Q&A with Earl Cureton

On what was his first trip to the Wachovia Spectrum and what it was like?
That’s going back a long time but let’s see….My first memory of the Spectrum is when I signed with the Sixers and it was the day that Magic Johnson had that big game and they (the Sixers) had lost to the Lakers in the playoffs. That was my first time being inside the Spectrum. They flew me into town and I signed my contract that day. I went into the locker room, met the team and all of that and that was the game that Magic went crazy that night. It was an NBA Finals game which was my first trip in there.

On going to the game that night
I went to the game that night and they took me back and I remember thinking to myself I just signed with one of the greatest teams in the NBA and I’m coming right out of college. I go out and I see Darryl Dawkins and Caldwell Jones, Bobby Jones, and Doc and all of them in the locker room and I’m just shaking my head. Then I saw the game and it was a great game that night, I ended up staying in the hotel actually with the Lakers, the night after they had won the Championship.

On his fondest memory of the Spectrum
There are so many its tough. I guess just when Zink (Public Address Announcer Dave Zinkoff) was there and I also remember Grover Washington Jr. singing the national anthem in the Championship series games. Zink called out to the players every night, all that stuff you always remember. Zink did a great job as an announcer; they got his name hanging from the rafters now because of it. He is probably one of the greatest public address announcers ever in the NBA. Just thinking back on that, when he would just call out everyone’s names to go out on the floor, and they way he did the games, it was special. And of course Grover Washington always in those championship series’, the way he used to play the national anthem. It gave you chills.

On the advantages playing there being the home team
Well when we were winning we would always have a packed house. Philadelphia always had tough fans there; I just know it was a lot of disappointments as far as winning the championship in Philadelphia when I first got there. It started the year that I signed when they ended up losing to Magic (in the finals) and the next year when I came in we went up 3-1 against Boston (in the conference finals), but we ended up losing. The next year we ended up going to the finals and losing again to the Lakers, so the fans started getting a little bit uneasy with what was going on not thinking that we were able to do it. I remember the year that we played Milwaukee (in the conference finals), and we had a seventh game we only had a bout five or six thousand people show up for the game because maybe they didn’t think we would get over the hump that year. And actually we did and we went back to the championship. Advantages of playing at home were the support of the fans. When we were playing well it was crazy.

On the fact he was one of the youngest guys on the team when he was there and if he learned some lessons on how to operate among veterans in that building
Oh yeah, the locker room was pretty small and everybody was pretty much locked in right next to each other. I just remember I used to have a locker right next to Caldwell Jones and he laid the rules down to me. After the games back then we used to have beer in the locker room after games, and Caldwell would have about three or four beers after the game. He would tell me that ‘Hey rook, you see this pail over here, don’t touch that. Those are mine; if you want anything to drink you go over there and get your own. Make sure you don’t ever put your hands in there.’ (Laughs) So I got used to having a locker next to Caldwell. You kind of got close to the people you would sit next to all of the time and I learned a whole lot of stuff from Caldwell Jones.

On if any opposing player ever made comments about playing in the Spectrum
People’s biggest fear was that we just had such a good team and with Doc being there, Doc was always a fear of anybody coming to town. They knew they had their hands full every night when they came in to play against us in the Spectrum. More than anything for them to be afraid of was how good we were. After Grover’s national anthem was done, dealing with Doc all night long was quite a fear.

On his feelings as coming back to the Spectrum when was an opposing player with Detroit
I was a little uneasy with that, especially after winning a championship and then you get traded away and then have to come back into the place. I was a little disappointed because really I wanted to stay in Philadelphia and I became a free agent after that year. It didn’t work out with Harold (former owner Harold Katz), and he started splitting things apart that summer and I was probably one of the first guys to get out of there after that. I ended up signing and coming to Detroit. It was a weird situation of course, Andrew (Toney) and all of my friends were still there, and I had a hard time getting my self going to play against them. It took me a while to really start playing well against them. It was really different, it wasn’t the fact I was leaving somewhere I wanted to leave, it was a situation where I just couldn’t work a deal out there and I had to go. I wanted to stay in Philadelphia, of course when you are on a team that won a championship you don’t want to go.

On one thing about the Spectrum that players would know but fans wouldn’t
I just remember that the people that used to work there were so great; I was friends with like all of the security, and all of the people that worked there. Everybody knew you around the arena that worked there; we kind of had a relationship with all of them. A lot of those guys were still there working when I came back last time. We also had some loyal fans, which you saw season after season when you walked in there and you could pretty much see the same people that were there every year. We had a real good relationship with the fan base that we had in the Spectrum. Ovations (restaurant in the Spectrum) was also a place we would go after a games and hangout when the games were over with. We would go in there and eat dinner and have a couple drinks and after the games were over with and then we would see the kids in the parking lot and sign autographs for them and things.

On if he ever saw a concert or show at the Spectrum
Yeah I remember coming in to see; in fact I think Doc was at this concert as well, we came into see Lionel Ritchie. I saw Lionel Ritchie perform there one night. Darryl and I went to see Rick James there in the Spectrum one night and that was pretty wild. You can imagine what was going on in there and once Darryl and I set foot in that place and saw what was going down and basically ran outta that room. Those guys (James and company) didn’t mess around.

On his drive to the Spectrum games and where he lived
I lived by the airport; most of us lived in the same area when I was there. Caldwell (Jones) lived out there, Andrew (Toney) lived out there, Franklin (Edwards) lived out there, and a few guys lived out there in Jersey. Clint (Richardson) might have lived downtown area but most of us lived right in the same neighborhood area.

On his thoughts pre-game of playing in big games at the Spectrum
When you are playing the Lakers in the finals, it was huge. I was getting prepared and getting psyched up, and ready to go in there and play against them. Of course every year we were trying to get championship. I can just remember getting myself prepared and after shootaround coming back and taking my nap, and eating that meal and hour or two hours before the game and then get in the car and getting there early to get warmed up and stuff. I wasn’t playing a whole lot back then in my first couple years so Al (Trainer Al Domenico) would be mad at me all the time he would never want to tape me. He would get mad because I was getting my ankles taped and I probably wasn’t going to play and that I was wasting all of the tape. I always got myself prepared to play the whole time because you never know what’s going to happen, back then I was always prepared to play because you never know what is going to happen.