[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Bob Cousy Ashamed To Have Started The Union
[New York Post]
SPORTS
COUSY RIPS UNION
By KEVIN KERNAN
--------------------------------------------
Bob Cousy, Hall of Famer and basketball
icon, is a proud and honest man of many
accomplishments. Among them are his six
championship rings with the Celtics, his
selection to the NBA's 25th, 35th and 50th
Anniversary All-Time teams and that the
fact this poor kid out of Queens started
the league's union in a friend's basement
in the 1950s.
Now Cousy says, you can strike that last
accomplishment from the list. He said the
words last night that he never imagined he
would say in his life. "I'm ashamed I ever
started the players association," Cousy
told The Post when reached at his home in
Florida.
Cousy, 70, said he has thought long and
hard before speaking out. The absurdity of
the NBA situation has upset him so much
that he can't just sit idly by and watch
the league disintegrate.
He said a month ago he was not ready to
choose a side in the NBA lockout and that
he knew in his heart there were no heroes
on either side. Now that the lockout has
gone into its 163rd day and two months of
the season has been erased, Cousy is not
holding back. The way he sees it, "the
owners created this Frankenstein and now
the monster is ready to turn around and eat
its maker."
After studying what has gone on Cousy said
he ready to "separate the good guys from
the bad guys." Solemnly he noted, "For the
first time in my life I regret starting the
player's association."
To understand how difficult it is for Cousy
to come to such a conclusion, consider he
started the union so all the players would
have representation without fear of
reprisal, so that meal money could be
raised from $5 to $7 a day, so that instead
of 24 exhibition games a year, the players
would only have to play 16. The league was
struggling and he was more than happy to
help it survive.
"We all loved the league and we were
getting paid to play a child's game, we
didn't want to go into insurance like
everyone else," he said with a wonderful
laugh.
He remembers one year where Celtic owner
Walter Brown was in such financial straits
he could not afford to give the players
their playoff shares of $7,000. The players
voted to put off getting their bonus until
October. "We worked together," he said. He
saw the league grow and prosper. He was
union proud. No more.
Cousy assailed players union executive
director Billy Hunter, and what he called
the "handful of high-profile players and
agents," who have led the union down this
path. "They've done so much damage to the
game we all love," he said, "just for the
sake of unbridled greed, ego and control."
He said Hunter is a football player who has
no love for basketball. "You can love the
game as well as be a hard-liner," he said.
As for agent David Falk & Co., whose client
Patrick Ewing is the union president, Cousy
noted that Falk and his kind are "leeches
who tried to get control from (former
executive director) Simon Gourdine three
years ago. These agents are just pulling
Hunter's strings. The agents don't love
anything but their percentage, they will
suck it dry, the vehicle of the moment,
until it dies. They could care less.
"They spread the word around the league
that Gourdine was a pussycat who allowed
David Stern to take advantage of him,"
Cousy said, "alleging all sorts of things
about poor Simon."
Ironically, Cousy said, that deal was such
a good one for the players that the owners
had to re-open the contract this year.
"The league has been irreparable harmed
because of them," Cousy said of the current
leadership. "I'm amazed the rank and file
have held together with what has gone on.
If I'm making $272,000, why am I hanging in
there for the top 10 percent of the
players, that's the bottom line, that's
what this is all about ... They've been
brainwashed."
And he knows some have been shouted down.
"It's the Blue Line syndrome," he said. "A
cop can't talk about another cop, but
something this important, somebody's got to
stand up."
The players association was unavailable for
comment.
Cousy made it clear that his thoughts have
nothing to do with jealousy. When he
retired in 1963, he was the highest paid
player at $35,000 a year. "Now the top guy
gets $33 million," he said of Michael
Jordan. "People come up and tell me I was
born 20 years too soon. Trust me, I
wouldn't change a thing. I made a very
comfortable living playing a child's game I
learned in the streets in New York. I
played 18 holes of golf today I don't care
if I don't have $8 million and I'm sitting
on a yacht somewhere. I came out of the
ghetto, too. I can sit back and smell the
roses, decide who are the good guys and bad
guys."
"I'm dismayed, disappointed at 70 years
old," he said, "because I always took great
pride in my association with the players
association."
Until now.