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[QUOTE="Fireball Jr., post: 1655071, member: 404"]
I was so frustrated when I  -- a 24-year-old, long-hair, anti-Oscar Madison sportswriter from a large Ohio daily who Bill would've probably enjoyed talking to and smokin' a joint with --  stood in front of him in the locker room in St. Louis after he went 21-for-22 to beat Memphis for the 1973 NCAA championship and he wouldn't say boo, made as if I weren't there.

I was super frustrated because I was a kindred spirit, not one of "those" other sportswriters who bashed him for his anti-war, counter-culture ways. He could've trusted me, but his college coach was fine with his players blowing off the media, so I wasn't surprised by Bill's silence.  Thankfully, plenty of his teammates were comfortable talking to me and I got my post-game, championship flavor.

I never held it against Bill for stiffing me -- including later that night at the hotel when I approached him in the lobby -- but I found it frustrating, I understood his silence years later when I later found out he stuttered and didn't feel comfortable talking to the media, although that didn't stop two pros I interviewed, the Cavs' Barry Clemens and the Bulls'  Bob "Butterbean" Love.

If he was a jerk to some media people, so be it, 'cause many of them were utter  to him. I was outta my mind one night before a Cavs-Portland game when long-haired, pony-tailed Bill walked in the players' entrance at Richfield Coliseum eating a carrot and some of the neanderthal sportswriters I sat at press row with were making fun of him (as did they to me, too, because I didn't look, act or think like them).

Love Bill, love his zest for life, love that he's now the big kid and his son's the adult about to embark on a head coaching career. Bill, the father, clearly did something right. Long may his freak flag fly!
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