The news caught Luther "Ticky" Burden like a blind screen in a wicked game.
His former teammate, Tyrone Medley, had called in November to catch up. As they were reminiscing, Medley mentioned his disappointment at Burden not being named to the University of Utah's all-century basketball team.
Living in Winston-Salem, N.C., Burden hadn't heard the news, even though it was announced two years ago this week. He was hurt and confused.
At first, he thought Medley meant he had been left off a list of the 100 greatest players in Utah history, rather than the 16-man all-century team. Even so, it was a curious omission. He is tied for the second-highest single-season scoring average in school history (28.7) and was a first-team All-American (1975). He played for the U.S. national team.
It made no sense.
In another sense, Ticky knew the reason all along.
These are days of both peace and anguish for Burden. He has a job teaching basketball and life skills at the YWCA, tutoring both boys and girls. His camps have furthered the careers of such NBA fixtures as Chris Paul and Josh Howard. He says he loves giving back to the game that made him famous long ago.
At the same time, he has been beset by worry. His wife, Cynthia, is fighting breast cancer and the bills are mounting. He has insurance, but it isn't covering the soaring costs.
"Luther is going through some hardship right now," says Willie Dabbs, a longtime friend who identifies himself as Burden's agent.
Burden and Dabbs think the story of the kid from the Albany, N.Y., projects is a good one, and are looking to publish a book and produce a film on his life.
"Luther has a real good story to tell," says Dabbs. "We feel it's good as 'The Blind Side.' In fact, we think it's got two more chapters than 'The Blind Side.' "
Burden was raised by an older sister who dropped out of high school her senior year to support the family after their mother was killed by a drunken driver. Eleven-year-old Luther was home alone when a state trooper arrived, asking if there were any adults available.
It was the first time Burden had ever seen a trooper. Since his older brother had gone to Vietnam, he thought the cop was a military officer.
"I have bad news," said the trooper.
A couple of years later, the family moved from its home into housing projects in Albany.
Burden had two older brothers, both of whom played basketball. But Ticky had the gift.
"I was like a wonder kid, shooting better than just about anybody," says Burden.
By seventh grade, he was accurate from all points on the court, practicing into the wee hours on a shooting drill called "around the world."
UCLA coach John Wooden dispatched his top assistant, Denny Crum, to Albany to offer Burden a scholarship when he was just a ninth-grader. Jim Boeheim, then an assistant at Syracuse, was also in the chase.
As the story goes, Ticky got his nickname from his high school coach, who said it replicated the sound of the ball whooshing through the net.
"That's the legend," says Burden. "He put that story out, and I won't deviate from it at all."
His reputation grew rapidly. Burden was one of only three high school players ever invited to the prestigious Kutsher's Country Club basketball camp. The other two were Wilt Chamberlain and Ralph Sampson. His game was so sublime, his shot so pure, he was once afforded a standing ovation while visiting Boston Garden with the Knicks. Those who had seen him play there in a high school tournament remembered.
But after he sustained cartilage damage to his knee before his senior year of high school, UCLA backed off. Other schools quickly followed. Unsure of his future, Burden chance-met former Utah coach Bill Foster at a camp the summer after high school graduation; Foster immediately offered him a scholarship.
When Burden came west for his recruiting visit and saw the gleaming Special Events Center (now the Huntsman Center), he was captivated. Foster's up-tempo teams were a nice fit for the kid with the 42-inch vertical who could score from the parking lot.
"I never had a shot blocked," he says.
He shot 49 percent in three years at Utah. Considering a large share of his attempts came from beyond 25 feet, it was an impressive stat.
"Nobody could stop Luther," he says, slipping in and out of third person. "He was unstoppable. I played 30 feet from the basket. Because I could dribble, nobody needed to give it to me; just let me have the ball and I would shoot it or drive around them. I'm not bragging; it's just a fact."
The red tassels Burden wore on his gym shoes were a touch borrowed from Muhammad Ali, whom he spent a day with in high school. The champ, along with sprinter John Carlos and long jumper Bob Beamon, was in Albany on a visit, and Burden was among several area athletes invited to meet them.
Most nights, Burden was unstoppable. There was the time in college against West Virginia that he scored 40 points. Then-coach Jerry Pimm took him out early, not wanting to embarrass the opposition.
"He was the best shooter I've ever seen," says former Ute sports information director Bruce Woodbury.
"Ticky had the fastest release I've ever seen from any shooter," says BYU women's basketball coach Jeff Judkins, who was a freshman at Utah when Burden was a junior. "I can't remember him having a bad game."
Burden, Medley and Mike Sojourner led Utah to national prominence. The Utes finished second in the NIT in 1974. Against North Carolina the following season, Burden scored 44 on the Tar Heels. After the game, he put his arm around Carolina's Phil Ford, then a freshman, and told him to keep his head up — he'd be a fine player one day.
Ford went on to become national player of the year.
Even the hotshots from Chapel Hill were being schooled by the man with the fancy shoes and silky shot.
"I could have averaged 40 points my senior year," says Burden, who left for the American Basketball Association after his junior season. "Wasn't nobody could stop me — I was that dominant. I could put that much on just about anybody."
In summers, he stayed in the East to play in leagues and on playgrounds in New York and Philadelphia. Marvin "Bad News" Barnes, Ernie DiGregorio, Maurice Howard and even the legendary Connie Hawkins — who by then had gone pro — lined up to play against him.
"I played against everybody, all comers, once I got into high school," he says. "I had a big-time reputation on the East Coast. Everybody wanted to play against Ticky."
During college, he spent part of one summer practicing in a gym in Long Island against Julius Erving. The games, he says, were always even.
"He'd win 21-19 and I'd win 21-17," says Burden. "It was always back-and-forth."
But while Dr. J was headed to the Hall of Fame and basketball immortality, Burden was headed to a far darker place.
The door to his cell at Auburn Correctional Facility slammed with an echo, but Ticky never heard.
"That's the metaphor, the door slamming, but I had a lot more to think about than a door shutting," he says.
Burden refers to the 18 months he spent in prison as "my trouble." It was also "definitely the lowest of the low."
The cops arrived at his door three days after a bank holdup in Hempstead, N.Y., in 1980. They surged into his house and found $1,700 that Burden says was part of a $7,000 check he had just cashed from the New York Knicks.
Burden says he was framed by "three lowlifes" who had borrowed his car. One, a childhood friend, brought it back and gave him $125 for his trouble, thanking him for the loaner. Burden put that on his dresser, along with the cash from the Knicks. He claims three $5 bills his friend had provided were from the bank that had been robbed — which was enough to convince a jury that Burden was guilty.
Three suspects agreed to testify against him, saying he masterminded the robbery and drove the getaway car. He was sentenced to six to 18 years.
Burden says the friends blamed him because they thought it would help their cause if they testified against a star athlete. But he insists he was at a nightclub he owned, taking inventory, at the time of the heist.
"Media sensationalism, you know, big fish kind of thing," he says. "Those guys got no names. I was front page news across the country. They weren't going to let that go. It was the beginning of what's going on now with the media frenzy over big celebrities getting in trouble. I was the first one."
He was indeed a big fish. He set an American record for scoring in the 1974 World Championships (20.2 ppg). His picture was featured in Sports Illustrated, along with teammates. Burden was wearing his trademark tassels.
Though an injury limited his pro career to less than three seasons — he played for the Virginia Squires and Knicks before tearing up his knee at training camp — he was a celebrity both outside prison and in.
"Without a doubt," he says. "I can't even begin to tell you the treatment I got from the administration, from the inmates, the guards."
He was assigned the easy job of presenting inmate grievances to the prison board. Officials liked him well enough to allow him to organize ballgames between inmates and outside teams.
Each day, he held court in the prison yard, reliving games he played alongside stars like Bill Bradley, Walt "Clyde" Frazier and Earl "the Pearl" Monroe.
"It was a daily routine, talking about the exploits of Ticky Burden," he says. "You gotta remember, all these guys were from the state of New York. They knew who Ticky Burden was."
His case was overturned in 1984 because police had failed to obtain a search warrant when they entered his home. He pleaded guilty to a lesser offense — possession of stolen money — and was released.
Burden started a concert promotion business and got back on his feet, but stopped when artists began taking such a large cut it was impossible to make a profit. He once tried to book Prince, but says the pop star wanted 90 percent of the gate.
Later, he went into financial services for several years.
He says in prison he had "a really good experience" learning how to understand people who have been in trouble all their lives. It got him thinking about counseling youth.
In 1988, he went into a YMCA gym in North Carolina, where he was living, and asked if they could use some assistance with the kids.
Twenty-two years later, he's still helping.
"He's taking these kids off the street and he's helping them to get a better life. He tries to motivate them and focus on the positive," says Dabbs.
It's a good life, Burden says.
"Bitter? If you keep being bitter and hold a grudge against whoever, it will only make you miserable," he says, "and I don't want to be miserable."
He now has grandchildren, who he says enrich him. But the worries about Cynthia linger.
"You pay your insurance, and then you get sick and find out how the policies run," he says. "Read the fine print. It costs a lot of money and they don't want to pay for it. It's been a financial drain, but you do what you've got to do."
Burden scored 1,790 points in three seasons, behind only Keith Van Horn, Billy McGill, Josh Grant, Mike Newlin and Luke Nevill at Utah. But while Burden did his in 80 games and three years, Van Horn, Grant and Nevill played four seasons and 120-130 games apiece.
Only McGill and Jerry Chambers ever scored more than the 44 Burden totaled against North Carolina and Denver.
He did it all in an era before the 3-point shot.
"If they'd had the shot clock and the 3-pointer when he played," says Judkins, who spent five years in the NBA, "he'd have averaged in the mid-30s."
But none of that was enough to get Burden a banner in the Huntsman Center, along with the other legends like Andrew Bogut, McGill and Van Horn.
He wonders if he's not there because he didn't graduate.
"I have no idea," he says, when asked why his number hasn't been retired. "Maybe it's because of the trouble, which I could understand … or it could be that I left the last year on the table and didn't come back to graduate."
There is no graduation requirement for enshrinement at Utah.
Burden says he has fond memories of college. When he came to the West in the summer of 1972, "you've got to realize, I was a kid from the inner city. I didn't have a lot of experience with white people, and going out to Utah was culture shock."
Still, he says, he learned much. He was assigned a "foster family" — a custom with many athletes — that was "very, very good, treated me well and taught me a lot about myself."
The family organized picnics and other outings on warm spring days, and watched Ticky play basketball on winter nights.
In Utah, he says, he learned about families.
Meanwhile, he taught Utahns about filling up the hoop.
Burden wonders if fans forgot him. But when he called the university's basketball office a few months ago, he introduced himself to a secretary, saying, "I'm not sure you'd remember me …"
She replied, "I'll bet there aren't 10, 15 people in Utah who haven't heard of you."
Remembering him wasn't the problem. Otherwise, McGill, Chambers, Newlin, Arnie Ferrin and Vern Gardner — all of whom preceded Burden at Utah — wouldn't have made the all-century team, either.
He knows the problem: the bank, the car, the cops.
"In the back of my mind, I do know," he says, "but I'm not sure. I don't want to speak for the university. It was good to me when I was there. I got a wonderful education and it took me a long way, giving me the opportunity to play basketball."
He says Guinness World Records is coming to North Carolina in April to see him attempt the world mark for consecutive free throws; he has made as many as 200. Winston-Salem TV reporter Cameron Kent once blogged that in 1988 he rebounded in an empty gym while Burden made 25 consecutive 3-pointers from around the arc.
"I still got the shot," he says, his voice growing younger. Suddenly it's 1975 again, and Ticky is raining shots from all around the world. He can hear the tick of the net.
"All I know," he says, "is when you put my stats up against everybody else that has been there, and compare them with anybody — all the so-called good players — the stats I put up sure look pretty to me."
Lighten his Burden
For anyone wishing to assist Luther "Ticky" Burden with expenses related to wife Cynthia's breast cancer treatment, contact attorney Fred M. Altman, 6 Walker Way, Albany, N.Y., 12205-4946, or by calling 518-434-4448.
e-mail: rock@desnews.com