(This is the third in a series about Detroit Public School League basketball legend, Spencer Haywood. Please find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.)

Haywood recalls in his autobiography telling his U-D teammate Vernell DiSilva, after catching the ire of Harding after being late for a team meeting, “I’ll never play another game here.” Haywood wasn’t alone. Six other players left the program that year.

On the surface, Haywood’s options seemed limited. He could transfer to another college, but would have to sit out a season of competition; he could barnstorm with the Harlem Globetrotters; or he could go overseas and play professionally, thus capitalizing on the fame he had earned the previous year during the Olympics. Playing professionally in either the NBA or the upstart ABA didn’t seem a possibility. Both leagues, along with the NCAA, had four-year rules, meaning no player could enter their respective league prior to being removed from high school for four years.

Enter New York businessman Steve Arnold who eventually became the agent for Julius Erving. He was involved with the ABA and was instrumental in that league’s Denver Rockets franchise signing Haywood to a contract.

 “One day, I said to the league, ‘What about going after guys who aren’t seniors?’ ” Arnold told author Terry Pluto in his book Loose Balls: The Short Wild Life of the American Basketball Association. “(The league) said, ‘How can you sign a kid if he’s still in college?’ I said, ‘Suppose a kid goes to MIT. He’s a genius and IBM wants him to work with them after his junior year. Does IBM say, ‘Wait a year and then come to work for us?’ No; they say, ‘Here’s the offer, come to work for us now and we’ll pay you to go to school later on.’ Why are athletes any different than that kid at MIT?”

That got the ABA thinking about the legality of NCAA rules and whether they would hold up in a court of law.

Arnold is credited with devising one of the greatest loopholes in sports history: The Hardship Case.

“We’ll make an exception and sign an underclassman if he’s a poor kid who can show that he has to support his family,” Arnold said. “The kid has that right, and I think the courts will agree with us.”

The perfect test-case was Spencer Haywood. He had a mother and nine siblings to provide for. Furthermore, he was unhappy in his current situation and he had marquee value stemming from his Olympic performance the previous year.

On August 16, 1969, Haywood made history, signing a three-year contract for $50,000 annually.

It rocked the sports world. The NCAA and the NBA were livid and vowed to fight the ruling in the courts. Several experts felt this would be the ruin of college basketball; New York Times columnist Leonard Koppett had another take on the situation.

“The four-year rule thrives because it suits the common financial interest,” Koppett wrote. “For colleges, it means protecting the supply of cheap labor. For professionals, it makes possible the draft system, which reduces bidding for talent and helps maintain the free farm system the college teams constitute.

“The purpose (of the four-year rule) is … to control and diminish bidding for the services of talented athletes.”

While lawyers haggled in court, Haywood proved his wares on the court. He was otherworldly that first season in Denver. Now 6-foot-9, but still only 20 years old, Haywood averaged 30 points and 19.5 rebounds his rookie season. He earned ABA Rookie of the Year honors, ABA MVP honors, as well as ABA All-Star MVP honors for his 23-point, 19-rebound performance. Haywood had one of the greatest stretches of sustained offensive prowess in professional basketball history. He had games of 43, 36, 43, 46, and 47 points in succession. For good measure, Haywood went off for 59 points and 25 rebounds in the season finale. The 59 points broke Connie Hawkins’ record of 57.

The Rockets were upset in the second-round of the playoffs by the Los Angeles Stars, but few could argue that Haywood was to blame. He averaged 36.7 points and 19.8 rebounds during the playoffs.

On the surface, the Haywood-Rockets marriage seemed to be made in heaven: Rookie player performing at an elite level and a franchise drawing capacity crowds and beginning construction on a new arena. The marriage, however, was on the rocks. Under the surface bubbled contract and personality issues and Haywood had begun nosing around the NBA to see who might be interested. He played two exhibition games for the Rockets the next season before breaking a finger and never played another minute in the ABA.

He signed a six-year, $1.5 million contract with the Seattle SuperSonics and then all hell broke loose. The Rockets believed Haywood was in violation of his contract; Haywood believed his contract was illegal. The NBA, meanwhile, countered that by law Haywood was still not eligible to participate its league because his freshman class had yet to graduate from college. Consequently, he spent more time during the 1970-71 season on the sidelines than on the floor. He played just 33 games that season thanks primarily to NBA commissioner Walter Kennedy and a vindictive spirit among other NBA owners who felt SuperSonics’ owner Sam Shulman had backdoored them to sign Haywood.

^{Following time in the ABA, Spencer Haywood signed a controversial contract with the Seattle SuperSonics. (Photos from Topps & SuperSonics)}

When Haywood did make it onto the court that season – usually for pre-game warm-ups – he was greeted with boos and debris from the stands, public address announcements that would tout Seattle as “having an illegal player on the floor,” and cold shoulders from many of the NBA’s veteran players. Often times the local team would file temporary restraining orders banning Haywood from working in their city. Haywood’s case was tied up in litigation for much of the season. His legal footing in these matters was that the NBA – and more specifically its Entry Draft – was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and that his Rockets contract was illegal. Following is a timeline of the legal maneuvering that allowed Haywood to eventually make his way on the court:

• January 6, 1971 – Los Angeles District Court Judge Warren J. Ferguson issues a temporary restraining order prohibiting the NBA from invoking its four-year rule.
• January 18, 1971 – Ferguson extended the order, but didn’t rule on the merits of the case.
• January 26, 1971 – The 9^th U.S. District Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled against the NBA, denying the league’s motion to halt the lower-court injunction.
• February 17, 1971 – Commissioner Kennedy rejected the Supersonics contract.
• February 22, 1971 – Team Haywood files a petition with U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas asking that he be allowed to play for the Sonics while the courts decide the legality of his jump from the ABA to the NBA.
• February 26, 1971 – Team Haywood requests Judge Ferguson to find the NBA in violation of antitrust laws.
• March 1, 1971 – Justice Douglas reinstated Ferguson’s original order, allowing Haywood to play for the Sonics pending further litigation.
• March 12, 1971 – Judge Ferguson ruled the NBA’s four-year rule violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and enjoined the league from enforcing it.
• March 26, 1971 – The NBA eventually asked the Supreme Court to rule on Justice Douglas’ earlier ruling. The Court ruled 7-2 in Haywood’s favor.

Shortly after Ferguson’s final ruling, both the Rockets and the NBA settled out of court with Shulman. He was fined $200,000 by the NBA, but the SuperSonics got Haywood and he was allowed to finish the season. All totaled, he played 33 games that season, averaging 20.6 points per game.

The outrage over the ruling reverberated from the NBA to the NCAA to the NFL.

Said Commissioner Kennedy: “This could kill college athletics and seriously injure professional athletes.”

University of Michigan athletic director Don Canham: “It’s disastrous unless they overturn it and I’m sure they’ll try to. … (The ruling’s) unrealistic. I’m sure this was just a case of some judge who didn’t know what to do and he had to do something. … I’m sure the NBA people will appeal. (Ferguson) just doesn’t realize the implications of what he’s done.”

NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle: “It could destroy college football and basketball.”

Beginning with its draft in 1971, the NBA allowed hardship cases to enter the draft early – including Haywood who was selected in the second round by the Buffalo Braves. In 1976, the NBA modified its rule to become the modern-day Early Entry whereby a player can forfeit his NCAA eligibility by notifying the league in writing within 45 days of the draft.

• Up Next: Stints with the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers.