Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty Read Free Book Online Page A

to the room.
    As the game was about to start, Willis hobbled down the center aisle and onto the court, and the crowd went berserk. Future broadcaster Steve Albert, who was the honorary ball boy for the game, said he was looking at the Lakers when Willis appeared on the floor and “they all, to a man, turned around and stopped shooting and looked at Willis. And their jaws dropped. The game was over before it started.”
    Frazier moved the ball up court at the start of the game and hit Willis near the basket, and he knocked in a short jump shot. Then he scored again the next time up the floor, and all of a sudden the Knicks jumped out to a 7–2 lead, which usually doesn’t mean much in the NBA, but in this case it did. Willis’s commanding presence in the early going knocked the Lakers off their game and they never recovered.
    Of course, it didn’t hurt that Frazier had one of the greatest unsung performances in playoff history, scoring 36 points, with 19 assists and 7 rebounds. Though Walt was disappointed about being overshadowed by Willis, he too tipped his hat to the captain. “Now a lot of people say to me, ‘Wow, I didn’t know you had a game like that,’” said Frazier later. “But I know if Willis didn’t do what he did, I wouldn’t have been able to have the game I had. He got the fans involved and gave us confidence just by his coming out onto the floor.”
    The Knicks won 113–99 and we all became celebrities overnight. It was a bittersweet victory for me, however. I was grateful that my teammates voted me a full share of the playoff earnings and my first championship ring. But once the champagne stopped flowing, I felt guilty about not having been able to contribute more to the championship push. I was dying to get back in the game.

4
    THE QUEST
    The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
    JOSEPH CAMPBELL
    I n the summer of 1972, my brother Joe and I took a motorcycle trip through the West that shifted the direction of my life.
    I had returned to basketball two years earlier, but I still felt tentative on court and hadn’t found my rhythm yet. And my marriage to Maxine, my college sweetheart, was foundering. The six-month rehabilitation I had undergone after surgery hadn’t helped matters, and we had gone our separate ways—informally—earlier that year. Joe, who was a psychology professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, had also separated from his wife. It seemed like a good time for us to hit the road.
    I bought a used BMW 750 and met Joe in Great Falls, Montana, not far from my parents’ parsonage. We set out on a journey across the Great Divide to British Columbia that lasted about a month. Joe and I took it slow, traveling about five to six hours in the morning and setting up camp in the afternoon. At night we’d sit around a campfire with a couple of beers and talk.
    Joe didn’t mince words. “When I watch you play,” he said, “I get the impression that you’re scared. It looks like you’re afraid of getting hurt again and you’re not throwing yourself into the game the way you used to. Do you think you’ve fully recovered?”
    “Yes, but there’s a difference,” I replied. “I can’t play at the same level. I still have some quickness, but I don’t have as much power in my legs.”
    “Well,” said Joe, “you’re going to have to get that back.”
    As for the marriage, I said that Maxine and I had grown apart. She had no interest in the basketball world I inhabited, and I wasn’t ready to settle down and become a family man in the suburbs. Plus she was ready to move on and pursue a career as a lawyer.
    Joe was blunt. He said that for the past two years I hadn’t put myself into my marriage, my career, or anything else. “Because you’ve been too afraid to really make an honest effort,” he added, “you’ve lost the one love relationship you’ve always had—basketball. You need to be more aggressive about your life.”
    This was the message