DATE: Monday, June 9, 1997                  TAG: 9706070051

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Bonko 

                                            LENGTH:  108 lines

DON'T FORGET THE SQUIRES VIRGINIA HAD A MAJOR ROLE IN EARLY DAYS OF ABA

MEMO TO THE producers of ``Long Shots: The Life and Times of the American Basketball Association,'' which premieres tonight on Home Box Office at 10:

How dare you leave out the Virginia Squires, one of seven teams in the ABA when the league folded in 1976? You totally and absolutely snubbed the Squires in telling the story of how the soaring, slam-dunking, three-point-shooting Julius ``Dr. J'' Erving practically re-invented the game of pro basketball while playing in the ABA.

There was an Air Erving long before there was an Air Jordan.

Erving put in two high-flying seasons in Virginia before moving to the New York Nets, once scoring 58 points in a game in Norfolk's Scope. He was a Virginia Squire long before he was with the Nets and, later, the Philadelphia 76ers.

Why didn't you mention that, HBO?

The Classic Sports Network, in a recent documentary, ``Dr. J and the ABA,'' was not so remiss, giving testimony to the years that Erving spent in Virginia when the Squires were a regional franchise. After Erving's sophomore year in college, Squires' owner Earl Foreman signed him to a four-year, $500,000 contract - big bucks in 1972 to a player judged by some NBA scouts ``as a little too skinny to play with the big boys.''

Erving and the ABA made the slam-dunk an art form. It was exported to the National Basketball Association along with the three-point field goal. While HBO ignored Erving's tenure in Virginia, the basketball player with a surgeon's finesse reminisced about it with reporters last week.

He recalled the training camp at Fort Eustis - ``we lived in barracks like the infantry'' - and how travel in the ABA was less than first class.

He'll never forget the late, great Piedmont Airlines, said Erving. ``As the Squires, we were a band of merry guys playing in Norfolk one day, Richmond the next and Roanoke the next day. A trip to Louisville on Piedmont meant making three and four stops.''

It was the league of the red, white and blue basketball, the league of athletes with full-blown Afros, the league of players named Fatty and coaches named Slick, the league that brought such exciting players as Erving, George ``The Iceman'' Gervin and Charlie Scott to Scope.

``It took me a while to get used to the colorful basketball,'' said Erving. ``While the red, white and blue basketball was the same size and weight as the conventional brown basketball, it had a different feel - as if it were floating. It felt at times as if I were shooting a beach ball.''

With the ABA and NBA hemorrhaging money in the competition to sign players, the leagues merged 21 years ago, with the NBA absorbing the Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs. Left out in the cold were the Squires, the Spirits of St. Louis and the Kentucky Colonels.

(The St. Louis owners refused to be bought off outright, insisting instead on a slice of the NBA's future TV money. ESPN reported recently that the deal has been worth $46 million to the three men who owned the Spirits).

Jack Ankerson, who today works for the Norfolk Tides, was the Squires' general manager in the team's last two seasons. He believes it was a mistake to launch the Squires as a regional franchise instead of as Norfolk and Tidewater's own.

Had the Virginia Squires been exclusively the Norfolk Squires, the city might have set down deep roots in professional basketball. The interest was here, said Ankerson, adding, ``It's a shame that Virginia was not included in the merger.''

It was also a shame that Erving played but two seasons for the Squires. After he established himself as the ABA's premier player, the NBA wanted him. First, it was the Atlanta Hawks, and then the Milwaukee Bucks, the team that had drafted him in the 12th round in 1972. (Had he gone to the Bucks, Erving would have played with former Norfolk State standout Bob Dandridge.)

Eventually, Foreman sold Erving's contract to the Nets and later sold the team to 33 local owners. ``It was Earl Foreman in Norfolk who first taught me that professional basketball is very much big business,'' said Erving. ``When I was ready to leave Virginia, he saw to it that I could play near my home on Long Island in New York.''

Erving sees the spirit and soul of the old ABA in today's NBA games. He said: ``It's there in the intensity, the level of entertainment in the games. The dash, charisma, style in the way players take to the air when scoring baskets in the NBA is a reflection of play in the ABA.''

How great a difference was there in the ABA and the NBA of the 1970s? Was the ABA, indeed, big-league? Was Norfolk for one brief moment a big-league city?

It was that, said Erving, who is expected to take a front-office position soon with the Orlando Magic. ``The ABA did not have the history, television exposure or player depth of the NBA,'' he said, ``but the top three or four players on ABA teams were on a par with the superstars in the NBA.''

It was a league of underdogs, said Erving. It was the league of Moses Malone, who jumped from high school in Petersburg to the pros. It was the league of Californian Rick Barry, who refused to play in Norfolk for fear his children would grow up speaking with a Southern accent. It was the league in which Pat Boone was a team owner and Bob Costas was a young broadcaster, a league in which the Memphis team changed nicknames (Sounds, Tams, Pros) almost every week.

It was the league with a commissioner (Dave DeBusschere) who once played minor league baseball in the same league with the Sally League Tidewater Tides, a league launched in 1967 with 11 franchises, a league that gave birth to cheerleaders called the Squirettes, and it was the league that gave birth to a player, nicknamed Doctor J, who tooled around Norfolk in a white Continental Mark IV.

It was the league of Julius Erving and the Virginia Squires. Too bad the HBO producers didn't recognize that. (The special repeats Wednesday at 11 a.m., Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and June 18 at 11:30 p.m.) ILLUSTRATION: NBA PHOTO

Julius "Dr. J" Erving...

NBA

The finesse and spectacular play of Julius ``Dr. J'' Erving, with

the Virginia Squires and New Jersey Nets, helped change the style of

pro basketball.

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