Fred Brown: Tale of a Tear, 1978

[In online mentions of favorite old, threadbare basketball book, Blaine Johnson’s What’s Happenin’? often makes the cut. Johnson, who covered the SuperSonics in the late-1970s for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, shares his “revealing journey through the world of professional basketball.” Published in 1978, Johnson’s book today is a treasure trove for anyone trying to make sense of the enigmatic Bill Russell as an NBA coach. He was one complex human being. But Johnson didn’t only write a book. In November 1978, Johnson published a now-obscure profile of Seattle’s enigmatic Fred Brown in an equally obscure publication out of Beaverton, Oregon called Inside Basketball. During a recent trip to the West Coast, I stumbled upon the article and snapped it with my phone. In my haste, however, I missed the mention of a jump and the text that followed on another page. Too late to track down the final maybe 100-200 words and snap them. I’ll just post what I have and call it a condensed…