PriorBlog

There’s been a lot of talk in Boston over the past twenty-four hours or so about how great a basketball player Dennis Johnson was. I respect the right of Celtics fans to mourn their player, but what gets me is the almost gleeful proclamations heard in their eulogies that DJ “shut down” Andrew Toney. I guess I’ll have to get out the old tapes to see if that’s really true. From what I remember, Toney was called the “Boston Strangler” for a reason.

Hearing Toney put down gets me personally, because he is one of my favorite all time players. This wasn’t always the case. (Very generic “my favorite sports figure growing up” beginning coming up, but bear with me, it won’t be what you expect.) Like most kids growing up around Philly in the late seventies early eighties, my favorite basketball player was Dr. J. If he wasn’t the best player in the NBA, he was certainly the coolest with all the dunks and stuff.

Then I think people liked Dawkins, followed by Malone of course. After that there was Maurice Cheeks and Andrew Toney, and then the Joneses, etc.

I forget what year of basketball camp it was that I got to meet Andrew Toney, but I do remember that he visited us a few days after Leon Wood. It was at the beginning of Leon Wood’s career, and we didn’t really didn’t know much about what to expect from him. He came across as very serious and extremely focused. I remember him telling us that when we were practicing shooting, to never leave the court without making your last shot. I rarely pick up a basketball anymore, but when I do, I still always make the last shot, not so much to become a better player, but so as not to disappoint Leon, wherever he is (I think he’s an NBA ref these days.). A few years later one of the other lawyers in my dad’s law firm got to play in a pick up game with Wood. A few seconds into the game the barrister’s finger was nearly broken on a pass from Leon Wood. Supposedly, Leon apologized saying, “Uh, sorry, pro pass.” This became a favorite refrain whenever my dad and I were shooting hoops and there was an errant or dropped pass.

Bottom line is, Leon Wood was an intense guy. You can imagine then, if Leon Wood was intense, what we were expecting from Andrew Toney, who was a major contributor to the Sixers 82-83 World Championship team. A team who, it should be added, finished the season with more wins than any Celtic team EVER has.

The setting of basketball camp was like most camps: rudimentary wooden cabins alongside a lake in the valley of some green hills, far away from the mechanized order of the outside world. Truth be told, we didn’t even use game clocks. The Northern King Bird’s ree-ree-pee-tee-tee meant the end of regulation; such was the natural law we followed at the camp. However, like all other biological relationships, that of the nature and camper was reciprocal, meaning events within the camper community had an effect also on the community of fish and birds, raccoons and squirrels, and whoever else unexpectedly spent that summer watching boys play basketball. Never was this more evident than on the day when Andrew Toney’s vehicle finally pulled up to the camp. Not one bird dared to let out so much as a tweet, the fish so often seen leaping in the lake remained perfectly still, and the trees no longer swayed in the gentle breeze, because the gentle breeze stood at attention, and all of this was because we were so scared of Andrew Toney.

One of the counselors came out to greet Toney. He asked him how he was doing and Toney, who was all smiles, said he was doing fine except for his ankle, which he injured during the basketball season and hadn’t fully recovered.

We made our way over to the basketball court, where all of the campers sat down along the baseline, and Toney stood in the lane. A ball was tossed feebly toward Toney. He set it familiarly in his hands no more than six feet from the hoop. Somebody called out for him to take a shot. A ripple of approval went through the crowd, yeah take a shot Mister Toney. He squared his shoulders to the hoop, then stopped with a smile, pointed to his injured ankle and said, “sorry guys, doctors orders.”

I pictured Leon Wood with his leg having been ripped off by a bobcat, continuing to shoot until he got in that last shot. When Leon Wood was at camp, he drilled a camper on the pick and roll over and over until the kid was so tired he had to be medivacced back to Philly. Toney, on the other hand, languidly assessed his audience, finally settling on a camper who we thought would be used to demonstrate how to throw a bounce pass or something.

The kid stood up and made his way over to the pro. Toney pointed at the kid.

“Pull my finger.”

The kid obliged, and Toney let loose with a fart.

Good old Andre Toney!

I tried to figure out what year this happened via wikipedia, and in the course of failing to do so saw that Andrew Toney’s son Channing is playing for the Georgia Bulldogs.  I think I’ll pull for them in the SEC tourney.  I guess the sad postscript to the story is that Andrew Toney’s injury turned out to be the stress fractures that severely limited his ability to play during his final years as a pro.  Even though he was in the frustrating twillight of his career, he spent the day at a basketball camp during the off-season, and instead of moping or being a sullen creep, put on a comedy show.