RARELY a day goes by anymore that sickness and death isn’t on my lips and in my ear, or dialing or e-mailing. For years now, every time I see a certain identity show up on my cell, I know he’s calling to report a sports friend of ours is either gravely ill or has passed away.
Pancreatic cancer and its treatments have shrunk Chuck Daly to his dating weight when he and Terry met as students at Bloomsburg (Pa.) State.
Maurice Lucas’ cancer-infected bladder was completely removed and reconstructed with his intestines in a nine-hour surgery; thankfully, he’s close to returning home and a full return to normal life is projected.
Don Chaney is afflicted by bladder and prostate cancer.
Kay McMahon died Monday. It blows my mind to think her husband, Jack, will have been gone 20 years June 11. It’s slightly spooky to consider he played on the same St. John’s team as Dick and Al McGuire (last subject in this space), and sat on the same bench alongside Daly when they mentored raw rookie 76ers coach Billy Cunningham.
Marvin Webster’s death nine days before his 57th birthday, when many of us are just getting warmed up, came as no shock; it’s been prowling ’round his back stairs for as long as I’ve known him.
I introduced myself to Webster in 1975, when he was an ABA Nuggets neophyte. That season was seriously discouraging (398 minutes in 38 games) due mostly to the lingering effects of hepatitis-c, contracted during his senior year at Morgan State.
The previous season, Webster’s carpet ride (22.4 rebounds, 21 points, an unreal eight blocks) catapulted the Bears to an NCAA Division II championship. That earned him the nickname “The Human Eraser” or simply “The Eraser” During his down time with the Knicks (’78-’84), the Post’s fundamentally insensitive NBA columnist renamed him “The No. 2 Pencil.”
Few athletes, in any sport, at any time, were less emotionally equipped to handle New York’s demanding fans, tactless media and overall pressure than the always polite and unpretentious Webster.
Funny how often it happens, but when I cover a friend up close, our relationship becomes strained. Before Webster joined the Knicks, we were tight. So tight then Nuggets coach Larry Brown felt he was one of several sources regarding a negative column on him in April ’77. A month or so later, “The Eraser” was dispatched from Denver with Paul Silas and Willie Wise to Seattle.
The Sonics owe me big. Once Lenny Wilkens took over for Bob Hopkins 22 games (5-17) into the season (promoting Dennis Johnson was pivotal, too), they became ‘Ready for Prime-Time Players’ . . . though CBS put the NBA on tape delay. I picked them to win it all. I traveled with the Sonics throughout the playoffs beginning with their first-round upset of the defending champion Blazers (rookie Jack Sikma outplayed Lucas) before losing in seven Finals games to the Bullets. Webster averaged 16.1 points, 13.1 boards and nearly three snuffs in tournament play.
Despite being seamlessly suited for the Sonics and the city of Seattle, he found the Knicks’ five-year, 650G-per offer irresistible. As per the league’s free agent system, Commissioner Larry O’Brien compensated the Sonics for their loss by awarding them Lonnie Shelton, a Knicks’ No. 1 pick and 450G.
The fallout couldn’t have turned out more booming for the Sonics (’79 title) or more disastrous for Webster, through no fault of the Knicks. After a fairly solid first season (11.3, 10.9 and two blocks, in 60 games), injuries and illness plagued him for the remainder of his 10-year career.
The recurrence of hepatitis during his last season or two with the Knicks stalked and haunted him until the day he died, technically of coronary artery disease in a tub at an upscale Tulsa hotel; he was in town apparently searching for alternative medical help.
Charles Bennett, an ex-FBI agent, succeeded Larry Fleisher as Webster’s agent toward the end of his career. When Marvin got sick, his the older brother Steve Bennett, a CPA in Albuquerque, N.M., handled his finances (investments that put him in good shape had he lived ’til 80) and tormenting health issues.
The hepatitis affected his liver, compelling him to take meds. That led to other symptoms; there were side effects. “He’d display paranoia and signs of schizophrenia,” Bennett said by phone late yesterday. “That would take Marvin out of circulation. He didn’t want to be around people. He preferred to be in a room by himself.
“Sometimes we had to put Marvin into a hospital (the last time, a couple years ago, for three months) to get him back on his meds and back on track,” Bennett said.
“When he was on the meds, he’d be a pleasure to be around, just the same regular guy he always was. When he was off the meds, his mind would go to some other place and he’d be some other person. When he’d get better, he had no idea where he was or who he was. When we brought him back from the state he was in, he’d be so thankful he was normal again. He hated being in that abnormal state.”
I asked Bennett if Webster’s family tragedies contributed to his mental meltdown. Surely the deaths of Marvin, Jr., 18, from heart disease and ex-wife Mederia, 39, five years earlier from a ruptured aneurysm had to push him over the edge. How much grief can one person take?
“Marvin’s misfortune and his health issues were unrelated,” said Bennett, also 56.
“Of course Marvin was depressed. I get depressed every time I think about what happened to him and his family.”