Sonics ushered Seattle into the big time 40 years ago Saturday

Forty years ago Saturday, the expansion Seattle SuperSonics walked into the arena for their first regular-season game, a road tilt against the San Francisco Warriors.

The scene that greeted them looked nothing like today's NBA.

"I'd never been to the Cow Palace, and it was, well, a cow palace," remembers center Dorie Murrey. "I was like, 'What the hell is this?' It was like a barnyard."

		Andy Rogers / P-I
	Bob Rule played forward and center for the original Sonics. One of his teammates was No. 44, Rod Thorn, a guard who went on to be the NBA's executive vice president of basketball operations. Thorn is currently president of the New Jersey Nets.

Overhead, in stark contrast to the austere setting, was a massive chandelier that Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, one of the most eccentric owners in the history of American sports, had picked up in Italy over the offseason.

"It was this massive red thing, 8 or 9 feet across, and he had it suspended about 15 feet above his owner's box at midcourt," said J. Michael Kenyon, who covered the Sonics for the P-I under the name Mike Glover. "You walked in there and the first thing you saw was this huge chandelier. It was surreal."

As part of the pregame festivities, the Warriors had local celebrities playing miniature golf. But someone hadn't accounted for the time it would take to remove the artificial turf covering the court, and both teams grew frustrated as their designated warmup time ticked away.

The Cow Palace was mostly empty, in part because the Bay Area's basketball attention was split.

Across San Francisco Bay in Oakland, the upstart American Basketball Association was playing its first-ever game. The Anaheim Amigos were taking on the Oakland Oaks, who had stolen Warriors star Rick Barry (he had won the NBA scoring title the previous season, but had to sit out the ABA season in a legal dispute).

Much was being made of who would win the attendance battle, and the NBA prevailed -- though neither had much to brag about. The Warriors and Sonics drew 5,609; the Oaks and Amigos got 4,828.

The Sonics certainly weren't much of a draw, with few names the average basketball fan would recognize. Forward Tom Meschery, less than two weeks shy of his 29th birthday, was the team's veteran leader. In an unusual and awkward moment, his jersey was retired by the Warriors the night of that 1967 opener.

The Sonics had taken Meschery from San Francisco in the expansion draft, and he told them they had wasted the pick -- he planned to retire and take an administrative post with the Peace Corps in South Korea. The Sonics asked what salary would change his mind, and he threw out a number he was sure they would laugh at -- $35,000. He was shocked when the Sonics said yes.

The Sonics, led by colorful coach Al Bianchi, also started guard Walt Hazzard, acquired from the Lakers; guard Rod Thorn, a veteran acquired from St. Louis; forward Bud Olsen, a seventh-year role player who, like Meschery, had come from the Warriors; and 6-foot-9 center Bob Rule, a hugely talented rookie they had drafted in the second round.

The Sonics' top pick, high-flying underachiever Al Tucker, is credited in some circles with inventing the alley-oop pass with his brother Gerald. While the Sonics warmed up for their first game, Tucker was stuck in the locker room with a bloody nose.

"They were all anxious," said Bob Blackburn, the longtime radio voice of the Sonics.

"We had nice uniforms, I always remembered those," center George Wilson said. "We always at least looked nice."

The Sonics' 12-man roster, made up of rookies and players other teams didn't protect in the expansion draft, made a total of about $240,000 that first season. Philadelphia star Wilt Chamberlain made more than that by himself, his $250,000 salary the most ever made by an American professional athlete at the time.

"When you're on an expansion team, the thing that's exciting is just that you get to play," said guard Bob Weiss, an original Sonic who decades later would coach the team. "You've got mostly guys who were the (number) seven, eight, nine guys on their team, and rookies, and guys who were (previously) not able to make the league.

"Then you've got a guy like Tom Meschery, an older veteran who sort of gets revived because he's caught up in the enthusiasm of the younger guys."

	The box score from the Sonics' first game, on Oct. 13, 1967, against the San Francisco Warriors. Walt Hazzard led all scorers with 30 points in Seattle's 144-116 loss in front of 5,609 fans at the Cow Palace.

"I was just a wide-eyed rookie," said reserve Plummer Lott, who played two years in the NBA and is now a judge in New York. "You hoped it would be the beginning of a career. For some guys it worked out that way, and for others it didn't."

The outcome of the game was no surprise -- the Western Conference champions throttled the expansion team 144-116. Hazzard led the Seattle charge with 30 points; Meschery had 26 points and 11 rebounds.

The Sonics went 23-59 that season, winning eight more games than their expansion siblings, the San Diego Rockets. Seattle gave up a league-high 125.1 points per game.

The Sonics had 31 home games in the 1967-68 season, drawing an average of 6,524 fans. They were the first major pro sports team in a town most of the country thought of as some sort of frontier outpost.

Dick Vertlieb, who with partner Don Richman secured the expansion team for Seattle, said his East Coast friends thought he was crazy.

"Ned Irish, who ran the Knicks, told me if we put a team in Seattle, one of our players would be shot by a bow and arrow," Vertlieb said.

Vertlieb said he, Richman and majority owner Sam Schulman found a supportive environment among political and business leaders in Seattle. The Sonics played at the Coliseum, while sports proponents looked for options to bring baseball and football to town.

But before the Seahawks and Mariners, there were the Sonics.

"They were fun guys, a great group of guys," Kenyon said. "There was just a sense of joy about that bunch. Even as the season went along and it was clear they were going to take their lumps, it was never, 'Oh, here we go again.' "

"It was the best time of my life," Vertlieb said. "I can't think of anything negative about it, except we were such a lousy team."

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Walt Hazzard (30 points, 6 rebounds)

Hazzard led the 1967-68 Sonics with 24 points per game, then was traded to Atlanta for Lenny Wilkens. In 1984, Hazzard started a four-year stint as coach at his alma mater, UCLA. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1996.

Tom Meschery (26 points, 11 rebounds)

Meschery remained in Seattle for four years. After retiring from basketball, Meschery taught English in Reno, Nev., and was a noted writer and poet. He is suffering from cancer in San Diego.

Bob Rule (13 points, 9 rebounds)

Rule was the Sonics' first star, averaging 18.1 points as a rookie and at least 24 for the next two seasons. He suffered an injury to his Achilles tendon in his fourth season that derailed his career.

The Sonics can't find him. He's believed to be living in California.

Al Tucker (10 points, 6 rebounds)

The Sonics' first-ever draft pick, Tucker made the NBA's all-rookie team but never lived up to his potential. Tucker died at age 58 in 2001.

Tommy Kron (10 points, 3 rebounds)

Kron, who had been on the Kentucky team that lost the 1966 NCAA title game to Texas Western, played two years for the Sonics and finished his career in the ABA.

Bob Weiss (8 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds)

Weiss played all 82 games for the 1967-68 Sonics, his only season in Seattle. He became an assistant coach for the Buffalo Braves. Weiss had head coaching jobs with San Antonio, Atlanta, the Los Angeles Clippers and finally Seattle, where he lasted just 30 games to start the 2005-06 season. He now appears on Sonics broadcasts.

Rod Thorn (8 points, 4 rebounds)

Thorn played the final four of his eight NBA seasons in Seattle. He stayed with the Sonics as an assistant coach and earned his degree in political science from Washington. He was general manager of the Bulls when they drafted Michael Jordan. He joined the league office in 1986. Since 2000 he has been president and general manager of the New Jersey Nets.

George Wilson (3 points, 1 rebound)

Wilson spent one year with the Sonics and retired to Cincinnati three years later. He's had a diverse career since, including running a restoration company that restored the childhood home of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" author Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Dorie Murrey (2 points, 6 rebounds)

Murrey spent three seasons with the Sonics and played two more years before beginning a 17-year career with IBM. He now works in real estate in the Mill Creek area.

Bud Olsen (2 points, 5 rebounds)

Olsen was a six-year veteran before playing one season in Seattle. After basketball he returned to Louisville and founded a classified ad shopper's guide called Bargain Mart. He is now retired.

Plummer Lott (2 points, 2 rebounds)

The fifth-round pick, a former Seattle University star, scored 147 career points in two seasons with the Sonics. Since 1995 he has been a justice in the supreme court of Kings County, N.Y.

Henry Akin (2 points)

Akin played in 36 games in his only season in Seattle, hobbled after an offseason knee surgery, and after two ABA games the next year his basketball career was over. He embarked on a career with Boeing. He lives in Lake Forest Park.

Coach Al Bianchi

Bianchi guided Seattle through two years of growing pains, compiling a 53-111 record. He went on to coach seven years in the ABA and NBA and was an assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns and general manager of the New York Knicks. He lives in the Phoenix area.

Owner and president Sam Schulman

Schulman's 16-year run included Seattle's only major pro sports championship in 1979. He sold the Sonics to Ackerley Communications in 1983 and died of a blood disease in 2003 at age 93.

-- David Andriesen