Basketball: ‘The loudest silence you have ever heard’

IT was the second most memorable night of his sporting life and Rudy Tomjanovich was enjoying the sweet taste of victory.

Head coach of the Houston Rockets, he had just seen his team overcome the New York Knicks to win their first ever National Basketball (NBA) title.

First drafted as a player in 1970, Tomjanovich had been with the organisation for 24 years and had at last struggled to the promised land.

"I don't have the words to explain and describe what it feels like. It's almost like being in a dream."

His most memorable night had involved another kind of dream and a very different kind of taste.

Seventeen years earlier, in December 1977, Rudy Tomjanovich lay in the recovery room of Centinela Hospital, the closest medical centre to The Los Angeles Forum, home of the peerless LA Lakers.

Over in the arena, the second half of a close game continued without him, his blood having eventually been mopped from the court.

Lying on a bed, the six foot eight inch forward was anxious to get back into the game. He had scored 19 points in the first two quarters and was eager to add to the tally. He wondered why it was taking so long for a couple of stitches for a bloodied nose.

Then the doctor leant over him and asked if he had a funny taste in his mouth. 'Yes, it's very bitter - what is it?' asked the patient. 'Spinal fluid. You are leaking spinal fluid from your brain'.

If Kermit Washington had played soccer rather than basketball, he would have been modelled on a Roy Keane or a Nobby Stiles - pugnacious, protective and combative. In the 1970's The NBA was a lot different from the polished and sterile vehicle marketers have made it today.

Full blown fights were almost a nightly occurrence, and skirmishes were routine. It was a jungle and in this jungle the talent needed protection and the talent for the LA Lakers was Kareem Abdul Jabar. Washington was his protection.

Kermit had been raised on the wrong side of the tracks in America's capital city, but had worked hard to overcome relatively limited abilities.

His unofficial job was to protect the temperamental Kareem from the aggravated wrath of opponents - to take the blows and inflict any necessary retribution. Washington was effectively a six-foot-eight inch and 18-stone enforcer.

On December 9, 1977 the careers, lives and destinies of two giants violently and permanently intersected at The LA Forum. That was the night Kermit Washington remodelled Rudy Tomjanovich's skull on national television, and left him lying in an emergency room, fighting for his life with his mouth full of spinal fluid.

American sportswriter, John Feinstein, has revisited the incident in 'The Punch - One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever' (Little Brown).

A thin work with a rich plot, it tells of the prelude, the fight, and the subsequent life stories of the combatants. The conclusion is available in the first couple of chapters nice guys, moment of madness, repentance and reconciliation.

Much of his book concentrates on the lives of the protagonists both before and after the event a time-span of 50 years.

However, the true essence of this story happens in a moment or a millisecond. Like the moment Ali looked up from the ropes in Zaire and realised Foreman was gone. Or the millisecond that Kermit Washington felt Rudy Tomjanovich bear down on him, menacingly, from behind.

Tomjanovich bore down because when he looked back down the court from the breakaway he saw a teammate in trouble.

What he thought he saw was Kevin Kunnert being held by Kareem, while one of his Laker's team-mates thumped him. His instinct was to get to the scene of the bedlam quickly, and help his embattled colleague.

Back down the court a deep crimson mist had descended on Kermit Washington. Kunnert had pulled on his shorts a then standard tactic to prevent him returning quickly to his defensive duties.

Who exactly threw the first elbow is still disputed today, but by the time Tomjanovich noticed the rumpus and made his way upcourt his teammate had already taken a shot and was down on one knee. It was then Washington noticed someone approaching from behind.

"I grew up on the streets. You learn there that if you are in a fight and someone is coming up behind, you swing first and ask questions later."

He turned and jammed a ferocious right-hander into Tomjanovich's face just as the Houston player had reached top speed. He never saw it coming and made no effort to defend himself. He was lifted from his feet and crashed to the ground and on to his back.

He lay motionless, while a pool of blood seeped on to the floor, surrounding his broken head.

Washington says his punch was simply instinct. He felt threatened. He responded. "Rudy ran to help his friend, and I would have done the same thing," he says. "Unfortunately, I didn't know who he was and I turned and I swung and he was injured. That changed everything".

Kareem Abdul-Jabar is still haunted, but mostly by the sound.

'I heard this crack, like a melon landing on concrete.' Then came the shock and the silence. Few of the 11,000 crowd could actually believe what they had seen and heard. The Rockets point guard; Mike Newlin called it "the loudest silence you have ever heard."

By the time he got to the hospital, his head had swollen to the size of a large pumpkin and his eyes had almost closed shut. His skull was so misaligned that his back teeth had clamped together the duty nurse told a reporter 'it was as if his face had inverted.'

Feinstein's book records the immediate battle to survive the intensive care unit, and the subsequent years of reconstructive surgery and therapy. Tomjanovich eventually returned to the court but was never really as effective as a player. He spent much of the next two decades fighting alcoholism, getting well in the late 90's.

Washington was suspended for 60 days, fined $10,000 and then traded to the Boston Celtics. He played on for several years with different clubs, but, like his victim, was never as effective.

He became a fearful player, playing against fearful opponents. A turbulent personal and business life followed his retirement, and the stigma of his violence prevented him getting the coaching job he craved.

For a long time neither of them chose to discuss the occasion, but over the years forgiveness came. "I can imagine a little bit what he's been through," explains Tomjanovich. "For me, the punch was like an event. But for him, it was like a scar."

The NBA too had a moment of clarity. It's brand and image had reached an all-time low. The night the Rockets star underwent the first of what turned out to be five operations to save his life, his career and his face, the video-tape of 'The Punch' went out coast to coast.

It shocked even a nation that had only just watched a war on TV. As a result of the incident a third umpire was added, and errant and violent behaviour was ruthlessly punished. The clean up worked. Ten years later 'Showtime' had arrived, and with it came Johnson, Bird and Jordan, Nike, and $100m contracts.

'The Punch', however, was too spectacular to be forgotten. On the night Rudy T. led Houston to the title, his long-suffering wife, Sophie, took the children to the deciding game. Soon after it had ended she looked to the television in the players lounge hoping for a proud glance of her victorious husband.

She saw him all right. He was on a basketball court, running to help a teammate who was in some kind of fight. Kermit Washington had just begun to turn towards him.

She took the children home.

The Punch - One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever' (Little Brown).