Collision Course

by William Cook

  The move of the Royals from Cincinnati Gardens, located fifteen miles from the core area of the city sandwiched in between a heavily industrialized area, a dowdy drive-in-movie theatre, and a poor black ghetto neighborhood, served by almost no public transportation, would have been replaced by a brand-new arena in new booming downtown Cincinnati.

  If Bob Cousy could have hung in there just a couple more years and Joe Axelson would have had one iota of vision, they would have had a brand-new home for the Royals and a generation of thousands of new young and very enthusiastic fans that would have supported the Royals along with their corps of 2,500 loyal rooters from Cincinnati Gardens.

  If Joe Axelson would have worked with city officials, they could have solved the Royals’ attendance dilemma—but he didn’t have the communication skills and never tried. The Cincinnati Reds had faced a similar situation in the late 1960s and both the City, led by Mayor Eugene Ruehlmann and various private entities such as the Cincinnati Enquirer, and private individuals went into action to protect everyone’s interest.

  At that time, there was a unique aspect of Cincinnati’s economic demographics in that the city had a relatively small number of powerful and wealthy families. These families all knew each other and sometimes worked harmoniously together. Had Joe Axelson attempted to interface with some of these privileged Cincinnatians he would have been welcomed and found them to be strong advocates for finding a viable solution to his organization’s needs.

  But never did Bob Cousy, Joe Axelson, or Ambrose Lindhorst ever ask for any civic or private assistance and the phone never rang in city hall nor in the Hyde Park Country Club.

  Bob Cousy was ambivalent towards Cincinnati and Joe Axelson was only interested in attempting to impress Max Jacobs and become a big shot. It’s doubtful if Axelson had ever heard of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.

  It made no difference to Ambrose Lindhorst if he was serving the Jacobs’ interest in Cincinnati, Kansas City, or Timbuktu. Lindhorst was simply a loyal legal servant, or pawn, depending on your point of view, of the Jacobs brothers. He saw the world in terms of contracts, with one glaring omission: Oscar Robertson’s.

  Max and Jeremy Jacobs didn’t deal with municipalities; they felt more comfortable dealing with intermediaries of a different stripe. Like their late father, Louie, they didn’t see much need to leave Buffalo for any reason; they also held his belief that same sun that shined in Cincinnati shined in Buffalo and Kansas City, too. So, the Jacobs brothers trusted Joe Axelson to be their noble centurion in the Midwest region of their vast sports concessions business empire.

  But it turned out that the modus operandi of Joe Axelson that “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” didn’t necessarily prove to be a truism. Consequently, the transfer of the Royals to Kansas City would eventually fail, too, and the westward trek of the franchise to find the promised land would continue on to Sacramento.

  The Royals played their last home game at Cincinnati Gardens on Friday evening March 24, 1972, with 4,052 fans on hand to say farewell. While it seemed a little out of place, at halftime, Connie Dierking was inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame. The Royals defeated the Baltimore Bullets handily, 132–114, with Nate Archibald scoring 38 points. For good measure, Sam Lacey had 24 points and John Mengelt tossed in 22.

  While one banner hanging in the stands proclaimed “Welcome ABA.” It had been a quiet and dignified end to Royals’ era in Cincinnati.

  Bob Cousy was silent and seemed to be relieved that it was all over. He had been homesick for his family and friends back east and found living and competing in Cincinnati depressing. He disliked Cincinnati Gardens and playing games before the small crowds.

  As the press spoke with various players, Tom Van Arsdale said that he was putting his house in Cincinnati up for sale and going to buy one in Phoenix where his brother Dick played for the Suns.

  When Baltimore forward Gus Johnson was asked what he would remember about Cincinnati Gardens he replied—“Lucas.” Both Gus Johnson and Jerry Lucas had been rookies in 1963 and went head-to-head in some memorable battles under the basket. That year, Johnson finished second to Lucas in the NBA Rookie of the Year balloting.

  The Royals still had two more road games to play before bringing the curtain down on the 1971–72 season. They went to Milwaukee where, on Saturday evening, they were defeated by the Bucks 119–95.

  The final game of the season took place the next day on Sunday, March 26 in Cleveland before 10,289 spectators as the Royals defeated the Cavaliers 135–122 with Nate Archibald scoring 45 points and John Mengelt, 28.

  The Royals finished their swan song season in the Queen City with a record of 30–52, missing the playoffs for the fifth-straight year while having a sparse season attendance average of 3,368 fans per game. Realizing that the curtain had come down on their Royals, perhaps 2,500 people in Cincinnati were angered or hurt, but it was all over and the transfer of the franchise to Kansas City could begin in earnest.

  When Walter O’Malley took the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958, the LA city fathers nearly paid the Dodgers to play in their community.

  While the Royals, soon to become the Kings, were provided with incentives to relocate to Kansas City/Omaha they didn’t realize any multi-million-dollar sweetheart deal for relocating. Still, there were modest incentives.

  Kansas City Mayor Charles Weaver agreed to charge the Kings $500 per playing date in Municipal Auditorium and provide the team with free office space at a cost of $25,000 to $30,000 a year. Also, the city agreed to build a new arena in the next few years. Lastly, Kansas City agreed to underwrite the Kings’ attendance.

  It was agreed that the Kansas City-Omaha Kings would not play any home games in St. Louis which disarmed the players who opposed it. Instead, in 1972–73, the Kings’ schedule would include 26 home games to be played in the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City and 15 games in Omaha Civic Auditorium.

  The KC facility had been built in 1935 and had a seating capacity of 7,300. So, Bob Cousy, who had been depressed by playing in old Cincinnati Gardens, built in 1949 with a seating capacity of 14,000, was now going to play the majority of his home games in a building that was fourteen years older than the Gardens and had half the seating capacity.

  The Kings’ secondary home, the Omaha Civic Auditorium, was constructed in 1954 and had a seating capacity of 10,960.

  At the end of the 1971–72 season, Bob Cousy had come to the end of his three-year contract that he had signed with Max Jacobs to coach the Royals. Jacobs asked Cousy to stay on during the team’s transition to Kansas City because he felt it would be bad public relations if a name coach departed in the process. Once again, Jacobs threw a six-figure contract at Cousy and he agreed to stay. Cousy’s public explanation for his continuing on was that he wanted to finish the building of the team he had started.

  The Kings were switched to the Midwest Division with Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit. In the end, neither having Cousy stay on as coach nor the switch to a new division did anything to improve the play of the Kings. In 1972–73, the Kansas City-Omaha Kings finished fourth in the Midwest Division with a record of 36–46. The Royals-Kings team had now missed the playoffs for the sixth straight year.

  If there was one glaring consolation for the Kings in their first year in Kansas City/Omaha, it was that 6′0″ Nate “Tiny” Archibald had suddenly become one of the NBA’s biggest stars. In 1972–73, Archibald led the NBA in scoring with an average of 34.0 points per game and assists with 11.4 per game. His 34.0 points per game was the highest ever in the history of the franchise, beating Oscar Robertson’s 31 points per game in 1963–64, and he nearly beat Robertson’s assists per game record of 11.5 per game set in 1964–65.

  Archibald gave the credit for his quick rise to stardom to Bob Cousy. “He’s helped me as a basketball player,” said Archibald. “He’s taught me how to utilize my talents most effectively, how to take charge and run a team. He’s made me a much better playe
r.”17

  According to Cousy, Archibald absorbed coaching well and despite his size, he was getting his points and knew what to do with the ball. “The kid is the first to practice and the last to leave,” said Cousy. “He’s worked hard to adapt himself to the needs of the team.”18

  While it was mutual admiration between Archibald and Cousy, to some observers, having a high scoring guard with the ability to find the open man seemed like Cousy was going back to square one. Hadn’t he swapped out another high scoring, high assists man in Oscar Robertson in order to implement a running team with a balanced scoring attack? Perhaps after four years of coaching in the NBA, Bob Cousy had just given up and decided to let events on the court take their own direction.

  On November 21, 1973, the Kings lost to Philadelphia 103–90 in a game played at Omaha. It was the Kings’ fourteenth loss in twenty games in the 1973–74 season. Following the game, Bob Cousy resigned as coach.

  Max Jacobs accepted Cousy’s resignation and assistant coach Draff Young was appointed interim coach, and then lost the next four games in a row. Phil Johnson was named as the Kings’ new coach and guided the team through the balance of the schedule winning 27 games and losing 31. The Kings finished the season in fourth place in the Midwest Division with a record of 33–49, missing the playoffs for the seventh straight year.

  In 1974–75, the Kansas City-Omaha Kings began play in the newly constructed 18,344-seat Kemper Arena and would finally make it to the NBA playoffs again but lose in the first round in the West Conference Semi-Finals.

  In the 1975–76 season, although the Kings still played a few games in Omaha, they would drop the name of that city and become the Kansas City Kings.

  Hard times in the standings and low attendance would continue for the KC Kings throughout the rest of the late 1970s. On June 4, 1979, a storm with 70 mph winds swept through downtown Kansas City, ripping the roof off Kemper Arena, and the Kings would be relocated to Municipal Auditorium.

  In 1983–84, the Kings would be sold to a group of investors from Sacramento, California for $19.5 million, and the following season, on April 14, 1985, the NBA Board of Governors would officially approve the transfer of the franchise to Sacramento where they remain today.

  In Kansas City, the Kings had no more success in the standings and box office as they had in Cincinnati. In January 1985, Joe Axelson announced that the Kings were moving from Kansas City to Sacramento. At the news conference announcing the move, Axelson stated that the only hope for Kansas City getting another NBA team would be through expansion. Kings fans called Axelson “Fat Joe,” and at the team’s final home game at the Kemper Center in Kansas City, they wore masks of his face. On May 31, 2008, Joe Axelson died at the age of 80 in Coronado, California.

  Following the death of their father, Louis, in 1968, Max and Jeremy Jacobs worked diligently to remove the taint of underworld connections to the Emprise Corporation’s brand and to expand the concessions enterprise giant into new markets.

  After divesting the company in the Kansas City Kings, the decade of the 1970s would be a turbulent time for Emprise. The company was constantly confronted with scandals and suggestions of corruption. In 1972, a House Select Committee on Organized Crime held hearings that led to questions about Emprise Corporation’s connections with organized crime figures.

  It was about the same time that Emprise was convicted of racketeering in concealing its ownership along with known organized crime figures Anthony J. Zerilli and Michael S. Polizzi in the Frontier Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas. In 1970, a Federal Grand Jury in Los Angeles had found that Emprise had made substantial loans to front men for the allegedly mob-related owners. While the mobsters received five-year prison sentences, Emprise was fined $10,000 and the late Louie Jacobs and his son, Max, were named as unindicted co-conspirators.

  Also, in 1972, the U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into possible antitrust violations by Emprise. Papers filed in Buffalo alleged that Emprise, with its enormous lending power, had an unfair advantage over other companies in the sports concessions business.

  Emprise was facing similar antitrust suits in Atlanta stemming from investigations of the company’s racetrack operations in the southeastern part of the United States.

  At that time, the Jacobs still owned the Cincinnati Royals and the U.S. Senate was holding hearings on a bill that would permit the NBA to merge with the ABA. In order for the merger to be approved, the NBA had to get a specific exemption from antitrust laws.

  Sam Steiger, a Republican Congressman from Arizona, offered testimony to the committee stating that several NBA teams were reluctant to submit their tax returns in order to prove the financial necessity of the merger. Steiger cited the Cincinnati Royals as a prime example.

  Steiger stated to the committee that the concession business was the most consistent profit maker in sports. He pointed out to the committee that Emprise, as the concessionaire to the Washington Senators, had made $1.7 million in the last three years while Bob Short the Senators owner had lost so much money that he had to move to the team to Texas.

  Then, in summation, Steiger took it a step further in trying to connect the dots between organized crime and Emprise. “Their history is replete with business associations with underworld and organized crime,” said Steiger. “Basketball very properly demands the most exemplary behavior of its players, and yet there is no apparent harm in the sole owner of a basketball club having criminal associations with criminals.”19

  While no action was taken by the committee against the Jacobs brothers or Emprise, the stigma of the hearings remained.

  Through it all, Jeremy and Max Jacobs continued to expand their business and Emprise thrived. In 1975, the brothers individually bought the Boston Bruins of the NHL. They also bought Boston Garden, where the Bruins played their home games, from the Storer Broadcasting Company.

  Nonetheless, by the end of 1976, the company’s fitness to administer its contracts had faced challenges in eight of twenty-eight states in which it held liquor licenses, as well as six of the nine states in which it had pari-mutuel operations.

  While several states restored Emprise’s operating licenses on appeals, a plea for a presidential pardon was denied in 1977. This action led a number of states to deny Emprise licenses due to having laws prohibiting convicted felons (the Las Vegas case) from holding liquor licenses.

  In 1977, Jeremy and Max Jacobs decided that their enterprise needed a facelift, so they dissolved Emprise and began a new parent holding company, Sportsystems Corporation, to oversee the company with annual revenues of $225 million. By now, the company had become diversified and was not only in the concessions and racetrack business but also had subsidiaries in steel, smelting, and appliance distribution.

  In 1980, the name of the parent company was changed again, this time from Sportsystems to Delaware North Companies, Inc. (DNC). By the end of the 1980s, the company seemed to have recovered from the rocky period of controversy in the 1970s and was now positioning itself to enter new markets such as conventions centers, international airports, and even National Parks.

  Today, Delaware North Corporation is run by a third generation of the Jacobs family, Jeremy Jacobs’ sons, Jerry Jr. and Lou, who serve as co-CEOs. It is a vast conglomerate with annual revenues exceeding $3 billion from a portfolio that includes management of hotels, resorts, and gaming facilities, the Kennedy Space Center, and Wembley Stadium in London. DNC ranks number 169 on Forbes’ list of largest privately held companies in the U.S.

  Circumstances for the Kings didn’t improve much in the Golden State. In the forty-five years since the team was relocated from Cincinnati to Kansas City and finally to Sacramento, the Kings have only made the playoffs fifteen times and reached the conference finals twice before losing. The Sacramento Kings last made the NBA playoffs in 2006.

  Entering the 2018–2019 season, the Sacramento Kings franchise has not won an NBA championship since 1950–51. It is the longest team championship drought in NBA
history and one of the longest non-title stretches in American professional sports.

  The Sacramento Kings have retired ten jersey numbers dating back to the franchise’s origins in Rochester, five of them were worn by former Cincinnati Royals players: (1) Nate Archibald, (12) Maurice Stokes, (14) Oscar Robertson, (27) Jack Twyman, and (44) Sam Lacey.

  In the history of the NBA, only Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Bob Pettit—all taller than Jerry Lucas—averaged more rebounds. The fact that Sacramento Kings have neglected to retire Lucas’ number (16) is a glaring oversight.

  Jerry Lucas was the first player to win a championship at four levels: high school, college, NBA, and Gold in the Olympics. Lucas left the NBA after a 12-year career in 1974. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980. In 1996, Lucas was selected as one of the NBA’s fifty greatest players. Now 78 years old, Lucas lives in California.

  After retiring from professional basketball in 1975 as the NBA’s All-Time assists leader, Oscar Robertson returned to live in Cincinnati. In 1980, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and in 1996, was selected as one of the NBA’s fifty greatest players.

  In 2003, Oscar Robertson’s biography, The Big O—My Life, My Times, My Game, was published. In the book, Robertson states that his motivation for fighting to get rid of the NBA’s reserve clause began in 1970 when he was president of the National Basketball Players Association and Joe Axelson attempted to trade him from the Cincinnati Royals without ever reading his contract.

  In 1971, Bob Cousy was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1996 was selected as one of the NBA’s fifty greatest players.