By Matt Breen (via The Philadelphia Inquirer)
“I’ve lived many lives,” says 84-year-old Tom Hoover. And he has the stories to prove it.
There had to be a better way to make money, Tom Hoover thought as he loaded boxes of toilet paper onto boxcars in the middle of the night.
He would one day be Richard Pryor’s tour manager, work Joe Frazier’s corner for the Fight of the Century, and sit in the passenger seat of Wilt Chamberlain’s purple Cadillac convertible. But in the spring of 1963, Hoover was a former Villanova basketball player living in a YMCA and working at a toilet paper factory.
He needed a fresh start. And then a call came to the Scott Paper Co. in Delaware during Hoover’s graveyard shift. It was Bob Vetrone, a sports writer from Philadelphia. The city’s new NBA team had drafted Hoover with the sixth pick.
“He wanted to know how I felt,” Hoover said. “I just said ‘Oh. OK.’ It just didn’t register at the time. My shift ended at 4 o’clock in the morning.”
Hoover soon met the team’s owners, who brought the Syracuse Nationals to Philly and renamed them the 76ers. The New York Knicks gave their draft pick $17,500 and Hoover thought he was better than Art Heyman. So he told the Sixers he wanted more. They countered with $7,000. Hoover said he wouldn’t sign, so the Sixers upped their offer by saying they could give him a summer job.
“Guess what the summer job was?” Hoover said. “Driving a yellow cab in Philadelphia. I said, ‘You’ve got to be crazy’ and I walked out of the office. They all said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I ain’t gonna do this for you.’ I said, ‘You must be out of your mind. You’re really nuts.’ He said, ‘You’re crazy. Do you know what it is to play in the NBA?’ I just walked out.”
Hoover — one of the first Black players to play at Villanova — refused to play for the Sixers and said he would not come to training camp. The Sixers finally relented, trading the 6-foot-10 center to the Knicks. The Knicks said they would not match Heyman’s salary but they could give Hoover $12,500.
“I said, ‘Where do I sign?,‘” Hoover said. “That was how I got to the Knicks.”
The Knicks now have a well-known pipeline to the Main Line as three former Villanova stars — Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges — helped lift them this season to the Eastern Conference’s third-best record. Former Wildcats Ryan Arcidiacono and Donte DiVincenzo were also ‘Nova Knicks. But the original ‘Nova Knick — the first Wildcat to call Madison Square Garden home — was Hoover, the guy who once traveled the country with Pryor.
“I’ve lived many lives,” said the 84-year-old Hoover.
‘He was ahead of his time’
Hoover’s high school squad — Archbishop John Carroll in Washington — won 55 straight games and included future Villanova guard George Leftwich, future Georgetown coach John Thompson, and future Notre Dame president Monk Malloy.
“We beat everybody,” Hoover said. “We would beat your a—. There’s no question.”
Hoover was a no-nonsense big man, shaped by the pickup games he played around D.C. with old-timers like Earl Lloyd and Daddy Grace. If anyone picked on his teammates, Hoover picked on them.
“That was the DNA I grew up with,” Hoover said. “I remember one time a guy spit on me at Georgetown. I went into the stands after his a—. The other part was that you’re just not going to take advantage of me.”
Hoover could have played football at Ohio State but decided to go to Villanova on the recommendation of a priest from high school. Villanova was an all-male school and Hoover said just nine students — all athletes — were Black.
“It was very difficult,” Hoover said. “It was tough if you didn’t play the game correctly and fit in. I don’t know what I was, but I just wasn’t going for that B.S.”
Hoover caddied at a country club near campus. He wasn’t allowed to play the course, but he could carry a golfer’s bag. He walked one day with a prominent Philadelphia car dealer.
“He said, ‘Boy, where did my ball go?‘” Hoover said. “I looked at him and said, ‘Boy?’ This isn’t for me. I just dropped the bags and walked off. ‘Where you going?’ I was like ‘Nah, I can’t deal with it.’ It was a bad situation in school. It just wasn’t a good fit for me.”
The Villanova cafeteria often closed before basketball practice ended, forcing Hoover to mix Frosted Flakes with water in his dorm since they could not have a refrigerator for milk.
There wasn’t much to do around campus, so Hoover either went to Cheyney State University or headed to Philadelphia. That’s how he found Wayne Hightower, Sonny Hill, and other guys who loved playing basketball. That became his life, Hoover said.
“He was ahead of his time,” Hill said. “You’re talking about someone in the ‘60s coming through at 6-foot-10, probably 240 pounds. He was a very big man and strong. A very intelligent ballplayer, a very physical ballplayer, and a very gifted ballplayer in terms of knowing what his role was on the basketball court. He was ahead of his time.”
‘Heavy foot’ Wilt
The guys Hoover linked up with in Philly would play a game every year against New York’s best hoopers like Connie Hawkins, Jumpin’ Jackie Jackson, and Ed “The Czar” Simmons. The games were events and Chamberlain watched from under the basket.
“He said, ‘Come on, don’t let those guys outjump you like that,‘” Hoover said. “I was like, ‘Wow, Wilt Chamberlain knows who I am.‘”
Hoover and Chamberlain became friends and Hoover would take the trolley from Villanova to watch the Warriors play in West Philly. But the trolley stopped running by the time Chamberlain and Hoover grabbed something to eat after the game.
“He would say, ‘Nah, I’ll drive you back out,‘” Hoover said. “He had a purple Cadillac convertible. I guess it’s about 40 minutes from the Convention Center to Villanova. I got home in 10 minutes. He had a heavy foot.”
College freshmen could not play varsity basketball, so Hoover’s one season on varsity was his sophomore year. When the Wildcats traveled to Raleigh, N.C., they were greeted on the train by “Miss Raleigh,” who welcomed the white players to town but walked off the train when she saw Hoover.
“I said, ‘You can’t shake my hand?,‘” Hoover said. “Everyone was like, you can’t say that. I said, ‘Man, these people down here are crazy.’ But we knew that going down. We went to the Raleigh Coliseum, they played Dixie instead of The Star-Spangled Banner. I said, ‘This is going to be something down here.‘”
The charged-up Hoover picked up some quick fouls, and sat for most of the game.
“The only Black face I saw was in the restroom,” Hoover said. “There wasn’t a Black face in that crowd. I was like, ‘This isn’t going to work for me.‘”
Hoops and Inquirer deliveries
Hoover left Villanova in 1961 and played that summer for a team put together by Myer Shandelman, the founder of Spike’s Trophies. Shandelman paid every player $5 a game.
“I was like, ‘Nah, you got to give me $10 or $15,‘” Hoover said. “He said, ‘Everyone gets the same.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not coming.’ There was no other big guy. So he said, ‘OK, I’ll pay you.’ That was the start of me saying, ‘Wow, I can get paid for doing this.‘”
Hoover joined the Eastern League, playing on the weekends for the Camden Bullets and delivering The Inquirer every morning. He borrowed a friend’s car and drove around West Philly flinging newspapers on porches.
“I had to have Mr. Johnson’s car back by 8 o’clock because he was a corrections officer,” Hoover said. “I did whatever I could do to get $2. It was a matter of survival.”
He was drafted a year later into the NBA and was soon on his way to New York, the first Wildcat to play for the Knicks. The NBA was just eight teams and most of the players were white.
The fans in St. Louis yelled racial slurs and Hoover could not ignore it. It seemed like he was in a fight every night. Big man Ray Scott, who grew up in West Philly, told Hoover to grit his teeth or else he would be run out of the league.
“I can’t grit nothing,” Hoover said. “I can’t stand for that.”
Hoover grew closer with Chamberlain, who lived in New York and commuted to Philly to play for the Sixers. He played cards at Chamberlain’s West Side apartment and drove with him every Saturday to Atlantic City in that purple Cadillac to hang at Club Harlem. Chamberlain’s “heavy foot” got them from New York to A.C. in an hour.
“We were almost like brothers. He was the big brother I never had,” Hoover said. “I was in awe the first time I saw him and he called my name. After that, I found out that he was just like me. A normal guy. I said, ‘Wow, this guy is cool.’ That’s how we developed a relationship.”
Working with the stars
Hoover played five seasons split between the NBA and ABA and retired in 1970 after playing another season in the Eastern League. It was time to find something else.
He was hired in late 1970 as an inspector for the New York State Athletic Commission, which regularly sent him to regulate boxing matches at Madison Square Garden. He was in Frazier’s locker room in 1971 before the Fight of the Century against Muhammad Ali. He watched Frazier get his hands wrapped, inspected his gloves, and kept gawkers out.
“That was something,” Hoover said. “That was my first real experience as an inspector. Joe was calm. Yank Durham was calm. These guys were pros. You have to give them space. You’re in the dressing room, but you’re not in the dressing room. It’s like the referee in the ring. You’re in the ring but you’re not in the ring.”
Hoover watched the match from Frazier’s corner as it was his job to make sure the rules were followed in between rounds. He had the perfect view of the most famous left hook ever thrown by a Philly fighter.
“That was an event,” said Hoover, who retired from the athletic commission in 2016 after moving up to chairman.
In 1974, an agent at the William Morris Agency who was his friend told Hoover that Pryor needed a tour manager.
“I said, ‘OK, I’ll do anything to get out of New York,‘” Hoover said.
By then, Pryor was a huge comedian and Hoover traveled with him all over the country.
“We did 41 nights with Earth, Wind & Fire and he never told the same joke twice,” Hoover said. “He was eccentric and he was nuts, too.”
Pryor told Hoover that he would have to move to Los Angeles, but Hoover hated L.A. from his time in basketball.
“You went to a party and everyone had on sunglasses,” Hoover said. “Then the next morning, you saw them in the unemployment line downtown. This stuff isn’t real. So I just kept telling him, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.‘”
The end came on a hot night in Baltimore when Hoover told Pryor to bring an extra outfit to the show. Hoover knew Pryor would sweat on stage and want to change afterward. Pryor said he didn’t need it.
“We went back and forth about it,” Hoover said. “I said, ‘All right man, whatever you want to do.‘”
Pryor came off stage dripping in sweat and told Hoover to go back to the hotel for his change of clothes.
“I said, ‘I told you. You should’ve taken them before,” Hoover said. “He said, ‘Did you hear what I said?’ I looked at him and I was like, ‘Are you seriously talking to me like this?’ I said, ‘This is not going to work.’ I went and got him the set of clothes and said, ‘I’ll see you later. I’m out of here.’ I left.”
Hoover gave Pryor his credit cards and headed back to New York.
“He said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m out, bro,‘” Hoover said. “He was saying all this stuff, ‘Do you know who I am?’ But it was cool. He was a good dude. Stars dance and walk to their own tune. You have to be able to dance and walk the way they want you to. You can’t be independent.”
Hoover worked for singer Natalie Cole but left that post after a similar dispute. He then worked for the Spinners. That gig flamed out, too. The basketball enforcer had enough of show business.
“Every artist is demanding because they’re stars,” Hoover said. “It all depends on if you want to feed into it and stand there and say, ‘I work for Richard Pryor.’ Or do you want to say ‘Hey, man. The plane leaves at 1 o’clock. I’ll see you at the airport.‘”
Giving back
Hoover lives in Manhattan and works out three times a week at a gym inside the offices of the National Basketball Players Association.
“I’m still here at 84,” Hoover said. “I’ve had some ups and downs just like everything in life, but God has blessed me. I’m grateful.”
He’s involved with the National Basketball Retired Players Association, helping former NBA players find a second chapter after their careers are over.
“I love it,” Hoover said. “Guys who were there at one time in their life, they still feel like they are there. Come on, man. You bounced a ball. Give that up and let’s do something worthwhile for these kids coming up.”
Hoover created a program in which former NBA players visit schools every year during the All-Star Game and help teach children about subjects like computer coding and public speaking. He helped partner with a New York food bank to feed 400 families every other week and provides turkeys to 500 families every Thanksgiving. He teamed with Nate “Tiny” Archibald to collect shoes, clothing, and basketball equipment for people in West Africa.
Hoover used his basketball career as a way to travel with Pryor, hang with Chamberlain, and watch Frazier. Now he’s using his basketball career to give back.
“It’s very rewarding,” Hoover said. “We help players get health coverage and helped ABA players get a pension. It’s rewarding to give back to people.”
The original ‘Nova Knick loves the way his fellow Wildcats are playing now. They play hard, Hoover said. And that’s the best way to win over the guy who learned toughness on the playgrounds.
He was working out at the gym last season when he saw Bridges. Hoover reminded him that he was the one who paved the way from the Main Line to Madison Square Garden. The guy who stuffed boxcars with toilet paper made it pretty far.
“I told Bridges that you should give me some of that money,” Hoover said. “He said, ‘I’ll send you a check. It’s in the mail.’ I’m still waiting for that.”