football stadium. Oh, yeah, that’s right, people had been getting stabbed a lot in downtown Detroit.

The featured high-school game, which served as the warm-up event before the Pistons game, was wrapping up. In twenty minutes or so, the NBAers would take to the court for their pregame “shoot-around,” their idea of loosening up.

The little white card dangling above my groin worked magic. We slid past the guards at the bottom of the steps with a “How ya doin’?” and made our way along the end of the court. A gradual left turn brought us face to face with the yawning mouth of the Silverdome’s tunnel.

The tunnel.

I had stared at it dozens of times at NFL games in the past, wondering where it led and what was inside. It was the tunnel Billy Sims, Al “Bubba” Baker, and Gary Danielson had disappeared into time after time, often during or after a loss.

Now I was making the walk into the echoing dimness.

The concrete sloped up from under one big hydraulic door, and forty yards or so further, there was an even bigger door at the back of the tunnel. The floor was sloped enough that you could feel a slight effort in your legs. Although dumbfounded as I walked, I managed to notice the Pistons locker room door off to my left about fifteen yards up. The door was painted blue, with a big red-and-white Pistons emblem painted in the middle. We continued past.

Fifteen yards from the end of the tunnel, I wondered where we were going. Straight ahead of us stood the aforementioned second huge door, which was big enough to allow for a tractor trailer, or an elephant, or both at the same time. To its left, a regular walk-in door was guarded by a grumpy-looking rent-a-cop.

“Hey?” He paused. “Where are your passes?”

Who’s this dipshit? I thought, glancing down at the card hanging from my belt loop.

“Umm, right here,” Eric and I said together, nervous with inexperience.

“Sign in,” the guard ordered, turning the sheet in a binder towards us. Eric’s hands shook as he scribbled. As he was doing that, I noticed a well-lit corridor running off to our left, next to the security guard and his little podium. Eric handed me the pen, and I scribbled my name and WBFH. The gruff, cranky-looking guard cracked a grin. I waited as if something else was supposed to happen.
An awkward moment later, Eric turned and led me into the light.

A closed double door, which turned out to be the entrance to the visitors locker room, stood in front of us, but, before reaching it, we took a left turn down a shorter well-lit corridor. Then we took a right, where the press room opened up in front of us.

The room was quite simple. White concrete walls surrounded us, steel-framed cage lockers ran along the left side, and seven or eight rows of long dining tables and chairs crossed in front of us and blocked our way to the back of the room. It was clean, but it smelled like chicken. Dinner trays lined the longest table of them all, which ran half the length of the room on the right, perpendicular to the others. At one end of this long table, paper plates and napkins; at the other, little brownies, each square placed on its own individual mini dessert plate. The middle of the table held trays full of chicken, potatoes, rice, and salad.

Behind the edibles stood two women dressed in Elias Brothers waitress outfits — Elias Brothers being the local equivalent of Big Boy Restaurant. One woman was slim and attractive; the other, short, stout, and not so attractive. To me, this was glamour.

So I’m thinking, Let me get this straight. We get a free pass to the game, we come in here for a free meal served by a hot babe and her chubby friend, and then I get to interview basketball players?

We grabbed our plates and made our way along the table. The babe picked out a couple of chicken breasts and set them on my plate. We found a table with no one at it and sat down. Now what?

“Eat,” Eric said as if hearing my thoughts. “I’ll grab the game notes.”

Eric went to a locker and grabbed us a glossy program and a small stack of white statistics sheets. He dropped the packet in front of me. Glancing through the notes, I was startled and impressed. There were updates on every player, including their efforts from the last game, season stats, quirks, injuries, and personal notes. There was also a section about the rest of the NBA and more in-depth items about the Bulls, the Pistons’ opponent.

So that’s how sportscasters know all of that stuff: someone hands it to them.

Scanning the room, I recognized only a couple of people. I’d seen Charlie Vincent’s little picture above his column in the Detroit Free Press. Nice guy.

After dinner, Eric led the way out of the press room, down the tunnel, and out towards the court. The press table courtside was full. We still sat very close to the action, in a media spill-over section just to the left of the Pistons bench behind the baseline. Had it been a football game, we’d have been sitting in the back corner of the end zone. The play was intense. We could see the sweat fly and hear the contact, the moans, the language, and the trash talking.

At the end of the half, it was time to head back up the tunnel to grab a soda pop. After a little schmoozing in the middle of the tunnel, mostly just with Eric, we headed back out carrying our little clear plastic drink cups.

I always savoured that walk, particularly before and after the game when the path to the court was roped off. Fans stood along the sides craning their neck, waiting for players to walk past. At one point or another, they’d get me instead. I’d walk by making sure not to stumble. Just before we media types reached the playing surface, we’d slip under the rope and walk down the aisle at the end of the court to take our seats. A few — including me, once I gathered the confidence — would walk right onto the court, along the baseline, and then to our seats. After the games, it was even more fun because, if you hustled, you could catch the players leaving the court and join them as they strutted back into the tunnel. This opened the opportunity for informal rap before the players could reach the locker room. Sometimes I’d just walk next to them or behind them and marvel at their enormous size. It was literally like strolling among trees: huge men — the forwards averaging six-foot-eight, six-foot-nine, 230 pounds — grumbling along, sweating, and, sometimes, cussing.

As the second half began that first night, I had already begun thinking nervously about the post-game. Soon I would be talking to these guys. The statistician’s runner, a relatively short, thin guy with early Beatles hair and a moustache, dropped off a copy of the first-half stats to each of us, and I began to study the sheet. I was bent on being prepared. The second half seemed to last an eternity, especially the last three or four minutes. The teams must have called six timeouts. Finally, the horn sounded. The Pistons had lost again, and it was time to make my interviewing debut. We walked hurriedly back to the press room to grab our tape recorders.

“I’ll grab the Pishtons, you grab the Bulls,” Eric slurred as he lumbered off awkwardly at his top speed.

“Great.”

The hallway that led from the tunnel to the press room branched off and turned towards the visitors locker room as well. I made my way in that direction and steered toward what looked like a group of reporters in front of the locker room door. I assumed they were waiting to go in.

I stopped behind the group and nervously began walking in small circles. Looking up, looking down, looking this way and that, I tried to look preoccupied.

“When do they let us in?” I asked the nearest guy.

“Shhhh!” was his quick response.

“What are you doing?” another reporter asked me, leaning backwards.

I had no idea, frankly. But I suddenly realized these reporters were already busy. Chicago head coach Jerry Sloan was addressing the media and answering questions in front of the closed door. I fumbled for my microphone and hit Record and Pause on my tape recorder. I then slid around the coach’s left side and put my mic under his face.

I tried to listen intently but was simply too caught up in the scene. Shortly, one by one, the reporters began to drop off. They had heard all they needed to hear and began to move on. A few went through the door behind the coach and into the Bulls dressing room. I stayed until just three other reporters were left. Then I bolted, to avoid having an accidental one-on-one situation with Jerry Sloan. I wasn’t ready for that, and I had nothing to ask.

I pulled open the locker room door and almost collided head-on with a fast-moving trainer who was cruising out in a hurry. I spun around and tried to gather my senses. The visitors locker room was like a high-school locker room, with simple cage lockers and tile flooring. However, unlike my high-school locker room, the players here were mostly big, black, and naked. I could hear the showers through an opening at the far end of the room. Players came in and out carrying or wearing towels. Media types clustered around in small groups. The players calmly answered questions as they put on their clothes or packed small gym bags or toiletry bags.

I thought I recognized Reggie Theus. Then I thought I recognized David Greenwood. A group of reporters stooped over him.

“Yeah, that’s David Greenwood,” I said under my breath. I’ll go join them, I thought.

In a nervous fog, I took about two steps and tripped. I stumbled forward and barely held on to my tape recorder. Still attached, the microphone and its cord slipped out of my hand and hit the floor. Just as I gathered myself, I stumbled a second time. I reached out and touched the floor with my left hand to stop a headfirst plunge.

In an instant, I reeled the cord in hand over hand, cradled my equipment, gathered my senses, and stood upright. Immediately, I looked down to my right and realized what had happened.

I had tripped over Artis Gilmore. Actually, I kicked him as I tripped over him. Twice.

Gilmore growled at me.

Yes, Artis Gilmore, maybe the biggest, meanest, most physical centre in the NBA in his era, growled at me. He was seven-foot-two and weighed 265 pounds; he sported a big afro, a Fu Manchu moustache-and-beard combo that connected to his sideburns. He was sitting on the floor with his back against a locker, legs fully extended, with large ice packs strapped to both knees. He was huge, nasty looking, and in pain. His legs seemed to stretch halfway across the room.

Meanwhile, I was in full Barney-Fife-who-just-saw-a-ghost mode.

“Hubbada, hubbada, hub-bah, bah, bah.” It was the only time in my life I actually swallowed my voice. I thought he was going to eat me, or at least just crush my skull. I squeaked out a “sorry.” He stared at me for a few more excruciating seconds and then looked back down at his knees and adjusted his legs. Now his knees and his ankles hurt.

Moments later, the stress of the situation rushed me. I sort of blacked out on my feet. I was standing in a room holding a tape recorder and microphone, mentally spinning in circles. I had no support. It was me, a fifteen-year-old suburban white boy, the media, and a dozen professional athletes.

What seemed like an eternity probably lasted only five seconds. That’s when I realized that only Artis and I had been involved in the incident. As preoccupied as I was with my awkwardness, no one else was paying the slightest bit of attention. At least that’s how it seemed.

“Simmer” at age seventeen, sitting in the Andover High School radio station.

My next move — what else — interview Artis. I cautiously moved over to him and leaned over. “Can I ask you something?”

He grunted, “Yeah.” I asked him two or three questions, he gave me relatively brief answers, and I wished him good luck. I then carefully stepped around Artis and made a beeline for the locker room door.

I stumbled out into the corridor and decided to take a quick little breather in the press room. I wandered in, moved my little brown bag out of the way, and sat down in a cage locker for a moment. That’s when I made a startling discovery.

The Jerry Sloan and Artis Gilmore comments were lost forever. I never recorded them. I never released the pause button.

After a couple of deep breaths, I moved on. I made my way back into the tunnel and down towards the Pistons locker room. When I took a right into the recessed entry way, the door was closed.

Obviously, everyone who needed or wanted to go in had done so. At this point, I wasn’t positive that I had free rein, nor did I have the confidence to wander in, despite the “backstage pass” that dangled above my crotch. After an uncomfortable moment, a security guard stepped over and saved me. It was the same guy who sat just behind the Pistons bench and kept an eye on the crowd during the games.

“What’s up?” he smiled and asked.

“Just hangin’ out for a moment,” I said, shuffling awkwardly. “I was just in the Bulls locker room and . . .”

“You can go in. It’s wide open now,” he said, gesturing to the door.

“Yeah, thanks.” I paused for a moment as if to suggest I knew that already and then made a move for the locker room.

For the second time that evening, just as I reached a door, someone else came rushing through it. This time, instead of a Bulls trainer, it was a Pistons public relations assistant. The door crunched into my shoulder with a dull thud and then continued into my hand and my plastic tape recorder.

As I grunted, more startled than pained, the tape recorder fell three feet to the concrete below.

Oh no, I thought, as I watched it fall in what seemed like slow motion. Of course, it didn’t land flat on its back or on its side; it hit the ground on an angle, right on the corner by the battery compartment.

Crack! The compartment lid popped off and four C-sized batteries came bouncing out. Two stayed close, one did three flips toward the middle of the tunnel, and the last one rolled downhill in a hurry. The security guard stopped the bouncing battery with his foot. The other renegade picked up speed as it left the locker room entryway, took a right-hand turn, and headed down the tunnel towards the big door. The big door was open. If the battery kept its momentum, it could roll twenty yards to the end of the courtside stands.

Meanwhile, the PR guy who had rocked my world continued on his way up the tunnel after a brief “sorry.”

After scooping up the recorder, the compartment lid, and the batteries nearby, the pursuit began. The security guard handed me battery number three as I bent over to keep an eye on the runaway. A few players’ friends and relatives milling around inside the tunnel chuckled. As I cradled what I had collected, I took a step out into the tunnel and noticed the runaway battery turning a left partway down the slope. After a fifteen-yard roll, it came to rest at the feet of four very well-dressed African-American women, after caroming off one of their shoes. They didn’t notice the Rayovac and continued chatting.

“Excuse me,” I said, red-faced as I reached down between the collection of legs.

“No, excuse me, honey,” one said with a smile as I picked up the bastard battery. The group laughed together.

Never to this point in my life, despite some pretty solid efforts, had I ever felt like such a dork. I put the tape recorder back together and walked past the security guard into the Pistons locker room.

“Watch out,” he said smiling.

Relief replaced apprehension as I finally entered.

What a difference being the home team makes. The visitors not only had to travel and play in front of a hostile crowd, but their locker room was a joke compared to the home team’s. While the visitors made do with simple basics, the Pistons locker room was beyond comfortable, with a carpeted hallway beginning just inside the door. As I walked ahead, I passed a coach’s room on the right and then a training room. Longtime trainer Mike Abdenour was rubbing the legs of a player who was laid out on a table. The media could see what went on in there, who was getting taped or iced, but like in the other major sports, the training area was definitely off limits. After another ten steps, I stood in the players’ locker area. It opened to the right: twelve tall lockers, with name plaques above and plush carpet below. Music thumped from speakers in the ceiling. Every Pistons interview would have accompanying music in the background. Bump, thump, bump.

The Pistons appeared dejected after the loss. A few sat on stools and answered questions, a few dressed, while a couple of stragglers wandered out of a door from the showers. This night, twelve players and maybe eight members of the press, including Eric, half-filled the room. Again, the lowly Pistons weren’t exactly Detroit’s number-one draw. Their season included separate losing streaks of seven, eight, thirteen, and fourteen games. The last streak closed out the season, finishing a larger, miserable run that saw them lose thirty-one of their last thirty-four games. They finished sixteen and sixty-six. And you wondered why high-school kids were getting press passes.

I spotted Eric interviewing John Long, a local favourite who played college ball at the University of Detroit, as did his Pistons teammates Terry Duerod and Terry Tyler.

Eric shifted his weight a lot, and his extended microphone hand shook. Long appeared pained, and he finished his answers quickly. Eric thanked him, shut off his recorder, turned, saw me, smiled, and bobbed his way over.

“Howsh it goin’?” he slobbered.

“Just fabulous, how about you?”

“Good.” A big smile came across Eric’s face as he brought his head close to mine. “Pwetty cool, huh? Huh? Look at dis.” Eric gestured to the rest of the room. “The NBA man, you know? Pwetty cool?”

“Definitely,” I answered. Eric was bugging me, but he was right. It was pretty cool. To this point, despite some moments of extreme angst, it was a (potentially) once-in-a-lifetime experience. I scanned the room, took it all in, and then suggested scramming. “Are you done, wrapped up?”

“Hmm, yeah. Let’s go,” he answered.

I followed Eric to the locker room door.

“So, when’s our next game?” I asked hopefully on the way out.

Eric smiled and kept on walking.

~

Eric Forest is a customer care manager for American Airlines at JFK. He’s bilingual, French and English, and his “impediment” when we were in high school was actually just an accent. If only the rest of us knew how fortunate he was to fluently speak two languages, but we were teenagers, pretty much jock brains, and it was 1980.