[John Brisker was the Mike Tyson of the ABA. The two clips that follow recount one of Brisker’s notable rookie scraps with Kentucky’s Sam Smith, a journeyman who was considered to be one of the ABA’s tougher hombres. “This fellow has lots of fight,” the 1969-70 ABA Pictorial Guide aptly summed up Smith’s court attributes.
We start with a nicely written column from the Pittsburgh Press’ Phil Musick. He was a fine sports columnist back in the ABA day. His column was called: The Sound of Musick. Notice, though, that Smith’s injuries don’t jibe in the two stories. Since Musick heard about the fight secondhand, I’m going with the other story and its firsthand account. If correct, it just goes to show you that Brisker’s smashing left hook and its damage done could get twisted in many tall, two-fisted tale. ]
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Johnny Brisker chafes over his image as the American Basketball Association’s version of Peck’s Bad Boy. “The other night, my man got by me for a basket, and I heard a little boy yell, ‘Punch him, Brisk, punch him.’ I certainly don’t want that sort of an image,” Brisker says.
In Louisville, the little boys have a condensed version. “Punch Brisker,” they implore, seeking revenge on Sam Smith’s behalf. The Pipers think Brisker is going to be a great basketball player, and several pro teams feel he could be a great football player, but Smith probably thinks Brisker missed his real calling.
A week ago in Louisville, the hulking Kentucky forward swung and missed Brisker three times after an altercation under the boards. Converted from pitcher to catcher by the quick Piper rookie, Smith lost a TKO, winding up with 10 stitches in his upper lip and a mouth short two teeth.
“He kept sticking an elbow in my chest,” Brisker explains, “and I have a pretty quick temper.”
Smith, whose resemblance to Joe Louis is apparently only facial, says he expects a rematch when the teams play tomorrow night in Louisville. Piper coach Buddy Jeannette sourly anticipates Smith will get his wish.
“Sam will probably be waiting for him when the plane lands,” growls Jeannette. “John’s got to learn to keep that temper.”
All of Brisker’s bouts have come when he is playing on the frontline, a 6-feet-5 gazelle among the herd of 6-feet-8 bully boys. Self-preservation demands that he be either quick or lame, and to play without respect of the Sam Smiths is a form of masochism.
So, Brisker has chosen to live by the left hook. “A couple of times it’s helped to get some breathing room when I belted guys,” he explains. “Some I try to shake off my back, but mostly, I get into fights by hustling for the ball, being aggressive. But, really, I have to quit the scuffling.”
He had been so advised by all of his main-bout opponents, Miami’s Al Cueto, Walt Byrd, and (retired) Art Heyman (twice), and Kentucky’s George Tinsley, Goose Ligon, and Smith. Several prelims have been headed off by officials, quick reflexes, and an aversion to blood.
Aware that those who live by the left hook often perish the same way, Brisker says, “My temper just flares up.” But his foes keep getting progressively larger—“no discretion,” Brisker grins—so he will try to concentrate on a slashing style of play that has earned him the nickname “Super Rook.”
“I have to, or I’ll have a short career,” he says.
Ligon and Tinsley, once rapped six times by Brisker and then sternly warned to “watch your step,” agree.
“He’s going to punch himself right out of the league,” warns Ligon, Smith’s rangy 6-feet-7 forecourt partner, who isn’t above the use of the well-placed elbow himself. “He’s going to wind up in the 25-cent seats.”
“He doesn’t like it when you play him close, he can’t take it,” Tinsley says.
More importantly, Tinsley, Smith, and their contemporaries can’t take it. The Colonels’ publicity brochure says of Smith: “If there is trouble on the floor, opposing players tend to shy away if Big Sam is in the middle of it.”
But, explains an eyewitness, Big Sam was in the middle of it only momentarily after challenging Brisker. “He swung three times, but Brisker ducked. When Brisk nailed him, Smith looked like he’d been hit with an axe.”
Jeannette is uninterested in Brisker’s fistic potential. The lithe rookie, averaging 25.2 points a game while playing approximately half the time since Jeannette replaced John Clark, had great potential. Unnoticed—Pittsburgh watches Piper games only under severe duress—he is the town’s most-exciting athlete, with the exception of Roberto Clemente.
“Brisker can be as good as he wants to be,” says Jeannette, “if he uses his head and learns the game.”
In the process of being converted to the backcourt, Brisker is the second most-discussed rookie—right, Spencer Haywood is the most-talked about—in the ABA.
Streaking up the baseline and popping in twisting, reverse layups, or drilling in flat jumpers from 20 feet, he pulls the small Piper faithful to their feet screaming. A near-suave, handsome 22-year-old with a trench of a grin, he wears an air of irrepressibility that on occasion, even reduces the business-like Jeannette to laughter. When Jeanette was named Piper coach, Brisker cranked up a boyish smile and cracked: “Can I still call you B.J.?”
Then there is the left jab polished at Detroit’s Brewster Recreation Center. “Yeah, I boxed some—nothing organized, though,” Brisker admits. “We just put on the gloves and went at it.”
Maybe Sam Smith better just settle for looking like Joe Louis.
[Brisker and Smith didn’t come to blows the following evening. Smart move by Smith. Once flattened, twice shy. But here’s a recap of their earlier fisticuffs from the January 30, 1970 issue of the Louisville Courier-Journal. At the keyboard is staff writer Gary Schultz.]
The basketball game itself wasn’t much to holler about once the Kentucky Colonels moved ahead late in the first quarter. But there were enough other goings-on last night to keep the 5,748 onlookers in a frenzy throughout the Colonels’ 122-102 victory over the Pittsburgh Pipers at the Convention Center.
For instance, in the third quarter, Pipers coach Buddy Jeannette seemed destined to take a poke at referee Tom Frangella. And then, early in the fourth period, Sam Smith of the Colonels and the Pipers’ John Brisker went at it—first with words and then with fists.
Jeannette wasn’t around for the melee. His run-in with Frangella over a call earned him two technical fouls and automatic ejection from the American Basketball Association game. He left the floor with 5:55 remaining in the third quarter and his team trailing 74-57.
However, Jeannette knew things were happening later, he said, “because all I had to do was sit in the locker room and listen to the crowd. I could tell we weren’t catching up.”
When Smith and Brisker squared off, there was 11:31 to play. As for what produced the flareup, the combatants gave differing views. Smith said it all began seconds earlier at the other end of the floor “when he (Brisker) gave me an elbow while we were going after a rebound.
“Now I was ready to consider that an accident,” the 6-feet-7, 235-pound Smith added, “but then he did the same thing down at our end. So, I swing at him.
“Anyway, this isn’t the first time this has happened. He tried the same thing on George (Tinsley) when we played them at Pittsburgh.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Tinsley. “You play him tight on defense, and he gets mad. He knocked me across the floor one time [in an earlier game at Pittsburgh]. They say he’s got a quick temper. I guess we know about that.”
Said Brisker, a 6-feet-5, 210-pound rookie: “We both got hot under the collar—that’s all it was. Things like this happen in a competitive situation . . . when players are going all out to win.”
Smith came out of the fracas with only a cut lip and a scratch on his cheek, but he sat out the rest of the game. Brisker, who was unmarked, played eight of the last 11 minutes. “I’d just as soon forget the whole thing,” said Brisker.
Nobody seemed ready to overlook the incident in the Colonels’ dressing room, though. “Brisker can’t stand to be held almost scoreless,” said Jim Ligon, Smith’s running mate at forward. “Sam was just trying to do his job, and Brisker didn’t like it. He’d better shape up. He isn’t gonna be around long if he keeps up that stuff. He’ll be up in the nickel seats . . . out of the league.”
Even though he’s 12th in the ABA in scoring with an 18.9 average, Brisker didn’t start last night’s game. In 24 minutes of action, he poured in 20 points, including 11 after the fight.
Brisker complimented Smith, saying, “He played a beautiful game.”
From Way Downtown 