Larry O'Brien
From Hoopedia
| Larry O'Brien |
|---|
 |
| __________________________________ |
| 3rd Commissioner of the National Basketball Association |
| Term Began 1975 |
| Term Ended 1984 |
| Predecessor Walter Kennedy |
| Successor David Stern |
| __________________________________ |
| Born July 7, 1917 in Springfield, Massacusetts |
| Died September 20, 1990 (age 73) in New York City, New York |
| College Northeastern |
Lawrence "Larry" Francis O'Brien Jr. is former commissioner of the NBA from 1975 to 1984, helped the league gain a more secure financial footing with his political acumen and highly regarded negotiating skills. Not only did team coffers swell during his tenure, but relations between players and owners improved as well. O'Brien gave the NBA a more polished and professional profile, thanks to the solid public image he had gained during a 30-year career as a distinguished behind-the-scenes politician.
Fittingly, O'Brien was born in 1917 in Springfield, Massachusetts, the birthplace of basketball and home of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, of which he later became a member. His parents were immigrants from County Cork, Ireland. After receiving his law degree from Northeastern University in 1942, O'Brien served in the Army during World War II. Upon being released from duty he took a job directing the U.S. congressional campaign of Foster Furculo, who won his seat by 15,000 votes. O'Brien's reward was a job as administrative assistant to Furculo in Washington, D.C., where he met many influential Democrats, including the Kennedys.
In 1952 O'Brien directed John F. Kennedy's statewide campaign for U.S. Senate. Kennedy defeated the incumbent, Henry Cabot Lodge, by more than 70,000 votes. O'Brien served as an advisor to Kennedy from 1952 to 1958, and in 1959, when Kennedy ran for president, O'Brien was named director of the campaign organization. After Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in the 1960 election, O'Brien was appointed special assistant for congressional relations. Lyndon Johnson asked O'Brien to remain in that position after Kennedy's assassination, and he did so until 1965, when Johnson brought him into his cabinet as postmaster general of the United States.
In 1968 O'Brien was named national chairman of the Democratic Party, a position he still held in 1972, when the infamous Watergate break-in occurred. In a memorable footnote to history, it was O'Brien's office that G. Gordon Liddy's gang was caught burglarizing, causing the ripple that led to the tidal wave that washed Nixon out of office.
O'Brien drifted out of conventional politics in the early 1970s and was working as a consultant in 1974 when he received a telephone call from J. Walter Kennedy, who was then NBA Commissioner. Kennedy was about to step down, and he offered O'Brien the job. O'Brien was flabbergasted. "I thought he had the wrong number," he said of the call. "After all, offering me the job as chief executive of a professional basketball league didn't make any sense to me. Naturally, I declined.. At the time it was the craziest thing I'd ever heard of."
But there was no secret as to why the NBA wanted O'Brien. The league was mired in a swamp of pending litigation; it was losing ground to the rival American Basketball Association; and it was so unpopular that even the NBA Finals wasn't considered a prime-time television draw. The NBA needed a skilled negotiator who could guide the league to prosperity, and O'Brien was one of the most respected and well-known political savants in the country.
Former Boston Celtics Coach Red Auerbach observed that another quality the NBA coveted was O'Brien's prestige. "When he came along, the league was successful," Auerbach told the Boston Globe, "but it needed to improve its public image, not only from the standpoint of politics but also from the standpoint of the sports world."
One incentive for O'Brien was that he would be exposed to a lot of basketball, a game he had loved deeply for many years. Especially fond of the Celtics, he would sometimes travel all the way from Springfield to Boston just to watch a game, then return home in the wee hours. "I was a nut," O'Brien said of his addiction to the game in the Los Angeles Times. "I'd get in the stands and I was probably as loud and vociferous as any fan you'd ever run into. I had plenty to say about the officiating and the coaching."
When he finally gave in to repeated requests by the NBA to accept the job, O'Brien had plenty to say about how to resuscitate the ailing league. He rolled up his sleeves and went right to work on solving the so-called "Oscar Robertson suit," which had been in and out of court for five years and was racking up staggering legal fees. He did it with old-fashioned cajoling. "I reverted back to the political arena," O'Brien said. "I got the parties together, threw a lock on a smoke-filled room, and hammered out an agreement. I suppose that's when I learned why the NBA had been so determined to hire me."
The primary result of the Robertson settlement was to establish free agency in the league, thereby allowing players to play for the team of their choice once their contracts had expired. During his first year O'Brien also helped the NBA reach an agreement on a collective bargaining pact with the NBA Players Association, and he orchestrated the merging of the ABA's four strongest teams into the NBA. It was a busy year, indeed, and O'Brien was given recognition for his Herculean efforts by being named Sportsman of the Year by The Sporting News and Man of the Year by Basketball Weekly.
The overall condition of the NBA was still shaky, but there were some encouraging signs. In 1977 attendance at NBA games exceeded 10 million for the first time, and the following year O'Brien engineered a record-breaking $74-million, four-year deal with CBS to televise NBA games.
Television, however, continued to be a weak spot for the NBA. Even as late as 1980, major network executives didn't believe professional basketball was popular enough nationally to warrant the prime-time coverage that fans came to expect in the 1990s. For example, the memorable 1980 NBA Finals, in which Magic Johnson shone as the Los Angeles Lakers battled the Philadelphia 76ers, was televised live only in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The rest of the country could watch the games only on a tape-delay basis.
In 1982, however, O'Brien used his considerable political skills (and a bit of fortunate timing) to convince CBS to renew its television contract, this time for $88 million for four years. The lucky element of the deal was the dawning of more extensive cable television coverage of sports. During the 1982-83 season ESPN and USA Network each broadcast 40 games per season, and at about the same time Ted Turner's WTBS began televising Atlanta Hawks games nationwide. This increased competition compelled the major networks to raise their bids for NBA contracts.
Shortly before his death in 1990, O'Brien credited Ted Turner with helping the league become more lucrative. "He told me that if it wasn't for Turner," said O'Brien's son, Larry O'Brien III, "there would've been no television competition for the networks and, therefore, no big money for the players."
In 1983 a crisis developed in the NBA when dissatisfied players threatened to strike. O'Brien worked closely with David Stern, the NBA's legal counsel at the time (and O'Brien's eventual successor as commissioner), to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the NBA Players Association. Considered a landmark labor agreement in professional sports, the accord turned out to be a blueprint for the stabilization and growth of the league.
One of the key elements of the agreement was the placing of a cap on the amount that each team could spend on salaries and benefits. In return, the players were guaranteed 53 percent of the defined gross revenues of the league. This provision was designed to maintain the principles of individual bargaining and free agency for the players, while at the same time giving NBA teams in smaller markets a better chance to compete on even terms with teams in larger markets. The impact of the agreement was quickly felt throughout the league as new owners came forth to invest in teams that had been having financial problems.
Also in 1983, O'Brien helped forge a unique antidrug program together with the NBA Players Association that was hailed as one of the most far-reaching and innovative in professional sports. The program provided clearly defined penalties, culminating in lifetime dismissal from the NBA, for any player who either was found to be using drugs, convicted of a crime involving the use of drugs, or pleaded guilty to such a crime. It also offered players extensive educational programs to inform them of the dangers of drug use, as well as rehabilitation programs to deal directly with substance abuse.
The only major on-court rule change under the O'Brien administration was the addition of the three-point shot in 1979. Designed to add more suspense to a game's closing minutes, it enabled a trailing team to catch up to its opponent more quickly. The three-pointer turned out to be enormously popular with fans. Also during O'Brien's tenure, the prohibition of zone defenses was clarified and more actively enforced, as was the rule against defensive hand-checking.
The NBA was extremely pleased with the job O'Brien had performed up to 1983 and was about to offer him a new five-year contract when he declared that he would retire in February of that year. Red Auerbach, who knew O'Brien well, thought he understood why O'Brien opted for early retirement. "After he got the job done and had the league in the proper direction," Auerbach told the Boston Globe, "I won't say he was bored, exactly, but he was out of challenges in his life."
Never known for his eloquence in public settings, O'Brien added simply, "There comes a time when you have to move on." Shortly after his departure the NBA commemorated his service by renaming its championship trophy the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
O'Brien's eight-year tenure as commissioner was highly successful. He was praised by players, team owners, sportswriters, and fans for guiding the league through some rocky times and for improving the image of the NBA. "I think the sport is better off by far than it was in 1975 when he came in," Larry Fleisher, then head of the NBA Players Association, said in 1990. "I think that's the measure of success or failure in a commissioner."
In 1985 O'Brien took over the presidency of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in his hometown of Springfield. During his two-year stint there O'Brien tried unsuccessfully to get the Honors Committee to publicize its votes and the names of committee members. When the committee refused to do so, O'Brien, in protest, requested that his name be removed from the list of people who would be considered for enshrinement.
It was a courageous act, similar to his expressions of outrage against the subterfuge and illegalities of the Watergate scandal. In his autobiography, No Final Victories: A Life in Politics from John F. Kennedy to Watergate, he wrote: "I've been a politician for most of my life, and I've never dreamed of bugging an opponent's telephone or breaking into his office. If a generation of Americans become convinced that burglary and wiretapping are 'politics as usual,' then there's not much hope for our political system."
O'Brien died of cancer on September 27, 1990. Ironically, the Honors Committee of the Hall of Fame decided not to allow nominees to withdraw their names, and O'Brien was elected in 1991.
