Spirits of St. Louis
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The Spirits of St. Louis were one of three teams in the American Basketball Association that did not survive the merger with the NBA. They were a member of the league in its last two seasons, 1974-75 and 1975-76.
The Spirits (who took their name from the Atlantic Ocean-crossing plane flown by Charles Lindbergh) were the third incarnation of a franchise that was once known as the Houston Mavericks and later the Carolina Cougars. Despite their history, they essentially were an expansion team, as there was just one holdover from the Cougars.
The Spirits were a colorful team featuring a number of players, both on and off the court, who were fairly successful in their basketball careers. Among them were Moses Malone, acquired during their second season, who went on to a long and successful career in the NBA, culminating in enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Maurice Lucas spent both of his ABA years as a Spirit, then later became an all-star in the NBA with the Portland Trail Blazers. Other well-known players that played for the team included former Boston Celtics sixth man Don Chaney, future Celtics head coach M.L. Carr, and Ron Boone, who held the record for consecutive games played in pro basketball for many years.
A couple of off-court personalities from the team became well known as well. One of the coaches in 1975 was former NBA player Rod Thorn, who became the NBA's vice president of basketball operations (or, in essence, the No. 2 man behind commissioner David Stern) for a number of years. On radio, the team featured Bob Costas as an announcer. Costas would go on to a highly successful career working for NBC television and radio.
After a slow start in their inaugural season, 1974-75, the Spirits reached the playoffs with a late rush, then upset the defending ABA champion New York Nets in the first round of the playoffs. But the team squandered their good start the following year, finishing well out of playoff contention as attendance in St. Louis dwindled.
In the summer of 1976, with the ABA at the point of financial collapse after nine years, the six surviving franchises (the Virginia Squires went bankrupt immediately after the final season) began negotiating a merger with the NBA. But the senior circuit decided to accept only four teams from the rival league: the Nets (the last ABA champion), Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs.
The NBA placated John Y. Brown, owner of the Kentucky Colonels, by giving him a cash settlement in exchange for shutting his team down. (Brown later used much of that money to buy the Boston Celtics of the NBA.) But the owners of the Spirits, the brothers Ozzie and Dan Silna, struck a prescient deal to acquire future television money from the teams that joined the NBA, a one-seventh share from each team, in perpetuity. With network TV deals becoming more and more lucrative, the deal has made the Silnas wealthy, earning them upwards of $100 million to date.
External Links
- Spirits of St. Louis history from RememberTheABA.com (http://www.remembertheaba.com/Spirits-of-St-Louis.html)