(5 of 8)
Price of Success. Off the court, basketball's new star has not yet learned to cope with the intrusions on his privacy that inevitably come with sudden success. He is diffident except with longtime friends, quietly shrugs off praise of his achievements. Explains his mother: "Deep within, Oscar likes the publicity, but he doesn't want to lose his head and hurt himself." But Robertson is also capable of public flashes of wry humor. When a confused fan once asked what team he played for, Robertson deadpanned: "The Chicago Black Hawks, of course."
Last summer Robertson married petite Yvonne Crittenden, a girl he had met in college and had been too shy to talk to on their first date. Yvonne teaches first grade in Cincinnati, which is almost more than her hero-worshiping pupils can bear. One child proudly uses Yvonne's full married name at every opportunity: "Mrs. Oscar Robertson, may I sharpen my pencil?" "Mrs. Oscar Robertson, may I go to the rest room?" When the Royals are in town, Robertson hunches over the kitchen table and meticulously helps Yvonne keep her school records, takes her dancing (he is accomplished in such steps as the "horse" and the "slop"), spins his records of Fats Domino, and resolutely stays in bed when she goes off to work. "Maybe he thinks he's not going to get enough sleep," says Yvonne. "Maybe all pro basketball players are tired all the time."
Shut-Eye. If they are not, they should be. Pro basketball bristles with violence. Falling players leave slippery smears of sweat on the floor that have to be mopped up with towels. Trainers use freezing sprays of ethyl chloride to relieve the pain of a sprain—and keep the man in the game. An estimated 85% of the pros play with nagging injuries—charley horses, jammed thumbs, pulled muscles—and St. Louis' Pettit and Syracuse's Dolph Schayes have kept going with broken wrists. Robertson himself is just getting over a torn muscle above his right hip, which benched him for five games. After a game, win or lose, the exhausted players slump silently on stools in front of their lockers. Pro basketball is now so much tougher than big-league baseball that Cousy scoffs at any comparison: "One of those guys runs out a triple, and he looks like he needs a stomach pump."
Almost as debilitating as the contact injuries are the rigors of travel. Any N.B.A. team is apt to find itself playing seven games in as many cities within ten days. As the westernmost team, Los Angeles this season will travel 100,000 miles to play a 79-game schedule. Conspicuous as a herd of giraffes, the N.B.A.'s big men have learned to cope with an alien world of threatening doorframes and ridiculously small chairs. At night they drape their feet over suitcase racks placed at the ends of their Hollywood-style hotel beds. After a game, supper may be a piece of pumpkin pie served on a cardboard plate on the way to the airport. The players gulp it down, then plunge into sleep, mouths slack, heads banging against frosty windows. Says Robertson: "Whenever you get a chance to sleep, you just got to close your eyes and do it."