| Tuesday, December 14
By Mike Monroe
Special to ESPN.com |
|
The NBA is going to go on without Charles Barkley, and, in truth, Sir
Charles hadn't been making a huge impact for the last few seasons.
I'm not sure, though, that the NBA media will survive his loss. I know my job covering the league just got a whole lot less fun.
|  | | Barkley wasn't everyone's friend, but he had many good points. |
Barkley, you see, actually liked reporters. He made some of us feel like we
were friends.
The most cynical among us suggested Barkley "played" us to get good press, which only proved they didn't really know Barkley, who did nothing
disingenuously.
No, Barkley was the most genuine NBA player I ever encountered. Allow me to share one story about him and perhaps you will understand what I mean. It is important to note that Sir Charles didn't want me to tell this story, at least not while he was still playing. I am taking the liberty to relate it
now, since his playing days are over.
It was the final day of the 1992-93 season for the Denver Nuggets, an
encouraging season, seeing as how a brand-new coach named Dan Issel already had won 13 more games than his predecessor, Paul Westhead, had the previous season.
The Suns were in town for Denver's finale, and the Nuggets wasn't going to make the playoffs. Phoenix would have lots more basketball to play, though, as the Suns had enjoyed a resurgence since the arrival of Barkley, via trade from Philadelphia.
I arrived at McNichols Arena about 2½ hours before tipoff and
sat in the end bleachers on the Phoenix end of the court, waiting for
Barkley, the superstar who occasionally enjoyed a few postgame cocktails
with writers, many of whom he considered friends rather than nuisances with notepads.
Sure enough, Barkley walked in with his teammates and came right over and sat down next to me. We chatted about family and friends, and Barkley asked, "Everybody doing well?"
Not everybody was. I told Barkley about a dear family friend who had just
gone through grueling cell replacement therapy for her cancer. Things were
still very dicey for full recovery, and she was still enduring radiation and
chemotherapy, which had made her lose her hair.
My wife, Cathy, was bringing our friend, Carol, to the game. If things work
out, I asked Charles, would he be willing to say a few words of encouragement to Carol? Maybe even joke with her a little bit about how cool it was to be bald?
No problem, Barkley said. You get her outside the locker room, and I'll do the rest.
The game ended when Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (remember him?) hit a three-point basket at the buzzer to give Denver a dramatic 120-118 win and an emotionally satisfying, exclamation-point finish to an encouraging season.
Reporters surrounded Barkley in the Suns locker room -- no newsperson ever missed the chance to glean one of his pearls of wisdom and/or bombast -- and when the last notepad had been filled, Sir Charles asked me, "Are they out there?"
Indeed, they were, and I told Barkley how he would recognize them. With a
story to file, I told the ladies to be patient, that Barkley knew they were
there and would find them.
Barkley was the last Sun out of the locker room, and went straight to where
Cathy and Carol were waiting for him. He gave Cathy a hug and a hello, then bent low and whispered in Carol's ear for several minutes.
What was said was just between the two of them. Be assured it was a message of hope and encouragement that helped sustain her through her difficult recovery, which would ultimately be dramatically successful. Carol watched every Suns playoff game on television, reveling in their run to the NBA Finals.
It was a great run, too, one that included Phoenix's dramatic win in Game 5
at old Chicago Stadium, down three games to one. Chicago authorities had made elaborate plans to protect the downtown retail area that had been damaged badly the previous year when the Bulls had beaten Portland to win their second straight NBA title. Windows in the pricey stores and boutiques along Michigan Avenue had been covered with plywood to prevent breakage.
Before that Game 5, Barkley had written "Save the City" on the chalk board
in the Suns locker room, and when their victory was complete, he opened a
postgame press conference by announcing, "Y'all can take that damn plywood down off all those windows now."
Ah, but there would be no storybook ending for The Chuckster. In Game 6 in Phoenix, John Paxson's three-pointer with a second left gave the Bulls a
two-point win and their third straight title.
Barkley was the last player brought to the interview room after the game.
The defeat, he said, was the most crushing disappointment of his athletic
career.
When his interview ended, I scurried down a hallway at America West towards the press work room, another deadline nearing. Then I heard Barkley calling my name and waving me to his side.
"How's our girlfriend doing?" Barkley said.
Informed that Carol was doing very well, indeed, Barkley said, "Well, give
her my love and tell her I've been thinking about her."
In one of the worst moments of his basketball life, Barkley had kept things
in perfect perspective.
And that's what I will always remember most about Sir Charles.
Mike Monroe, who covers the NBA for the Denver Post, writes a Western Conference column for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him at monroe128@go.com |  |
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