Super John was one of the nicest men. Always nice to see him remembered as passed away at the young age of 45.
When I think of him, I can’t help but remember one of the craziest nights of my career in sports.
When I was working with the Long Island Surf of the old USBL (think NBA Summer League meets G-League) in the mid-1990s, we honored Super John and his family one summer night. It was special for everyone as Julius Erving and so many of his old Nets teammates came out to celebrate him as his kidneys were failing.
We had a packed house at St Dominic HS in Oyster Bay, a sellout crowd with the proceeds going to Super John and his family in his fight for medical care.
Our opponent that night, the Connecticut Skyhawks, didn’t show up! If I recall, it was dispute over payments and as we neared game time, we didn’t have an opponent for the Surf to play!
We didn’t want to refund the tickets and all of the money raised for Super John.
So what happened? We put together a makeshift team of players from locals on Long Island, I can recall Big Jim Rowinski was one of them for sure. We “traded” a few of our bench guys, notably Villanova’s Ron Wilson.
There were a few other guys in the stands who were definitely in college, who we asked to play in this pro game- but we told them we use fictitious names for them, I think Johnny Red and Mike Green were two of them. That’s how they were listed in the box score.
The pseudo “Skyhawks” wore the St. Dominic HS uniforms! Needless to say some were really tight fitting for pros!
Finally, we asked Super John’s son Maurice Williamson, who was at the game to honor his day to play in the game for the pseudo “Skyhawks.”Maurice had played at LSU and recently finished playing, but he was dressed in formal clothes, and didn’t have any sneakers.
He needed sneakers to play in the game - and he was a size 10.
Who was wearing size 10 sneakers?
Me, so I gave my sneakers to Maurice to wear in the game to run the point and I ran the media operation barefoot!
After a short warm-up, we started the game and guess what the rag-tag pseudo “Skyhawks” beat the Surf with the “traded” Ron Wilson scoring 35 points and grabbing 15 rebounds! He played like a man possessed after riding the end of the bench all season.
It is a night I’ll never forget, and to know we did it all for Super John!
When I think of him, I can’t help but remember one of the craziest nights of my career in sports.
When I was working with the Long Island Surf of the old USBL (think NBA Summer League meets G-League) in the mid-1990s, we honored Super John and his family one summer night. It was special for everyone as Julius Erving and so many of his old Nets teammates came out to celebrate him as his kidneys were failing.
We had a packed house at St Dominic HS in Oyster Bay, a sellout crowd with the proceeds going to Super John and his family in his fight for medical care.
Our opponent that night, the Connecticut Skyhawks, didn’t show up! If I recall, it was dispute over payments and as we neared game time, we didn’t have an opponent for the Surf to play!
We didn’t want to refund the tickets and all of the money raised for Super John.
So what happened? We put together a makeshift team of players from locals on Long Island, I can recall Big Jim Rowinski was one of them for sure. We “traded” a few of our bench guys, notably Villanova’s Ron Wilson.
There were a few other guys in the stands who were definitely in college, who we asked to play in this pro game- but we told them we use fictitious names for them, I think Johnny Red and Mike Green were two of them. That’s how they were listed in the box score.
The pseudo “Skyhawks” wore the St. Dominic HS uniforms! Needless to say some were really tight fitting for pros!
Finally, we asked Super John’s son Maurice Williamson, who was at the game to honor his day to play in the game for the pseudo “Skyhawks.”Maurice had played at LSU and recently finished playing, but he was dressed in formal clothes, and didn’t have any sneakers.
He needed sneakers to play in the game - and he was a size 10.
Who was wearing size 10 sneakers?
Me, so I gave my sneakers to Maurice to wear in the game to run the point and I ran the media operation barefoot!
After a short warm-up, we started the game and guess what the rag-tag pseudo “Skyhawks” beat the Surf with the “traded” Ron Wilson scoring 35 points and grabbing 15 rebounds! He played like a man possessed after riding the end of the bench all season.
It is a night I’ll never forget, and to know we did it all for Super John!
Happy birthday to the late, great "Super" John Williamson!
· 2x ABA champion (1974, 1976)
· ABA All-Rookie 1st Team (1974)
· No. 23 retired by NetsView quoted post on X
