Rublee 1

The NBA ABA Merger

By Dylan Rublee Interviewee: Instructor: Michael Chapper Date: February 22, 2010

Rublee 2

Table of Contents Statement of Purpose…………………………………………………………………….3 Biography………………………………………………………………………………..4 Historical Contextualization…………………………………………………………….6 Interview Transcription…………………………………………………………………13 Time Indexing Recording Log…………………………………………………………..41 Interview Analysis………………………………………………………………………42 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………...47

Rublee 3

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this oral history interview and project is to better understand the ABA

NBA merger and the affect it had on the game of . The perspective of Kevin

Grevey gave an in depth look on how a player at the time of the merger was affected.

Although he was not negatively affected by the merger he knew players, who were not fortunate enough to play in the NBA or to move from the ABA to the NBA.

Rublee 4

Kevin Grevey Biography

Kevin Grevey was born May 12th, 1953 in Hamilton, Ohio. Mr. Grevey was one of six siblings; he had one older sister and four younger brothers and sisters. As a child Mr.

Grevey spent his time playing all sorts of sports with his siblings and friends within the community. However he was definitely more driven to play basketball more than the other sports he played. Mr. Grevey played for Hamilton Taft High School and was on the varsity team all three years of his high school career. Hamilton Taft High School made it Rublee 5 to the state tournament all three years he was there and his senior they made it to the state championship and lost by two points. Mr. Grevey attests his success and growth in basketball during his high school basketball coach Mark McCullum.

Mr. Grevey went to Kentucky to go play . Mr. Grevey played for both and Jo Hall during his time at Kentucky. His senior year they made it to the NCAA championship game where they lost to UCLA. All three years that he was eligible to play Mr. Grevey made First Team All South-Eastern Conference, and

All – American his junior and senior year.

In 1975, Kevin Grevey was selected 18th by the Washington Bullets. He played with the Bullets on the 1977-1978 championship team. Mr. Grevey played for the

Bullets for four more years until he was traded to the for two more years until he retired.

After Mr. Grevey was done with playing basketball he gained a business degree at the University of Connecticut. He married in 1984 and is the father of three children. He currently owns a restaurant called Grevey‘s that has been open for 30 years.

He also works as a regional talent scout for the Lakers, and also broadcasts basketball games for CBS radio.

Rublee 6

The NBA ABA Merger

The National Basketball Association has gone through many transformations throughout history to stand where it is today The NBA now is one of 4 professional sports in America that dominate the sporting industry The thing that separates the NBA from the , , and Major League Baseball is the fact that the NBA is on the verge of going global. Throughout the preseason, NBA teams play each other in Europe and Asia, in the hope that one day the NBA will become the International Basketball Association. According to the official NBA website the

League has over 50 international players currently playing in the NBA, who come from

Africa, South America, Europe, and Asia. It is undeniable that the NBA has grown an incredible amount since its emergence in 1949. What would determine the fate of the

NBA is the merger that took place between it and the American Basketball Association, more commonly known as the ABA, in the summer of 1976.

The National Basketball League came about through a merger between two other basketball leagues, the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball

League. The NBL was expanding since its creation, generating strong revenues year in and year out. It had a dedicated fan base and a lot of good players coming into the league every year. The league had 42 teams across its 12-year existence from 1937 till 1949 when it merged with the BAA to become the NBA. The BAA was a much smaller league and had only been around for 3 years before it merged with NBL. At the of the merger, it was a struggling league on the verge of being shut down because there was not a large enough fan base to generate the necessary revenue for its operation. Also, the league had a lower talent pool because the better players were signing with teams in the Rublee 7

NBL. The one are in which the BAA had an edge over the NBL was the cities and stadiums: NBL games could only support on average a crowd of about 3,000 fans, whereas BAA stadiums could hold up to 20,000 people. In an attempt to stay afloat the

BAA began to make calls to NBL team owners hoping that they would move their franchises into the BAA. This, however, did not happen and on August 3rd, 1949, the

BAA and NBL merged together and became the National Basketball Association

(Kirchberg 60).

As the years went on, more and more teams began to join the NBA. In October of

1961 the American Basketball League was created as a competitor to the NBA. It consisted of 8 teams from Hawaii to Los Angeles to New York. The league only lasted for two years and on December 31st 1963, the league was shut down, all the players became free agents, and some were signed to NBA teams (Kirchberg 101). There would be one league, however, that would bring the NBA its greatest challenge yet and ultimately force it to change and move toward a completely different direction than it had intended to be heading: the American Basketball Association. The creator of the league,

Dennis Murphy the mayor of Orange County Buena Park, had originally intended to create an AFL team in his county. Due to his bad timing, however, the AFL had just merged with NFL, which made it impossible to create a team because it would have conflicted with the territory rights of the Los Angeles Rams. He therefore decided that he would create his own basketball league because he knew he could not create a NBA franchise because that to would conflict with the territory rights of the Los Angeles

Lakers. Dennis Murphy began to make calls and joined forces with John McShane and they began to iron out the details to make the league a contender with the NBA. After Rublee 8 finding several buyers who would be interested in creating ABA teams the two men contacted , a prominent basketball figured, and asked him to become commissioner of the league. Mikan agreed to become commissioner of the ABA with a yearly salary of $50,000 for three years.

The key differences between the ABA and the NBA were as follows. The ABA ball was red, white and blue, verses the regular brown one of the NBA. The attire of the referees officiating ABA games was also red, white, and blue and the names of the officials were printed on the back of their shirts. The league also instigated the 3-point line, which had first been proposed by the ABL but none of the coaches had approved of it. Adding the 3-point line would cater towards the fans who were more interested in an offensively minded game. Another key difference between the ABA and the NBA had to with the statistics of both individual players and teams. The NBA only concerned itself with points and rebounds, however the ABA now had decided to hire people to mark down players‘ steals, offensive and defensive rebounds, assists, and turnovers. This made the game a lot more interactive between the game and fans because now fans knew more about the teams and the players (Kirchberg 109).

The NBA began to hurt the ABA‘s potential to grow as time went by, because the

NBA was now signing newly drafted players with large, lucrative deals that the ABA could not match. This hurt the ABA greatly because they couldn‘t match what the NBA was paying players, giving the NBA the better selection of players. The ABA did the next best thing and drafted players out of high school and non-seniors out of college. The first player to get signed out of high school and join the ABA was Spencer Haywood, however he was soon bought over by the NBA and left the ABA, ―In the absence of a Rublee 9 merger, bidding between the ABA and NBA for playing talent has reached unprecedented heights. , a University of Mississippi sophomore, signed with the ABA's Memphis Pros for $2 million; Spencer Haywood jumped from the ABA's

Denver Rockets to the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics for $1.5 million‖(Worsnop). The NBA could not do anything about it because of their requirement that all players in the must be in college for four years. The ABA now could select anyone they wanted before the NBA and this gave them the edge over the NBA. With the NBA sensing that they were in a dangerous situation with the ABA‘s drafting younger players, they decided to merge the two leagues in May 1971. The NBA would allow ten ABA teams to merge into the NBA with an entry fee of $125 million over ten years, and they lost all money earned from TV broadcasting until 1973. However, as soon as the merger was proposed, the

NBA Players Association filed suit against the merger stating that it would create an unfair advantage towards the owners and leagues (Simmons 104). The NBA Players

Association believed that with the merger owners of NBA teams were going to gain even more rights over their players. And this is why they stalled, because they wanted to make it possible for players to be able to exercise their options on go to other teams, instead of being stranded at one team and have an owner ruin your career.For six more years, the two leagues would attempt at a merger, but until the summer of 1976 it was unsuccessful.

Throughout that span the Congress always stepped in and halted the process. On May 1st, 1970, a federal judge stated that talks between the two leagues would be halted so as to give time to the NBA Players Association to come up with a statement to counteract the merger (―Judge Extends‖). Almost a year later the NBA and

ABA were still conversing, trying to sort out the issues regarding players‘ rights and legal Rublee 10 issues (Asher). ABA players were pushing for the merger to happen because then they could also have higher salaries, but NBA players were worried that with the merger they would have even less rights against the reserve clause on their contracts, which stated that a player signed with a team is still under contract, meaning that the team controls where he can go to play of how much he gets paid, a year after the contract has expired. Several of the players from the NBA Players Association spoke out stating that the merger was lopsided and unfair, ‗The NBA Players' Association has since vowed to fight any common player-draft arrangement that ―restrains and restricts‖ a player's ability to use competitive bidding to win higher salaries. Legislation to authorize an ABA-NBA merger was introduced in the Senate on July 29, 1971‖(Worsnop). The three leaders Oscar

Robertson, Dave DeBusschere and Zelmo Beauty from the NBA. They believed that all the discussion that were taking place regarding the merger had to do with money and draft rights, and not about the players‘ rights (Asher).

Talks went on for several more years until finally in the summer of 1976 both sides agreed to a deal and the plan to merge came around. With the merger came several conditions that ABA teams had to fulfill in order to become a part of the NBA (―NBA

Board‖). ABA franchises had to meet several conditions:

The final deal, announced on June 17th, 1976, called for the , San

Antonio Spurs, , and New York Nets to pay the NBA $3.2 million

each by September 15th, 1976. The Nets were also required to compensate the

New York Knicks an additional $4.8 million for infringing on their territory.

Furthermore, all new teams—which would technically be referred to as

―expansion‖ teams—would be excluded from the 1976 college draft, ineligibly to Rublee 11

participate in the upcoming dispersal draft of remaining ABA players, have no

votes on the distribution of gate receipts for two years, and would not be allowed

to share in the in the league‘s television revenues until the 1979-80 season.

(Kirchberg 155)

The guidelines that the NBA had set for the merging ABA teams were all met successfully and by the start of the 1976-1977 season all four teams were in the NBA.

The merger was a success and it showed definitely at the start of the new season.

Fan attendance was up by an average of 800 per game and all the superstars from the

ABA were now playing along the stars from the NBA. There were new rules made to make the game more offensively minded which would cater towards the likings of the fans. The position of the ball after timeouts was reassessed so that for in the final two minutes of a game the ball would be moved to the middle of the court instead of under the teams‘ basket; this would allow for games that were close to become more closer, because before when teams would make a last second heave to get the ball up the court the ball would usually end up soaring out of bounds (Kirchberg 156). There were also new rules that would make the game less brutal and penalize players for using their elbows to smash people in the face.

The merger was a success for both the leagues and the players because both sides won. The NBA was able to make a substantial amount of money out of the merger due to each new ABA franchise entering the league paying $3.2 million, and gaining all the revenue made from television broadcasting. And those franchises from the ABA that did not migrate to the NBA did not lose out: the four franchise owners that did not migrate to Rublee 12 the NBA were compensated. The two owners of the St. Louis Spirits did not ask for upfront compensation but rather asked to own 4/7 of a share of the NBA‘s televisions revenues for every year. ESPN recently calculated that the two owners now get a yearly income of $24 million from the 4/7 share that they own (Simmons 128).

Had the NBA not merged with the ABA and decided to see who could out last the other, professional basketball would be in a completely different place right now. The

NBA might now even have been around because fans would have lost interest in it. Had

Julius Erving stayed in the ABA and never played in the NBA everything would have been different. There would have been no Larry Bird vs. series, or the rise of the great . Maybe these things would have taken place in the ABA and everyone would have played with a red, white, and blue ball. None of these things would have taken place had the two leagues not merged. People can imagine all they want, but all they will really know for now is that the merger was the right choice.

Rublee 13

Interview Transcription

Interviewee: Kevin Grevey Interviewer: Dylan Rublee Location: Grevey‘s Restaurant, Falls Church, Virginia Date: January 8th, 2010

Dylan Rublee: This is Dylan Rublee and I am interviewing Kevin Grevey as part of the

American Century Oral History Project. This interview took place on Friday, January 8th,

2010 at 2:20pm. So how was it growing up in Hamilton, Ohio?

Kevin Grevey: It was a wonderful place to grow up in, it was almost like Andy and

Mayberry just a wonderful little community, not very big, very friendly people, real family oriented typical midwestern town.

DR: Were sports big there?

KG: It was almost a given that you would play sports, little league baseball softball all sorts of outdoor sports recreational sports swimming tennis and then your team sports, so when I was a youngster I wanted to be an athlete and I played them all my dad and mother had a lot to do with me learning how to play golf tennis swimming take swimming lessons, just a very active young boy when I was growing up. Rublee 14

DR: Did you have brothers or sisters that you played sports with?

KG: I fortunately had 5 brothers and sisters, I had an older sister and then 4 young brothers and sisters, and we all grew up in a really nice family unit supporting each other's endeavors and activities, and one of this the things we used to do for recreation was my mother and father would grab a bag of balls, and play baseball and play softball or play tennis, and these things we did this together as a family unit, and then my neighbors and friends and that is how it began to expand we would have sand lock football games baseball games , fathers would play with the kids, and I couldn‘t think of a better environment to grow up in, and I was very lucky to have parents and brothers and sisters to help one another, and for wonderful neighbors and friends.

DR: So basketball just came around sort of through playing all these different sports, it wasn‘t introduced through the family as being a main sport?

KG: We didn‘t really have a main sport back then but basketball was also part of all this activities, and I can remember from the day that I was old enough to heave a basketball my dad put a basket and a rim up on the garage wall you know right above the garage Rublee 15 door, and you had to remember to open up the door when you played or you would go flying right into that door (laughs) or you would bust a window out or something, so yeah I remember my dad was an attorney in Hamilton Ohio, I‘d shovel the snow when I‘d come home from school, and I‘d put a lot of air in the ball cause the ball wouldn‘t bounce real well in cold weather, and I‘d be bouncing the ball and shooting waiting for my dad to come home, and my dad would take his tie off take his sneakers out and come out and we would play , and I always looked forward to my father coming home from work cause I‘d show him a new move or a new shot I learnt. I was definitely driven to play basketball probably more than the other sports because it was something you could do on your own.

DR: Yeah.

KG: It‘s a solitary kind of thing, you know baseball requires somebody to pitch the ball to you and tennis you really to have another guy on the other side of the net.

DR: That‘s true.

KG: You can bang the ball against the garage door which I would do, but basketball I learned to love to practice, I loved to shoot, shooting was something I wanted to perfect. Rublee 16

It would be like a golfer learning how to putt putting is the most important stroke in a golf game. Every sport has its strains depending on who you are and your body type and what works for you, and it just seemed like shooting came natural and it was something I loved to do, so I would spend hours and hours even as a young boy shooting the basketball.

DR: It just grew on you?

KG: Well yea, and my dad could see how much I loved to play basketball and shoot a basketball, and he could see that I was pretty good at it, so he would put the kids in the car and myself, and we would go to basketball games. Back then when I played you didn‘t get a lot of television or games on TV so we listened to them on the radio before

I‘d go to bed at night, listen to the Dayton Flyers, Ohio Redskins, or Bearcats and Ohio State Buckeyes and we could get Kentucky or Louisville in our neighborhood, it was only 80 miles away and the radio feed was strong enough we could listen to those broadcasts, so I remember going to bed at night trying to envision in my mind what it looked like on those courts and my dad would take me to those arenas, and I could firsthand see what it was like, and you know it was exciting and it really wet my appetite to after going to games. And then the Cincinnati Royals was the NBA team near our home town, and my father got tickets and he would take me to the Royals, and I would see Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas, and then all the great players that were coming into

Cincinnati to play, so here I am you know wanting to be an athlete, and I‘m seeing the Rublee 17 pro game college game and then we would also go see the high school games to, so I was getting a real indoctrination to the game of basketball at a real young age both as a fan and a player.

DR: Did you dream of playing in the NBA or the ABA as a kid?

KG: I couldn‘t dream beyond high school really or college, there were only 9 teams in the NBA and there were 10 players on a team so that‘s the 90 best players in the world, you know I could never think that I would be the 90 best player in the world, I was just trying to be the best player in my neighborhood or at my high school maybe, you know.

So I didn‘t set my goals that would be unreachable at that young age, but I think my first real goal was to beat my dad in basketball, you know I wanted to whip him because he was pretty good, and to make the high school basketball team someday.

DR: Did you make it as a freshman?

KG: We had a junior high school that was 7th, 8th, and 9th grade so my first year of high school was my sophomore year, and I did make it my sophomore year. I wasn‘t great or real good, I was pretty skinny and tall, but I was skilled and I had a wonderful coach in high school that saw I was pretty good in junior high school, and he started working with my junior high school coach on things that could help me make it in high school. Rublee 18

DR: So did your high school career grow as the years progressed?

KG: Oh yea, it did, and I was on a really good team and so my sophomore year I didn‘t start, I was on the team and I had a role on the team and then junior and senior year I was a starter; we got to the state tournament all 3 years but we never did win the championship, but we came very close my senior year, we lost by 2 points in the state championship, we were good and I had a great high school coach and I had terrific teammates, and a lot of my teammates also went on to college and play Division 1 college basketball, not just myself. I remember college coaches when they would come and scout me, they really marveled at my coach and how organized he was, what a terrific teacher he was; they said ―Kevin you don‘t know how lucky you are, your getting wonderful fundamentals, we observed your practice and this is the best coach we‘ve ever seen‖ I can‘t tell you how many college coaches told me that, so I knew I was getting taught by a wonderful man, Mark McCullum? was his name and he was well recognized in the state of Ohio as one of the top coaches in the state, he had won state championships prior to when I got there and after I left but we never won, but I never felt like one second that I wasn‘t getting the best education, both as a basketball player but also he was a wonderful mentor off the court, how to handle yourself and how to be a good sports man, and how to appreciate the history of the game and the players before you and set a good example, he setting the bar very high for us as individuals and how to handle ourselves and representing Hamilton Taft High School. Rublee 19

DR: Was Kentucky your main choice to go to college or did you consider other colleges before?

KG: I considered other schools but when I visited all these schools there was one school that always stood out with fabulous support, it was big time college basketball, and that was Kentucky. And my father who brainwashed me at a very young age [laughs] he said if Kentucky ever recruits you to play there, that would be something very hard to say no to such an opportunity. He said because only the best of the best play at Kentucky.

DR: They are looking pretty good right now as well.

KG: That‘s right they really are, you know they have had their down moments and they‘ve had their great moments, I was fortunate to play at Kentucky when coach Rupp was there, and he was making the transition to retiring and Jo Hall came in; I played for both Adolph Rupp and Jo Hall, and I was prepared very ready to play at Kentucky, and I didn‘t know how good I was, and there was a little bit of fear going to a program like

Kentucky where I knew I could play like these other schools that I was considering, there was always that unknown you know so I had to prove myself and it all worked out.

Rublee 20

DR: How was your college experience playing basketball and just going to college?

KG: I can‘t think of four better years other than maybe getting married and my kids were born that certainly is number one, but my fours years at Kentucky were the best four years of my life, the hardest four years, it was almost like marine boot camp you know two a day practices in the summer and holidays and preseason, commitment was unbelievable, but as I said Dylan I love to practice I love to shoot, and that was perfect for me, the more work the harder it was the more I enjoyed it, you know yes it was a challenge but I loved it and I got better and better, and my team got better, those friends and players that I played with are still very dear and close to me today.

DR: Did any of them also go on and play in the NBA with you?

KG: Yes they did, oh thank you very much cookies [waiter brings cookies], you want one

Dylan?

DR: I‘m fine thank you.

Rublee 21

KG: Yes on team my senior year there were 8 of us who played in the ABA and NBA, you know at that time there were only 14, 15 players on a team so half of our team ended up playing professional basketball.

DR: That was a good team.

KG: It was great team.

DR: What was your view of the ABA as you were playing, as you started to understand more and more about basketball, like which one [ABA vs. NBA] did you think of more highly of as in competiveness?

KG: NBA was the only place I wanted to play, when I mentioned that I watched the

Cincinnati Royals and see the teams come in, ABA was just at the beginning of its being, there wasn‘t any TV games and there wasn‘t an ABA franchise in our state of Ohio, the

Kentucky Colonels were the closest one so I never went to an ABA game until I went to college and I was playing for the , and my first ABA game was the Kentucky Colonels and they played the Indiana Pacers and that was my first look at the ABA, it was exciting and these guys were world class players and they didn‘t have to take a second fill to anybody, there was a huge rivalry ABA and NBA, but when I started watching the Kentucky Colonels and many former Kentucky basketball players from the Rublee 22

University of Kentucky played for the Colonels, Mike Pratt , who is the all time leading scorer in the ABA history, and these guys were friends of mine, they were older than me and I used to play with them in the summer, and it was a great experience to be playing with pro players, and you could measure up and see if your good enough to play, so I always knew I could play in the ABA, because I was playing against ABA players but I wasn‘t sure about the NBA, just like I wasn‘t sure when I left

Hamilton to go to Kentucky, that next step is a big step, but I was very fortunate to be playing at Kentucky and getting better all the time, and having friends even though they were older than me they were wonderful guys, they were former Kentucky players, and there was a fraternity, a bond; if you play Kentucky and these older guys would come watch our practices, they would speak to us, they would counsel us, encourage us, it made you feel great that these elder statesman would come back to our school and tell us how wonderful an opportunity we have, and remind us that these years are going to go by fast, and give it everything you have, represent the state of Kentucky the right way and it was good to hear them you know talk to us and mentor us.

DR: Did any of your players (teammates) leave early to play in the ABA?

KG: No. It was very rare that anybody would do something like that in my era back in the early mid 70‘s, although there were a few that had already done that, none of my teammates did, you know we were there for 4 years and when we graduated is when we begun to look at professional basketball. Rublee 23

DR: Did your coach talk to you about you making the transition into the NBA once you had completed your 4 years?

KG: No you think they would have, but they wanted us to focus on the now, and I remember going into the athletic directors office after my junior year, who was Cliff

Hagen who was a great NBA and ABA player, and an ABA coach for the Dallas

Chaperones, he was an All American at Kentucky, there‘s a guy who knows the game and maybe I‘ll go into his office and talk to him about it, and he wasn‘t all that encouraging, he said ―Kevin focus on Kentucky, if you‘re good enough it will happen, but for you to start thinking about NBA now and ABA and professional basketball while you‘re here at

Kentucky, it‘ll just put more pressure on you, and it‘s not something that is positive thing, you‘ve got to think about what you can do now, being a good student and getting your degree, and being the best you can be here, and then if your good enough it‘ll happen‖.

And it was probably good advice but it wasn‘t what I wanted to hear (laughs).

DR: Do you think that ideology has faded away now that you have these one and done freshman?

KG: That‘s a good question, Dylan I think it has a little bit in some ways, I think the money, the game has changed so much, and players you know are growing up like I did Rublee 24 are not necessarily influenced by their high school coaches, and their neighbors and their friends family, it‘s more like AAU, professionals when they‘re 12 and 13 years old, travelling all over the country playing on these travel teams, coaches not really having the players best interest but instead his own best interest, out recruiting these young boys and girls at a very young age, and they get a warped sense of being I think, and they think they are the chosen ones, the privilege, and then all the people thinking they are going to be pros, forgetting about high school college, there‘s a lot more before than becoming a pro, and if you miss out on those formidable? years and education, then bad things can happen; we can look into the paper almost everyday and see where another professional athlete has fallen from Tiger Woods to Gilbert Arenas to so many others, you know putting themselves in bad situation, and maybe if they had played in a high school environment and gone to college and had great coaching and good mentors, that they could have avoided some of these pitfalls that the big money and the lime light presents.

DR: You always hear about these players who if they had just stayed a little longer would have been that much better.

KG: There‘s no question, but the lure of the money the dollar is very enticing, and we‘re not just talking hundreds of thousands but millions and millions of dollars, and when there‘s that kind of money out there being dangled it attracts these guys, you know like bees on honey, and also the wrong element as well. So it takes an amazing character to be able to handle it in a very positive way, it takes a lot of strength. Rublee 25

DR: Do you think that‘s one of the main issues why people stayed 4 years back in your time, because there wasn‘t that much money?

KG: I think there was a lot of reasons but that was probably the biggest, because there‘s no question that to leave college early and to do that you had to declare hardship, you had to fight the league and the attorneys and say I am on a need situation it‘s illegal for you to keep me from coming, just because I‘m 18 19 years old, I‘m poor I have a reason to quit college and go into the NBA, and you know you couldn‘t argue with them, and that‘s why high school kids and others and the floodgates opened and then they started leaving.

Fortunately with the collective bargaining agreements over the last several terms between owners and players, players unions and the NBA league office, they‘ve put a mandatory

19 age requirement, I wish it were 20 or 21 and it might be the next collective bargaining agreement, but at least it‘s better than allowing these young kids; the youngest was

Andrew Bynum at 17 years old, its unbelievable. And I work for the Lakers as a regional scout, and I saw him play in high school, and went up and scouted him, and you could see he was like a man child, he was huge big and graceful, and you know that comes along maybe once every decade, to see that young a player, but I think that‘s when the league decided to do something about it, or it‘s going to be 16 year olds next year.

Rublee 26

DR: Do you think he was so dominant because he was playing high schoolers, and he hadn‘t yet proven himself among college players yet, or do you just think he was that special of a player?

KG: Actually hadn‘t played organized basketball that long, he did play some AAU basketball, but he was hurt all the time. He was injured, had a bad foot, knee, the Connecticut Huskies signed him to be a freshmen at Connecticut right before we started scouting him, so we knew he was good enough to be a Division 1 player, we had to look at this kid; and he definitely changed the draft, he was that good. We saw amazing abilities in this guy, and he just had to get in shape, he couldn‘t run down the floor more than 3 or 4 times, he would get fatigued because he was so big, he had a lot of baby fat, but you could see the skills and just dominated the high school kids. It‘s hard to project what a 16 or 17 year old will be 4 or 5 years from now, but I worked with some unbelievable scouts and and Ronney Lester our

Assistant General Manager, and there‘s 5 of us scouts addition to those 2. And we would have meetings all the time on players and Andrew Bynum was discussed a lot at the conference tables before we drafted him.

DR: I guess we will move on to the actual merger, what was your reaction when the 2 leagues merged?

Rublee 27

KG: I was playing in the NBA at the time; you knew it was probably going to happen, I have to think back on it now. I think I was disappointed to see the ABA didn‘t hold on, I would have liked to see 2 leagues because that meant more jobs, more jobs is a good thing when you‘re in that environment, when you‘re a player. Now it meant less jobs, but the ABA was going to fold.

DR: You saw it coming?

KG: I saw it coming, they didn‘t have a TV contract, they were struggling, owners were herding for money, and you were reading about it and hearing about it, I was talking to players, checks were late, players weren‘t getting paid it was getting ugly. And I was little disappointed only 4 teams came in, and the league had 10 teams so that meant a lot of guys were out of jobs, but there were 4 teams that came and it made the league that much bigger and stronger.

DR: Did the level of competition change once came, did it change at all?

KG: I think it did raise the bar a little bit. But there‘s no question that David Thompson came in from Denver, George Gervin from , obviously Dr. J who was with the Nets, who then moved to Philadelphia. You could see that these guys were going to make the league better, we always felt that there was a little bit more of an exciting Rublee 28 style of play in the ABA with the 3 colored ball, and dunking 3 – point shot, and you know they had alarms and cheerleaders, it was just more of a fun environment, whereas the NBA was getting kind of boring and stale, they had the Old Oregons you know, you know whereas the ABA had rock music in the ABA. And it‘s funny how the NBA fought this, they didn‘t want it, but once the merger came they started adopting the shot clock and the 3 – point line, they never did get the basketball 3 color you know red white and blue (laughs). But we had cheerleaders and the arenas became more exciting, and the game became more exciting.

DR: So the style of play changed from stale to flash?

KG: A little more flash and entertainment.

DR: Did you like that?

KG: Yeah, yeah I definitely liked it, even though I was more of an old school disciplined team player, I knew my game had to evolve and I had to expand. I think it made me a better player, and we won the championship the Bullets 1978, that was right after the merger, and you could just see the game getting better and more exciting every year, and with the influx of this young talent, Larry Bird comes in 1980, Michael Jordan. When I left the NBA I just knew that this league was just thriving and it was going to go nuts, and Rublee 29 all these international player start coming in, and then had a lot to do with making this a global game.

DR: Was it 77-78 when you won the championship?

KG: Yes.

DR: How was that season, was it just domination?

KG: It was a dream perfect season, it was a great year. Every player dreams of winning a championship, I was on a team that had fabulous talent, a terrific coach, and an owner who really wanted to Abe Pollin. And we had been there before, before I got there and they lost in the championship, in fact they got swept twice by the in 1974-1975 season, and by the Milwaukee Bucks in 71. So and Elvin

Hayes who were our captains and our rock, our best players, they knew the clock was running out this might be the last time, and they wanted it so bad. And we just played so hard and very well as a team, and everything went our way; we stayed away from injury we were lucky there, and we won all the really close games, and many of them were 7 game series. And we had to win on the road, and to win on the road in the NBA you got to have a lot of focus, you got to be a really solid team in the playoffs to win on the road.

And to win on a game 7 on the road when all the odds were against you. Rublee 30

DR: Is that your ring right there?

KG: It‘s the Lakers championship ring, when I scouted for the Lakers, yeah its pretty cool.

DR: That is amazing.

KG: I have 3 championship rings from the Lakers and I have 1 from 78 with the Bullets.

DR: Have you met ?

KG: Oh yea, I met Kobe Bryant, I played against his dad you know when he was with the 76ers, played a few years in the NBA and then went on to play a European career, Kobe was born in Italy while his dad was a professional over there. I had nothing to with drafting Kobe Bryant or scouting him, because he was there way before I got there, but a lot of the other players that are on the team I have had some hand in scouting them, and arguing over their abilities and things like that, and you know we do it all as a committee, but now being there 10 years every player that we have drafted is still in the Rublee 31 league, so I feel like the Lakers have drafted well. You know not all of them are still with us, we‘ve had to trade some, some of them have gone on as free agents, every player that we‘ve drafted is still in the league. We‘ve missed on a few, but the guys we drafted have turned out to be bonafide NBA players so that‘s a good feeling a good streak that we want to keep in tact.

DR: Going back to that season when you won the championship, how did that feel to win it, was it a dream come true?

KG: Yes it was. I mentioned to you that I lost in the championship of the state finals in high school, I also lost in the NCAA finals with Kentucky we played UCLA, and we lost.

And having lost 2 of the most important games of your life, now playing your 3rd game 7 in Seattle all odds against us, and I told you how hard it is to win a game 7 on the road, it had only been done a couple of times before us. So we knew in the history of the NBA only 2 teams had won a game 7 in a championship series on the road.

DR: So the odds were against you.

KG: Huge, but I never once felt like we weren‘t going to win. And I don‘t think anybody in that locker room felt like we weren‘t going to win, we knew we were going to be challenged, and it was going to be very difficult. But we had come that far to lose that Rublee 32 game would not be acceptable in that locker room, because Wes and Elvin had both been there before, Abe Pollin, coaches, and all the players who were playing on that team to a man, we left that locker room convinced we were going to win, and we were going to do everything that we could possibly do on every play and not beat ourselves. And we talked about it, do the little things, do every little thing you can do, we may not make every shot we take we know that, but we can defend and we can get rebounds and loose balls and avoid fouling, and play solid and play hard but play smart and under control, and stay together. And when things were going bad lets help one another, lets talk, lets communicate and we did all those things, we did them a lot but not always for 48 minutes. This one game we did it for 48 minutes, and role players had some of their best moments in that game, Mitch Kupchak, Greg Ballard, Charlie Johnson, who were on the bench had some of their best moments in game 7 on the road. We could not have won it if everybody didn‘t contribute the way we did.

DR: So the whole team just came together?

KG: We came together throughout those playoffs, and we had moments just like game 7 in Seattle, so we had been there before and we weren‘t afraid of the unbelievable challenge in front of us, because we had a game 7 against Atlanta, we had a game 7 against San Antonio and we had a game 6 on the road against Philly, so you know the opera isn‘t over until the fat lady sings it‘s on my championship ring, and that was when we were down 3-1 to San Antonio and only 2 teams had ever come back from a 3-1 Rublee 33 deficit and we had. We just completed a 3-1 deficit to win in game 7 against San Antonio, so we weren‘t afraid taking the floor in Seattle game 7, and we did it and that I remember going out on the floor and giving thanks to the man above, I made a prayer that you know please just let me feel what a championship is like, I lost in high school I lost in college

I‘ve accepted that, can I just get 1 and I‘ll live in your glory, and I had to give him thanks after we won, I went into the gym and it was quiet there was nobody there but some leaf blowers and a couple janitors, because it was 2 hours after the game before our bus left for the hotel, and I remember that moment very well you know it was a wonderful wonderful feeling, and I finally felt like a whole complete player and it made me think back to when I was a kid and my dad had taken me to games, and playing on those winter days, you know the love I had for the game, and then finally to win a championship it was amazing.

DR: It must have been a surreal moment to think from being a kid not imagining to play in the NBA to being a world champion.

KG: You know it was like why me, and I was so glad to that it happened to me, and as a young player because I had 7 more years in the NBA and I never once took it for granted that I was playing a world class game, with the best players in the world, and I was out there competing, and so it took a lot of work lot of blood a lot of sweat, but I like I said I loved it, and it‘s a gift that keeps on giving today, to know that I had done that you have to move on, you have to live in the present or the future, but in the past is what made me Rublee 34 today, and I know that and I think I‘m a better husband, a better father, a better businessman, a better person for my experiences that I had as an athlete, not everyone believes sports is the answer, I mean there are so many ways you can better yourself; you know my kids never played a lot of sports. They went into music and my daughter is still in schools, she‘s an academic study girl who‘s doing her international studies here on the east coast, but team sports were so good and helped mold me, and I encouraged them to play team sports when they were kids and when they were in high school, and I think that they can look back at some of their moments that have helped them become a better person.

DR: It sounds like the NBA was a very positive experience?

KG: It was, I have no regrets, I really don‘t have any regrets. The money wasn‘t the same it is today, maybe the notoriety wasn‘t what it is today, but I didn‘t play the game for money and I didn‘t play it for fame, I played it because I loved the game. I would have played it for the popcorn and the hamburger and the soda that was being sold at the arena,

I certainly didn‘t let my agent know that but that‘s how much I was wanting to be there and play, I loved competition, and testing my game against my opponent in a team environment, and trying to get that W every night, 82 games is a long season in the NBA, and college season was about 30 games and so was my high school, but it just was a great path, I was very fortunate to stay healthy, I didn‘t have a lot of injuries and there were many career injuries that could accompany a player through high school and college, and Rublee 35 so many great players I saw that I played with or against that weren‘t able to fulfill their careers because of that. But sports medicine has come a long way, that is a wonderful thing, so is diet and exercise, players today are so more fit than they were when I played.

DR: It sounds a lot more different, Wes Unseld I got a chance to hear him talk over the summer at a camp, he sounded like a grumpy man, was he like that during the season?

KG: He was, I loved Wes Unseld he was a fabulous captain, and I was very fortunate to play with him for 6 years, but Wes was a little bit grumpy, just a big old sour bear, you know he was so strong physical, when I think of Wes on the bus he‘s got a cigarette in one hand and a book in the other hand, and he was such an intelligent guy, I had this love and passion for the game, he felt like he didn‘t love the game, because he was so big and so strong that he was in the game because of his physical well being, and I think Wes was always thinking about something other than basketball, he wouldn‘t close that book until the coaches say ok lets start talking about our pregame, and he‘d put out his cigarette and close his book, and when the game would end he would open that book up, and you know he always was pontificating about different subjects. He was a real intellectual and so I don‘t think Wes loved the game, and it may have projected in the things he said at that speech.

DR: It was interesting to hear him talk. What about Hayes? Rublee 36

KG: Hayes was one of the most gifted natural athletes I ever played with. He could run and jump, he could shoot, and the game came very easy to him, certain players certain athletes the game is easy, there are some that are blessed.

DR: Like Lebron.

KG: Lebron, you know the game is very easy, Kobe, you know but that doesn‘t mean they work hard, of course they do. But they could take a whole summer off, Magic

Johnson Larry Bird you know the greats, the game was a little easier, Bill Russell Wilt

Chamberlain. They were so incredibly talented and gifted, and I saw others that had that great gift but they didn‘t work at it and they didn‘t dedicate, and they fell apart and their careers never thrived. But Elvin was 1 player who didn‘t have to work out all summer long, I would say ―Elvin what did you do this summer, did you run?‖, ―No I was on my ranch, mending fences, you know I had a 100 head of cattle‖ he was a Houston oil and cattleman, and he never played basketball until he showed up. And you would look at his boots and he would have all Houston clay on his shoes and boots and blue jeans, he would take the floor and out run all of us (laughs), and I was so jealous of this natural athlete, but that‘s what Elvin was. A little insecure, not the best team player, but he got better at it, but everybody was different and everybody brought something to the table, you know and when you got as many players as we did on a team everybody had a role, and Elvin was our best player, Wes was our captain and everybody else had roles. Rublee 37

DR: Was Monroe on that team?

KG: No Earl had left a couple years before.

DR: Did you get a chance to play with him?

KG: I played against Earl, not with Earl, he was a magician on the floor one of the all time greats. Friend today, good tennis player, your uncle would be challenged to beat Earl

Monroe (laughs).

DR: I got to ask this last question, is there anything I have failed to ask you that is essential to my understanding of the merger that I am researching?

KG: That‘s a good question, I think the merger would have never happened if it hadn‘t been for the willingness of the NBA owners and coaches, like Red Auerbach some of the old school guys to recognize how important it was to bring the ABA into the NBA. They didn‘t want to compete against them, they wanted to gobble them up, and I‘m just glad that it eventually happened and that you know the league is expanding and growing to Rublee 38 more teams, if there were 2 leagues they would be competing over players, it happened in the old AFL and NFL, it was happening in the ABA and NBA, there wasn‘t enough money back then for the 2 to compete. I‘m glad for the ABA and its existence, and I‘m glad the merger came about. But these owners were good businessmen, and finally they were able to see it through.

DR: It‘s almost turning into a global game now.

KG: It is, yeah I don‘t think we‘re far off from seeing maybe a franchise in Asia, that‘s the most growing part of the world right now, and also in Europe, they have the facilities over in London, certainly in Mexico City, we got Toronto so we have a Canadian franchise, but I can see a couple more in Canada. At the same time with this recession there‘s some small market teams that are struggling really bad, and they may have to fold those teams up, at the same time expand globally, so the league can still have 30 teams. I think before David Stern retires and leaves, he‘s going to see franchises over in rest of the world.

DR: Do you think that all these players that are transitioning from the NBA to the

European leagues or the other way around is one of the reasons why its going to become such a global game?

Rublee 39

KG: Usually about money, it comes down to dollars. If you open the gates to Asia and to

Europe I think that you know soccer is a global game, baseball is not quite the NFL no, basketball they are playing everywhere. You know I went to Africa 2 years ago and you could the messiah the head of basketball playing on clay, every play I‘ve gone in the world I‘ve seen kids playing basketball.

DR: It‘s a universal sport, almost like soccer is.

KG: Just like when I was a little kid it was something you could do on your own, all you needed was a basketball and a basket, you didn‘t even need shoes. You could play the game out back, they used to play on dirt in Kentucky and Indiana, you know you heard about Larry Bird, they used to play on gravel and on stone and dirt, it truly happened and that‘s how they played it in a lot of places, and everywhere that I have gone I‘ve seen it.

The league is ripe to expand globally.

DR: So do you think it‘s inevitable that it will happen?

KG: I think it will, and you never know there could be 2 leagues again, there could be a

US continental United States verses the globe, you know it‘s almost like the Olympics.

You see how great these teams are from around the world, this was a game we formed in

Springfield College, we invented the game, it‘s our game, but it‘s the one game that Rublee 40 everybody is playing around the world. And it would be an honor to see more NBA teams around the world, we see it globally being played in the Olympics, there‘s no reason to why it can‘t be done professionally.

DR: I guess that‘s it, thank you very much.

KG: Thank you Dylan, that was fun talking.

DR: Yes it was.

Rublee 41

Rublee 42

Analysis Paper

With the sport of basketball becoming more and more of a global game and players moving not just across leagues but now across countries to go play it seems as if there will be new leagues that could one day challenge the NBA. There have already been several NBA players such as Josh Childress, , and who have jumped from the NBA to the European leagues and several NBA stars have hinted that they might go play in Europe. This emergence of NBA players going to play in Europe could be interpreted as a NBA versus ABA round 2. The ABA was an up and coming league and several players were leaving the NBA to go play in the ABA. After a while the NBA felt that it had to get rid of the ABA because it was starting to become a problem to the NBA. Kevin Grevey expressed that the 2 leagues would inevitably merge but that was only because the ABA had become a significant problem for the NBA and the NBA wanted to make more of a profit. Kevin Grevey‘s opinion on the merger between the two leagues supports my research.

The importance of oral history cannot be truly understood until people begin to look back and research the topic on which the oral history was done. Oral history provides an in depth look at events without being present. It acts as a substitute for video cameras or other recording devices that could have captured the moment. Oral history is the bridge between the textbooks and what the textbooks are writing about. People who are able to talk intelligently on an event and are interviewed on that event give others who were not knowledgeable about the event a glimpse into what happened. However Rublee 43 when studying oral history and interviewing someone, you always have to be aware of their ―unconscious preconceptions‖. Once you are aware of their biases then oral history can be as effective, or more effective, as any other form of history. Oral history does have another key weakness and that is the legitimacy of the material that has been collected from the interview. If the interview is conducted long after the event has happened or the person has become incoherent then the information becomes invalid.

Throughout the interview Kevin Grevey heavily emphasized that the merger was inevitable and that the ABA could not last much longer. The ABA owners were not able to pay players, and they were not making any profit. The NBA was able to broadcast games on television, whereas the ABA could not. Kevin Grevey knew players had heard from players, who were in the ABA, that had said they were not getting paid, or getting paid late, “I saw it coming, they didn‘t have a TV contract, they were struggling, owners were herding for money, and you were reading about it and hearing about it, I was talking to players, checks were late, players weren‘t getting paid it was getting ugly‖ (Grevey16).

Kevin Grevey was also saddened by the merger because he was content with there being two leagues in America. Having two leagues meant more jobs available, not just for players but also for people working in the stadiums and in the offices for franchises and for the league. Eliminating an entire league meant a lot of people were left without a job, and the fact that only 4 teams from the ABA were brought into the NBA showed that this deal was clearly beneficial towards the NBA. Another key point that Kevin Grevey made was that the once the two leagues had merged the NBA became a lot more exciting. The

ABA brought a new style of exciting play that catered towards the fans and moved away from the dull boring fundamental style of play of the NBA, ―But we had cheerleaders and Rublee 44 the arenas became more exciting, and the game became more exciting‖(Grevey17) Once the two leagues merged you had legends from both leagues competing against each other on a nightly basis and the game became all around more exciting for both the players and the fans.

The key points that Kevin Grevey focused on throughout the interview were also present in the research that I had done. The first major point was that concerning the

ABA‘s inevitability to merge with the NBA, because it was not able to stand by itself anymore. The NBA was had control over televising basketball games so the ABA was left with broadcasting their games through the radio, which wasn‘t enough revenue to generate profit. And once the two leagues merged it was clear that the NBA had come out on top, ―The final deal, announced on June 17th, 1976, called for the Indiana Pacers, San

Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, and New York Nets to pay the NBA $3.2 million each by September 15th, 1976‖(Kirchberg155). Of the ten teams that had been around before the two leagues merged, only four were allowed to enter the NBA. And even these four teams had to pay a huge amount of money to get in. Kevin Grevey was saddened that the league had only let four teams enter the league, he would have liked to see all ten come in to reduce the amount of jobs that would have been lost from the merger, ―I saw it coming, they didn‘t have a TV contract, they were struggling, owners were herding for money, and you were reading about it and hearing about it, I was talking to players, checks were late, players weren‘t getting paid it was getting ugly. And I was little disappointed only 4 teams came in, and the league had 10 teams so that meant a lot of guys were out of jobs, but there were 4 teams that came and it made the league that much bigger and stronger.‖(Grevey17). The merger meant a lot of people were put out of jobs, and that Rublee 45 players who had originally set out to play basketball as a living now had to find something different to do. The merger once again proved that the NBA was supreme and no one could challenge it. First the ABL had tried to compete against the NBA but it dispersed after two years, and then came the ABA, which lasted for nine years.

Another key point that came across in both the research and the interview with

Kevin Grevey was how the game was transformed after the two leagues merged. The

ABA had such a unique style of play, which included the multicolored ball, and the highlight reel dunks and plays. This was the complete opposite of the NBA, which played a fundamental, conservative style of basketball that was not exciting. However once the two leagues merged and the NBA incorporated the 3 – point line and the dunks and the excitement from the ABA, its popularity among fans rose immediately. According to

Kirchberg fan attendance was up by 800 per game and this meant that more money was being made by NBA franchise owners, and by the league itself. Fans were more drawn into the game now; the game had become more of an exciting experience, ―we had cheerleaders and the arenas became more exciting, and the game became more exciting.‖(Grevey 17). With the popularity of the NBA rising and more and more people attending games, or viewing them on TV, the sky was the limit to see where the NBA would end up.

Both Kevin Grevey and I believed that the merger between the NBA and the ABA was a positive event. Kevin Grevey played in the NBA, which meant he did not suffer from it negatively. He did not lose his job, or have to worry about getting paid, which a lot of ABA players did have to do. Kevin Grevey played in the NBA before and the merger and after the merger and he observed how the game transformed after the merger. Rublee 46

After the merger took Kevin Grevey stated that the game became more exciting for everyone. More fans began to attend games and the popularity of the NBA rose every year after the merger. This means that Kevin Grevey‘s bias is going to lean towards being in favor of the merger.

The pace of the interview was very fast; there were not very many breaks or pauses throughout the interview, which meant a lot was said. I wish that I had gone more in depth to the actual merger, because I feel that I didn‘t ask quite enough questions. I could have drawn out more information that would have helped me get a real sense of what the merger meant to the players who were in the league at the time. But as a whole the interview went well, there was a lot of discussion going on and I found out a lot about how the game changed for players after the merger. I would not have learnt this from a textbook. I am very grateful for being able to interview Kevin Grevey because he gave me an insight to the merger that most people are not aware of.

What I learnt from my interview with Kevin Grevey was that the merger was not beneficial to everyone: many people lost their jobs after the merger. But for those teams that were integrated into the NBA it was a positive experience. The game grew after the merger, and it is still growing today. The game is now growing on a global scale and there could be new leagues emerging that would compete with the NBA.

Rublee 47

Works Cited

Asher, Mark. ―Merger Proposal Called One-Sided.‖ The Washington Post [Washington DC] 23

Sept. 1971, Times Herald ed., sec. H: 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 13 Dec.

2009.

document?set=searchera&start=76&rendition=x-article-

image&inmylist=false&urn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3BPQD

%3BHNP%3BPROD%3Bx-article-

image%3B144155852&mylisturn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3B

PQD%3BHNP%3BPROD%3Bx-citation%3B144155852>.

- - -. ―Technicalities Delay Basketball Merger.‖ The Washington Post [Washington DC] 3 May

1971, Times Herald ed., sec. C: 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 13 Dec. 2009.

article-

image&inmylist=false&urn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3BPQD

%3BHNP%3BPROD%3Bx-article-

image%3B157352532&mylisturn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3B

PQD%3BHNP%3BPR>.

Grevey, Kevin. Personal interview. 8 Jan. 2010.

―Judge Extends Ban on NBA-ABA Merger.‖ The Washington Post [Washington D.C.] 2 May

1970, Times Herald ed., sec. E: 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 13 Dec. 2009.

article-

image&inmylist=false&urn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3BPQD Rublee 48

%3BHNP%3BPROD%3Bx-article-

image%3B159084872&mylisturn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3B

PQD%3BHNP%3BPROD%3Bx-citation%3B159084872>.

Kirchberg, Connie. Hoop Lore. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007. Print.

―NBA Board Paves Way For Merger With ABA.‖ Washington Post [Washington Post] 24 July

1976, sec. C3: 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 13 Dec. 2009.

article-

image&inmylist=false&urn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3BPQD

%3BHNP%3BPROD%3Bx-article-

image%3B120002080&mylisturn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BPQDOC%3BHNP%3B

PQD%3BHNP%3BPROD%3Bx-citation%3B120002080>.

Simmons, Bill. The Book Of Basketball. New York City: ESPN Books, 2009. Print.

In the Wake of the ―Flood‖ John P. Morris Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 38, No. 1, Athletics (Winter - Spring, 1973), pp. 85-98 Published by: Duke University School of Law Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1190961

The Sports Business as a Labor Market Laboratory Lawrence M. Kahn The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Summer, 2000), pp. 75-94 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646920

Rublee 49

Worsnop, Richard L. "Professional Athletes." Editorial Research Reports 1971. Vol. II. Washington: CQ Press, 1971. 671-690. CQ Researcher. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. .