Me and the Chaps

I was a student at Hill Junior High School in 1967 when the American Basketball Association was formed. This would be of no consequence had the Dallas Chaparrals not been a member of the league. I was an enthusiastic supporter from the start, attending numerous games at Municipal Auditorium downtown and Moody Coliseum on the SMU campus.

Pro hoops fans

Some of the players I remember vividly are Glen Combs, John Beasley, Cincy Powell, Manny Leaks, Bob Verga, Rich Jones, Joe Hamilton, Ron Boone, Spider Bennett, Bob Bedell, Donnie Freeman and Eugene “Goo” Kennedy. Friends like Ronnie Bardwell, Scott McFadden and Lynn Atherton often joined me to see the Chaps take on teams such as the Denver Rockets, Kentucky Colonels, New Orleans Bucs, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, Houston Mavericks and Los Angeles Stars. Since attendance was not great—hovering around 3,300—we were able to buy student tickets for as low as $1. Many times we sat on the first or second row. And if the quality of basketball was a peg below that of the long-established NBA, we seemed not to notice. Ronnie, Scott, Lynn and I savored the experience. The Chaparrals were our team, but that did not prevent us from enjoying the skills of visiting players like Rick Barry, James Jones, Louie Dampier, Mel Daniels, Larry Cannon, Warren Armstrong, Spencer Haywood and the fabulous Julius “Dr. J.” Erving. Everybody loved to watch the Doctor operate. He, more than any other player, forced the merger of the ABA and NBA in 1976.

OK, it was a somewhat bush-league setting. The arenas in which ABA games were played were often inadequate, being juggled with rodeos, beauty pageants, political conventions, moto-cross races and other such events. The hand-operated scoreboard at Moody Coliseum was quaint, and some of the halftime entertainment lacked sophistication. This was long before the high-tech productions and slinky dancing girls you now find at virtually every pro sports event. But what did we know? We thought it was big time. Furthermore, we loved the red-white-and-blue ball—not to mention the huge afros, flashy dunks and occasional fisticuffs.

A middle-of-the-pack ABA team

The Chaps never won an ABA championship or even reached the league finals. Nevertheless, we sometimes made cheesy banners and hung them from the railings. We bought pennants and other regalia on sale in the foyer, waving them proudly when the games got frenzied. Most of all, we supported the team. I don’t remember how, but we got to meet three coaches, Cliff Hagan, Max Williams and Bill Blakeley.

Things were shaky in 1970, so the owners decided on a fairly radical idea: The Chaparrals would become a “regional” team, with home games divided between Dallas, nearby Fort Worth and Lubbock in the wilds of west Texas. Suddenly, without our approval, they became the Texas Chaparrals. At this point, I led an ad hoc revolt of sorts. I got a bunch of people to sign a petition asking that the foolish plan be abandoned. By then a senior at Bryan Adams High School, I was the self-appointed president of the Committee of Dallas Pro Basketball Fans to Bring Back the Dallas Chaparrals (CDPBFBBDC).

We indicated to the owners and whoever else would listen that we loved the Chaps and wanted them to thrive—but only in Dallas. When I made a trip over to Fort Worth to see them play Kentucky, my mood was not good. During a game at Moody Coliseum, Ronnie, Lynn and I were sitting in the cheap seats when Bob Briner, the team’s general manager, came and talked with us. I remember he wore gaudy, white shoes. Briner expressed gratitude for our grass-roots effort and encouraged us.

Proving Uncle Dub wrong

My Uncle Dub, however, thought I was on a fool’s errand. He told me I was wasting my time and should just give it up. I did not like hearing that, but I continued with the undertaking, haphazard though it may have been. During one game, Terry Stembridge, the “voice of the Chaparrals,” had me on his halftime show. He asked me some simple questions about the CDPBFBBDC and our hopes to have the regional plan—which was not going well in Fort Worth and Lubbock—scrapped. As Ronnie later unkindly pointed out, I was a poor interviewee, nervous and babbling.

At any rate, an announcement was made at the end of the 1971 season. The team would no longer play out-of-town home games, and the original name was being restored. Sportswriter Sam Blair of the Dallas Morning News made a reference in his column about the labors of Richard Pennington, a local high school fan, etc., etc. Soon thereafter, I received a letter in the mail. It was from my uncle, who apologized for his cynical stance of a year earlier and expressed pride in the success of my venture, which, let it be remembered, involved other guys.

End of the line for the Chaps

My intense involvement with the Dallas Chaparrals ended about then. I moved to Austin in September 1971 to attend the University of Texas. I returned to see them play a few more times, most memorably when the Milwaukee Bucks were there for an NBA-ABA exhibition game. These were the Bucks who had won the championship the year before with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the middle and Oscar Robertson at point guard. I mostly remember all our big guys pushing, pulling and mugging Abdul-Jabbar, and how he stayed calm in spite of it. I believe he won the game at the end with an absolutely gorgeous skyhook.

The Chaps did not make the playoffs the next year, and attendance was slipping; other ABA franchises were struggling for dear life, so they were not alone. I was a junior at UT when I learned that they were moving to San Antonio and would henceforth be called the Spurs. They were one of the four ABA teams absorbed into the NBA a couple of years later. The Spurs are certainly my favorite pro hoops team, but I am dismayed at the extent to which they have cleansed themselves of their early history as the Dallas Chaparrals. Look in the San Antonio Spurs media guide and you will find almost no reference to their predecessors in Big D. They would have you believe that life began in 1974 when they started playing at Hemisfair Arena in San Antone. This seems rather ungrateful since the Spurs—who won NBA titles in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007—owe their existence to the scruffy Chaps of my youth.