Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
JUSTIN GEORGEThough fated never to win on the basketball court, Herman Schayes has never lived the life of a loser.
BROOKSVILLE - He needs a hip replacement. But Herman Schayes, 70, still bounds through the halls of Springbrook Hospital with a bounce.
His 6-foot-3-inch frame bows. He has jowls and a paunch. A close-cropped cut has been replaced with gray hair that curls past a receding hairline, shading his ears. The left lobe bears a silver loop above a diamond stud that twinkles like his brown eyes. "Midlife crisis," he explains.
Schayes unlocks the doors to the psychiatric hospital's critical care unit at 3:15 p.m., and patients crowd around.
"Gym time," Schayes calls out like a coach. "Gym time. Let's go."
Some patients are grizzled in gruff beards and gummy grins. Some look like sullen soccer moms. Most seem fine. They exit rooms and draw near a locked door, which leads to a green-carpeted hallway, which leads to the locked gym.
Schayes holds the keys. He glances at a clipboard that holds a patient roster, which is updated daily. He takes roll.
"6 ... 7 ... 8 ... You gonna come, Brenda?"
Brenda wears blue jeans and a frown. She's not smiling, but she's coming.
Patients follow Schayes as if he's the Pied Piper within Springbrook. He seems to know their tune.
"Poor self-esteem," he says. "I also know for every down, there's going to be an up. For every shot made, there'll be a miss."
As a Washington General between 1954 and 1959, Schayes had more downs than ups on the scoreboard. He played the patsy to the Harlem Globetrotters, predestined to lose as consistently and cartoonishly as Wile E. Coyote.
He lost 2,000 games (3,000, according to his wife).
Five inches shorter, five years younger, he also lost the gene pool to his brother, basketball Hall of Fame member Dolph Schayes, voted one of the NBA's 50 greatest players, and to his nephew, Dolph's son Danny, who played 18 years in the league.
Dolph won the 1955 NBA championship. Herman won an NBA tryout.
Schayes, who lives in Beverly Hills, has been Springbrook's athletic director for the past two years. He works with patients fighting Alzheimer's disease and alcoholism, drug addiction and depression, schizophrenia and a stigma:
Losers.
"Society has stereotyped these people," said Jim O'Shea, hospital administrator.
"They consider themselves second-hand," Schayes added.
Each day, he takes patients to the gym. Each day, he gives them an hour of normalcy. Mostly, he leaves them alone. But he makes many feel good.
"I've never seen anyone as good as him," O'Shea said.
Is it because he introduces himself to patients and asks, "Where are you from?" before rattling off a tale about their home state, letting them know he's been there?
Is it because he plays court jester, tossing assists like "you dropped your footprints?"
Is it because he knows so much about losing, but even more about participating?
"Could be," said O'Shea, a former college football star. "It's not about winning and losing. It's about being involved."
Schayes continues calling roll. "Rosanna, 9," he says in a sharp New York accent. "Joel, 10."
This group of 14 includes those whom authorities forced to Springbrook under the Baker Act, which is used to admit people who have been judged to be imminent threats to themselves or someone else.
Schayes tells the patients to line up in alphabetic order. He unlocks the door, and they tag along - out of order.
Schayes unlocks and swings open the gym's metal door, revealing a world he knows well.
Schayes drives 55 minutes south to his $10-an-hour job from Beverly Hills, where he lives with his wife, Sandy, 66, a nursing home nurse. They have three grown children, including a high school basketball coach and the Sacramento Kings' travel director.
Their Yorkshire terrier's name: Orlando Magic.
Basketball bounced into Schayes' life because of his father's influence. Carol Schayes, or Carl, was a 6-foot-2 Romanian prizefighter. Like his wife, 4-foot-11 Tina, he arrived at Ellis Island in the early 1900s.
"If you shook his hand," Schayes said, "your hand was lost."
He worked for a commercial laundry business, delivering towels and aprons to beauty shops. Tina Schayes ruled their one-bedroom Bronx apartment. The three boys - Fred, Adolph and Herman - slept in the living room.
Friday nights, Carl Schayes and his brothers would watch boxers bloody themselves at Madison Square Garden. Sundays, he'd buy 50-cent bleacher seats and take his boys to doubleheaders at the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium.
Adolph, or "Dolph," was the first to show proficiency at basketball. He graduated from high school at 16. Purdue University offered his entire team scholarships. He chose New York University.
Herman became water boy, drinking in the view, watching his brother grow into a 6-8 All-American, one of New York City's finest.
Dolph, a 220-pound forward with a guard's soft touch, shot his way into the pros and signed with the Syracuse Nationals.
Herman followed Dolph's footprints in size 15 sneakers to DeWitt Clinton High School. When Dolph bought his parents a home in Flushing, Queens, Herman rode the subway 21/2 hours each way to stay at the Bronx school.
But the city banned extracurricular activities his senior year. So Herman played with a group of neighborhood boys, barnstorming the city's parks or police department club leagues.
They gathered outside a candy store and named their group the "Flicks," after a friend who died in a car accident.
They had nicknames: "Mendy." "Lefty." "Porky." "Deets."
Herman stayed Herman. "Hank" wouldn't do.
"He was a good ballplayer," said Dolph Schayes, who lives near Syracuse. "On the New York City courts, growing up in the Bronx, playing the New York City game, he was a good, smart player. ... A heady player."
With help from Dolph, Herman earned a scholarship in 1951 to Colorado A&M, now Colorado State University. His father bought him a big suitcase and sent him on his first plane ride.
Homesick, he transferred to Hofstra University in New York and played summer basketball for upscale upstate hotels that drafted college stars onto their "social staffs," mainly to entertain hotel guests who enjoyed a good ballgame - and side bet.
It was in the Catskill Mountains that Schayes met William "Red" Holzman, who would go on to coach the Knicks to a 1970 championship. He was a hotel athletic director at the time. Holzman asked Schayes if he wanted to play against the Harlem Globetrotters.
Holzman knew Louis "Red" Klotz, a 1948 Baltimore Bullets championship team member. A sunglasses-on-the-court-wearing showman, Klotz was player-owner of the Washington Generals.
Schayes tried out in 1954 and won a nonstop ticket traveling America wearing a red, white and blue jersey with a row of proud stars across the chest, playing games labeled "exhibitions" so the Justice Department couldn't accuse the Generals of throwing them.
Herman still shoots baskets in the Springbrook Hospital gym with the same two-handed form, the ball elevating more than normal because the hoop is set at 11 feet instead of 10, so patients can't hang themselves.
With green floor and pink walls, the gym also houses two stationary bicycles, a cross-country ski machine, treadmill, table tennis, bookshelf and a plastic tub of yarn. Puzzles, Scrabble and a Big Bird coloring book rest on a table.
Two patients jump on the bicycles.
Two more grab basketballs.
"When they come down here," Schayes says between thumps, "it's an hour off the unit. It's an hour to focus on what they want to do, not what we want them to do."
Joe, a young man in a sagging white T-shirt and khaki cargo pants, joins others on the court.
"Joe," Schayes yells out, pointing at the hoop, then the backboard. "Aim for the round thing, not the white thing."
He drains the next shot.
One man colors a picture of a mouse dressed as a king. Another woman untangles yarn. Other patients move from activity to activity at a manic pace.
Young Joe bolts toward the locked door and looks out the rectangular windows.
"I just want to go back to my unit, man," he says longingly.
Schayes takes him aside and whispers, hand on shoulder.
Nearby, Rex, a clean-cut man, stretches.
"You a Devil Rays fan?" Schayes says, noticing Rex's gray T-shirt.
"Yup. And a Bucs fan, and a Lightning fan," Rex says.
"You know, the Lightning won last night," Schayes says.
He didn't. Herman acts as go-between, making cigarette runs, relaying box scores. He decorates the hospital for holidays, serves sundaes on Sundays, barbecues on others.
He also assesses moods. Along with a census, his clipboard holds a survey recording patients' reality orientation, social skills, frustration tolerance, behavior, gait, decision-making skills and self-esteem.
Joe switches his attention to the gym radio and switches the station. A Cheshire look crosses his face as he turns up the volume to the Sugar Ray song.
I just wanna fly. Put your arms around me baby. Put your arms around me baby ...
Schayes leaves him alone.
4:15 p.m. rolls around.
"Okay," Schayes says. "Let's go. Start wrapping up."
Joe bolts again to the door and begins banging on the handles. "Joseph," Schayes says, redirecting his attention like a father. "Help clean up."
Robert, a man suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, begins thumping on bongos.
"Okay," Schayes tells the group. "Let's line up."
Robert marches short stiff steps, throwing his right arm forward, making the "Heil Hitler" sign in jest.
"Don't do that," Herman says, letting the act roll off his back.
Schayes wears a Chai, the Hebrew word for life, on a gold chain. While playing with the Generals, he was a member of the Texas Cowboys, which played against the Globetrotters on a 99-day, 98-game European tour in 1956.
The 17-country tour also included stops in Lebanon and Syria during the Algerian War. Herman and three other Jewish players fronted as Christians to gain passage.
The Texans, a moniker invented just for the tour by Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein to play up the novelty act, wore cowboy hats and tan leather jackets with fringes. They played on tennis courts in Nuremberg, Germany, and Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece.
Programs for the tour advertised them as anything but losers:
If height, experience and determination counts for anything in basketball, then the Texas Cowboys will certainly give a good account of themselves against the great Harlem Globetrotters on this tour.
In competition in America, the Texans won nearly all of their games, although never before this tour had they had the opportunity to play against the Globetrotters, recognized as the foremost team in the world.
The Texans included Schayes, whose height was generously listed at 6-6, as was Jim Gerber and Joe Smyth. Then there were 5-10 Al Schreiber, 6-10 Bob Peterson, 6-3 Harvey Babetch and 6-0 Joe Collier.
All-white, they played all-black Globetrotters: Clarence Wilson, "finest long set-shot artist in the game"; Leon Hilliard, "generally conceded to be the greatest dribbler"; Andy Johnson, "jumps like a kangaroo"; and a young Meadow (Lark) Lemon, "destined to be one of basketball's greatest stars."
A juggler, accordion player, acrobat, unicyclist, rope tricksters and other vaudevillian acts also entertained.
The games brought laughter to Europe, still sober from World War II.
"One time, I spoke to a person," said Dolph Schayes, recalling his own European tour with the reigning NBA champion Syracuse Nationals at about the same time. "He told me, "You're not the world champions.' I said, "Who is?"'
The man's reply: the Harlem Globetrotters. "And Herman was part of that," Dolph Schayes said.
While Globetrotters games included confetti flying out of buckets and balls flung from rubber bands, they still were games.
"I had my nose broke, my ribs busted," Herman Schayes said. "It was competitive."
Fans begged for autographs.
"They knew if you weren't good enough, you weren't on that court," Schayes said.
"It's like a bullfight. You know the bull is going to lose, but they always cheer for the bull when it enters the ring."
Not everything was fixed. When the Globetrotters came to town, typically three touring teams, such as the Generals, the Philadelphia Sphas or the Toledo Mercuries, accompanied. Two teams played in a fierce undercard each night before the Globetrotters took the court against the third team.
Each day, the Generals would travel as far as 250 miles, each team member being paid $600 a month. While the Globetrotters rode a bus (stars like Reece "Goose" Tatum traveled by limousine), the Generals followed in two crammed cars.
Trunks were filled with dark jackets in suit bags. No time for laundry: Showers were used to wash uniforms.
Generals and Globetrotters mixed at hotels, where Schayes would update others about his famous brother while playing a card game known as Tonk.
In those days, the NBA was slow to accept talented black players like the Globetrotters because of the color of their skin. Their white foils also found themselves left out, but for a different reason: insufficient skills.
With more commonalities than just a basketball, Schayes said, the Globetrotters and members of the traveling teams got along.
With the NBA in its infancy, the Globetrotters were the bigger draw, sometimes following professional games that warmed the crowd. Saperstein, the Globetrotters' owner, was a grandiose promoter, attracting heavyweights like Joe Louis and Jesse Owens courtside, making them celebrity coaches, sweetening ticket sales.
If you played well enough, Schayes said, you got a shot to play in the NBA. In 1956, Schayes earned a tryout from the Syracuse Nationals, his brother's team. Schayes said he probably wouldn't have made the roster. But maybe the minor leagues.
He never found out. The Army drafted him in late 1956.
After a short stint, spent primarily teaming with other famous athletes whom the military brass assigned to play Army leagues, Schayes returned to the Washington Generals in 1958 and played against Wilt Chamberlain, who had left college early.
The Globetrotters provided Chamberlain a one-year refuge while his senior class graduated, allowing "the Stilt" to join the NBA under league rules.
Soon, Chamberlain and other great ballplayers graduated to the NBA, and the Globetrotters became second fiddle to a pro game growing in popularity.
In 1959, Schayes left behind what was then an $800 monthly salary and became a bowling alley manager. He went on to sell insurance and manage health and beauty stores before semiretiring to Florida.
He eventually tired of sitting around his pool. So he took the Springbrook job.
"I enjoyed being around people," Schayes said.
Looking back, Schayes shakes his head firmly when asked if he ever felt jealous of his brother Dolph.
"Never once," he said.
Schayes so admired his brother that, when he drove his wife, Sandy, to a well-known makeout spot while on a date, he turned the radio to Dolph's pro game instead of locking lips.
"He was screaming and yelling like a lunatic," Sandy said.
Schayes said he loved playing for a team that has become a metaphor for ineffectiveness. He always shrugged off losses, Dolph Schayes said. The ability served him well later in life, like a few years ago, when he recovered from quintuple bypass surgery and soon traveled to Israel to watch his son coach in the Maccabiah Games, an Olympics-style competition.
Todd Schayes, 38, told his father at age 13, during his bar mitzvah, that he was going to make him best man someday, because he was his best friend. He did last summer.
At the reception, choked up by his son's gesture, Herman Schayes rose and told the crowd: "I lost 2,000 games, but I'm not a loser . . '
The Springbrook patients finally line up, ready to return to their unit from the gym. They face a full schedule of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, group discussions, drug rehabilitation and therapist sessions.
As they walk, Schayes asks the group: "What do we sing on the way back?"
Usually it's Jingle Bells.
But on this day, the patients have a different song in mind.
For he's a jolly good fellow . . .
- Justin George can be reached at 352 860-7309 or jgeorge@sptimes.com