Introduction

I originally wrote this article as a eulogy for my old friend, Bill Pinton, shortly after he passed away in 2002. It has sat untouched in my archives for years, but while in Los Angeles recently I ran into another old friend, and we shared our remembrances of Bill and the good times we had back in our youths. Thus, on returning to Seattle I dug this writing out and am releasing it now for the first time, dedicated to our old friend Bill Pinton, of course. I hope you enjoy it, and that, if you knew Bill, it calls up some fond memories. MA

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I don’t get out and play much anymore. Now well past my prime, I am packing about thirty pounds too many to easily get up and down the court, as basketball requires. Besides, I have a bad back. Nevertheless, occasionally I’ll play some H-O-R-S-E with my friend Dan Richardson, and sometimes we’ll get into a half-court game, which I can still manage, as long as I don’t try and do too much. It was on just such an occasion, recently, while playing a three on three game, that I found myself on the baseline, the ball in my hands and a fifteen foot jump shot there for the taking—the kind of shot that I’d drained time after time in my youth. As I made my little jump and was about to release the shot, I spied my teammate lose his man and break to the hoop for the anticipated rebound. The moment stopped, and everything became slow motion. A distant voice echoed in my universe:

 “The man is open,” it said. “His shot is better; he’s your teammate,” it said. And lastly “Validate the Team!”. 

Like a flash, I altered my shot mid-jump and lasered a pass to my teammate under the hoop, who went up and laid the ball in for an easy two! We took a short break to reset after the basket and my teammate said to me that I had fooled him; he thought for sure I was going to shoot. I did not tell him, but so had I. That is, until I heard the voice.

The voice hung around for the next several days, haunting me, but not in a bad way. I kept my experience on the court to myself. I did not share it with Dan beyond what he had obviously seen for himself; an old guy going up for a shot and then suddenly whizzing a perfect pass to a wide open teammate under the basket. The moment kept replaying in my mind, and always the voice was there; urging me; prompting me; coaching me; it’s source suspended somewhere on the rim of my awareness. And then gradually I began to recall, and it all came back to me…

It was 1975. We were young, and all staff members at the same church. We were also basketball players, and every Saturday after work we would meet at the church and then head to the playground at St. Anne’s on Queen Anne Hill. The outdoor court there was old, with  battered rims and chain nets; but to us it could have been the Seattle Center Coliseum—the home of the Sonics. Four of us had formed a team, and we took on all comers. We called our team “The Juggernaut” because that pretty much described what we did to the pick-up teams that played us at St Anne’s. At one guard was Steve Willett, a bright and energetic guy about 5’10” with sandy hair and a streaky jump shot. He also smoked Camels—no filter. Steve never saw a jump shot he didn’t like. At one forward was Carl Hansen. At about six feet and 250 pounds, Carl was a wide load; tough to get around for a rebound. I played the other forward; at 6’ 1”, and without the bad back and the extra thirty pounds, I can tell you I was a handfull on the court! Our point guard was the oldest of our group, a guy named Bill Pinton. Already in his thirties, Bill had started to form the paunch so customary to middle age men. He’d obviously lost a step, but he was a heady player; always willing to give up an open shot if a teammate had a better look.

It was this last quality that intrigued me about Bill. Most players always looked to their own shot first. To them the team and the game were simply a chance to establish their own identity; to make their mark; to make a statement; to somehow say to that nebulous force we all seem to be striving against:

 “See? I do exist!! You can’t unmock me!!”

 But Bill Pinton was different.

As the spring of 1975 wore on I got to know Bill better. That spring the Golden State Warriors, coached by Al Attles and led by their star Rick Barry, went on their marvelous run to win the NBA title. Outside of Barry the team had no superstar; no Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell; no Jerry West or Elgin Baylor. Just a bunch of guys who believed in each other, and Rick Barry—a smart, articulate, 6’7” white guy who was gifted with a great shooting touch and even greater court vision. It seemed that Barry got as big a kick out of making the great pass or setting up a teammate as he did out of scoring. Bill and I watched the Warriors that spring of ’75, and saw them develop into that rarest of sports entities; a team greater than the sum of its parts. No way should they have been able to win the title with the collection of talent they had; but by emphasizing the team aspect and putting the group first, that is exactly what they did. Bill and I would sit for hours and analyze the games. To him the Warriors’ success all boiled down to what he called “validating the team”. I called it “The Law of the Extra Pass”.

To really grasp what Bill and I were trying to quantify with our analysis, one must first understand a simple basic, intrinsic to us all: the urge to survive. One can observe empirically that this survival urge manifests in groups as well as individuals. People seem naturally to form clubs, companies, countries or teams. There are other urges toward survival as well, but what Bill would point out to me is that the team or group had its own life force, above and beyond the individual life forces of its members. The more you validated that group spirit, the more that group life force would manifest. Where this was not done, the “team” broke down into a bunch of individuals, and would only be as strong as the life force of the strongest individual on the team. As great as this sometimes is, it is no match for a team that truly validated this group aspect. There was an exponential quality to the life force of such teams, making them many times more powerful, intelligent and lucky. Individuals, no matter how powerful, were no match for a true team; the individual would just be overwhelmed.

To Bill this wasn’t all just a bunch of theory. He would then go on and discuss how this would actually apply out on the court. On a fast break, for instance, there would be Rick Barry with a wide open lane to the hoop, yet giving up the ball to a teammate in order to score. Bill held that even though Barry’s shot would have been no tougher than that of his teammate, there was greater value in the extra pass because it so validated this team aspect of the game. Such play served to build up that exponential life force quality, ultimately resulting in the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts—hence, “The Law of the Extra Pass”! And, when we went out on the court at St. Anne’s to play our pick-up games, I could tell that Bill always tried to practice what we had discussed in theory. Many times I was the recipient of his “extra pass,” and many times I passed up a good shot to dish the ball to a teammate with an equal or better one. Playing the game that way, the way Bill and I had analyzed and discussed, was always a LOT more fun!

That ’75 season ended, the years rolled by, and I gradually lost track of the other “Juggernaut” team members. I know Steve Willet still works for our church down in LA, doing what he always does, helping to improve the world. I don’t think he still smokes Camels. Carl Hansen ended up running a hotel out at Ocean Shores last I heard. He may even have lost some weight. I ended up staying in Seattle, still working at our church here, and fighting the good fight. As for Bill, he left staff in the early ‘80s, initially remaining in the area while working as a counsellor. In the mid 80s he moved up to Alaska, got married to a girl in Anchorage and had a couple of kids. With his marriage not working out, he eventually came back to Seattle, drove cab for a while and did some other things. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line he developed some kind of hepatitis condition, and it gradually got the best of him. He died a couple of years ago, and for all practical purposes he is gone now.

But for a few fleeting moments that day, playing the three on three game with Dan, I once again heard the voice. And it reminded me that what I learned from Bill is still there, and is as valid as it ever was: The Law of the Extra Pass.

It also reminded me that, for me, Bill Pinton Lives!

Originally written on 18 April, 2004