Sir Charles still larger than life

The pizza man came bearing a midnight snack: two large pies with everything. The Auburn University basketball team was staying on the same floor, so I asked: "That for the Auburn kids?"

"Nah," he said. "Just him."

And that was my introduction to Charles Wade Barkley, who inhaled pizzas and rebounds with an unbridled hunger and relish.

For three consecutive seasons he led the Southeastern Conference in retrieving other people's misses, the shortest player ever to do that, and along the way was christened with one of sports' most clever and appropriate nicknames (all together now): the Round Mound of Rebound.

Thirty years later, and this image still endures: He brushes two rebounders aside with a well-placed knee and elbow, goes up to angrily snatch the miss, turns and, head up, steams down court, and you swear you hear: "Amtrak Number 745, the City of New Orleans, leaving on Track 2. All aboard!"

By now his reputation has preceded him, and the would-be defenders are falling all over themselves scrambling to get out of his way. No one wants to take a charge. At the other end, he throws down a thunderclap.

One night in the Spectrum he detonates a dunk so savagely that he moves everything. Rim . . . backboard . . . support beam . . . stanchion . . . everything.

Asked to estimate total tonnage from the wreckage, a Spectrum worker suggests: "I put it at about two tons."

Overweight and undersized - that was the scouting report. He entered the 1984 NBA draft after his junior year at Auburn as a 300-pound question mark. Would he eat himself into the ranks of what-a-shame, what-a-waste?

The 76ers swallowed hard and took him with the fifth selection. From a distance now that looks like a no-brainer. But that summer he packed on the weight and Bobby Knight, coach of the U.S. Olympic team, cut him. What a combustible tandem they made.

Knight later admitted he really didn't want to send Charles packing, and Charles, later in life, credited Knight with making him see the light. It was an epiphany that would jump-start a star-spangled career.

Consider: He is in the Hall of Fame. He was voted one of the 50 greatest players of all time. He was an all-star 11 times. He is one of only five players (and the shortest) with 23,000 points, 12,000 rebounds, and 4,000 assists.

All that's missing is a little something for the ring finger. And there were some big names who tried to help him win one. Moses Malone and Julius Erving and the other Sixers were on the downside. He didn't have enough around him and finally was traded. Once. Twice. Phoenix. Houston. Close. But no cigar.

The gospel according to Sir Charles:

"I'm mad because I had to play against Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Michael Jordan and guys like that instead of those stiffs that are playing today. We would beat those guys like drums."

"You know the Lakers don't want any of that physical play. They're like my stomach - a little soft."

"My grandmother was the best coach I ever had. If I was playing bad she'd tell me: 'Boy, you're embarrassing the whole family.' "

(Side note: You should know that Sir Charles offered this defense of something he wrote in his autobiography: "I was misquoted." That's right - in his autobiography. Misquoted. Straight-faced.

On a typical night, he would give away five, maybe six, maybe seven inches. And still outrebound them. Here's why: "Anybody can score. But rebounding is work. Hard, dirty work. Moses taught me that. . . . He got me off my big fat ass."

That big fat posterior was part of his arsenal, too. Someone would come flying out of the crowd and end up skidding three rows deep and you marked it down - another kill for Sir Charles.

As his career was winding down he was, he admitted often, petrified about his future. What would become of him when he left the only life he had ever known? There are, after all, only so many rounds of golf, only so many hands of blackjack, that will consume the hours. The hardest thing an athlete faces is letting go.

It turns out that a stunningly kissed-by-an-angel future was waiting with open arms.

In front of the camera.

He was a natural.

For starters, he was falling-down funny.

He was quick of wit, quick to turn the needle on himself, unafraid to go where others held back, say what others won't. He ventured out on the ledge, and, of course, if you test gravity long enough, there are sure to be consequences. But Sir Charles, head down, steams straight ahead, shooting from the hip and the heart. He fires for effect, sometimes hitting and sometimes falling miles short.

He blithely offers up opinions about issues far beyond basketball, especially racism, religion, and politics. Sometimes he makes stunningly good sense, and sometimes he will claim to be misquoted in his own autobiography. And sometimes he travels far afield and stumbles on a nugget - one of the most hilarious being the Golf Channel's dogged but doomed efforts to make over his swing, which consisted of a ghastly spasm and a pause at the top. Sir Charles proved anew that he is a good sport.

Along the way he became a pop-culture icon, winner of three Emmys, author of four books, and first and foremost the analyst and entertainer for TNT's coverage of the NBA. He stands out in sharp relief from the class clowns in other sports, and now with the NBA playoffs in full swing he fills up your TV screen virtually every night.

On Dec. 8, 1999, playing in the Spectrum for the visiting Houston Rockets, with 4:09 left in the first quarter, Charles Barkley went up to block a shot and came down with a ruptured tendon of the left kneecap and also the end of his career.

It was an injury that would require surgery and at least six months of rehab, and that's for a young player. Sir Charles was almost 37, with 16 hard years behind him.

"I knew it as soon as it popped," he said. "I knew it was over."

The irony was not lost on him: "It was supposed to end in Philadelphia . . . end where it all started."

In the locker room he broke down and cried. But he is not one to linger over self-pity.

"Well," he said, "it's been fun."

Little did he know the fun was only beginning.

Bill Lyon is a retired Inquirer sports columnist.

lyon1964@comcast.net