Tag Archives: Atlanta Hawks

Chuck Person: Person-al Touch, 1988

After every game, Person leans against his locker, ice bags hanging from all extremities. Although he’s got good size at 225 pounds, he invariably wears black-and-blue marks like merit badges.

Bill Willoughby: Playing One-on-None, 1990

Trouble with agents, trouble with coaches, trouble with people to whom he gave his trust has accompanied Willoughby throughout his basketball career like a persistent little sister.

Charlie Criss: Guts and Elbows Basketball, 1977

Criss became known as “The Mosquito,” and it was not a phony alliterative or geographical title invented by a P.R. man. It was a high sign to Criss that even though there were guys on the playground nobody ever heard of, many of them could hold their own with the best in the NBA.

Julius Erving: The Greatest Show on Earth, 1973

Did Erving need the big-time to feed his ego, feeling perhaps that he’d suffer the sort of way Henry Aaron did by playing in towns where he didn’t get much national publicity? “No, I don’t feel that way,” said Erving. “All during my basketball career and life, the acknowledgement of me has been in a very limited sense.”