Singing The Blues In St. Louis

Some blamed it on bad luck, others on old age. Some blamed it on one fast rookie, others on three slow veterans. Some blamed it on the forceful coach who was fired, others on the forceful owner who fired him. There was even a case for blaming it all on Khrushchev. But regardless of whose fault it is, it seemed quite plain last week—as they lost three games to teams they habitually had torn to tatters—that the once-mighty St. Louis Hawks, who have been shockingly and surprisingly dying since the National Basketball Association season began, aren't dying anymore. They are stone-cold dead.

How could a team that had won five consecutive Western Division titles and a world championship fall so far so fast, especially since its three most-publicized players were still available? The answer is logical, although it was unforeseeable. Two other players, skilled but unselfish, had made the Hawk machinery run. Without them, the team slowed down to a walk, as vulnerable in the fight for survival as the dinosaur. Indeed, the Hawks are now the dinosaurs of the NBA.

The St. Louis Hawks are the sole property of the wiliest and most successful promoter in the NBA, astute Ben Kerner. He rules them paternally or tyrannically, depending on the point of view. He brought the team to St. Louis from Milwaukee in 1955, at which point he didn't have enough money left from 10 years of losing basketball to buy shoe-laces for their sneakers. That first year in St. Louis the Hawks made $6,000. Since then they have earned Ben Kerner a net profit of more than $1 million in a league where owners congratulate themselves when they break even.

An excellent trader, Kerner built a winning team and sold it with spectacular imagination. This year, for example, his promotions will cost $60,000, a total most NBA teams wouldn't spend between now and doomsday. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra played after one Hawk game this year. Jazz trumpeter Al Hirt will give a concert after another. A bowling tournament and rock 'n' roll dance are scheduled, and Count Basie will play at the annual "victory party," an ill-named affair that was arranged before the season started. "We'll hold it anyway. The fans deserve it," said Kerner recently. "Maybe we won't invite the players."

Kerner's most subtle and important promotion, however, concerned the Hawks' high scoring front line, Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan and Clyde Lovellette. He ran a contest to get a name for them, settled on "The Unmatchables," and soon had all St. Louis thinking they were unmatchable. And though, as one ex-player put it, "He changes coaches like dirty socks" (seven in seven seasons), there was no changing of The Unmatchables. An image had been sold and Kerner wasn't about to break it up, even though he knew it had flaws.

"Yes, I built an image," said Kerner in his office last week, his face contorting in exquisite anguish as he talked of his troubles. "And rightfully. They are good players. They won me five division championships. Can I knock that? But these days you must have superstars in basketball. These players aren't superstars and they never were, no matter what people thought.

"So now people come to me and they say, 'What's wrong? Hagan can't play defense. Lovellette can't run. Pettit can't handle the ball. What's happened?' Nothing has happened. You think Hagan could ever play defense? You think Lovellette was ever a Carry Back? Last year we were fining him $25 every time he didn't get back to mid court. Those three are playing as well today as they did when we won. Maybe better. Other things have happened."

The "other things" were obvious. First, by winning, the Hawks were always drafting next to last, thus missing out on the Robertsons, Baylors and Wests who were greatly strengthening the competition. Second, the Hawks have always had to have a good ball handling guard to get the ball up to the big three. When the team was losing in 1956 Kerner gave up a fine talent, Willie Naulls, to get Slater Martin, who was just such a guard. With Martin they won. When Martin retired the Hawks got Lennie Wilkens, who teamed with John McCarthy to do the job last season.

"So comes East Berlin West Berlin," says Kerner, "and they keep Wilkens in the Army. Then everybody finds out what Cincinnati learned late last year, and we are in trouble."

Cleo, the unready rookie