30 FOR 30: FREE SPIRITS (TV)
Summary
One in this series of sports documentaries presented by ESPN about important people and events from 1979 to 2009.
This film profiles the Spirits of St. Louis, a team existing from 1974 to 1976 in the short-lived minor-league American Basketball Association. In the 1970’s the ABA starts to garner attention for its differing playstyle than the NBA, including playing over the rim, the three-point line, and variant basketballs. It prides itself on being more of an “entertainment” venue than the pure sport of the NBA. Ozzie and Daniel Silna, a pair of textile businessmen, capitalize on the excitement of the ABA by purchasing the Carolina Cougars franchise in 1974 and moving it to St. Louis, renaming the team the “Spirits of St. Louis.” They anticipate a merger between the ABA and NBA and believe that they will have some important role in it. They put together a management team which begins to assemble a roster of impressive players, including Marvin Barnes, a widely-celebrated college basketball player selected by the NBA draft. However, he also carries with him a reputation for unruly behavior on and off the court, earning him the nickname “Bad News.” The ABA also recruits underclassmen as part of its draft practices, which proves to be controversial for some, this includes powerful and aggressive players like Gus Gerard, Maurice Lucas, and James “Fly” Williams. The team is also notable for giving Bob Costas, then a young college student, one of his first professional announcing jobs.
In the absence of other professional basketball teams, the Spirits of St. Louis becomes the only local outlet for basketball. The team members demonstrate great talent but find it difficult to get along with each other and with their coach, Bob McKinnon. A dichotomy forms between the older, more experienced players and the rookies anxious to prove themselves. Barnes soon comes to dominate the team and asks for a higher salary. When his request is not met, he disappears and a lawyer advises him to leave the team if they do not accede to his demands. He reemerges and argues for alterations to his contract, such as the addition of an injury clause. Eventually he is persuaded by his mother to return to St. Louis, but from that point on he is viewed as unpredictable and unreliable. He recounts an incident in which he missed the team’s flight from New York City to Norfolk, Virginia, and had to scramble to charter a flight there. The coaching staff is furious and benches him, but calls him up late in their game during a huge slump, and he turns the game around and scores victory for the Spirits of St. Louis.
Despite the team’s success, ticket sales remain poor and the management launches a series of increasingly unusual promotional efforts to boost attendance. Barnes becomes known as a vocal personality on the team and is covered extensively by the media. As a result of this, Barnes receives preferential treatment by the team management. The team brings in another veteran player, former Detroit Pistons player Don Adams, as a means of bolstering their team. However, his presence does little to abate the fights which commonly break out during games, although it does help the team win more games. They make the 1975 ABA playoffs against the New York Nets, and are a clear underdog against them due to the wide disparity in their records and the fact that the Nets are the defending champions. They blow a large lead and lose their first game, but work together to win the second, third, and fourth games. The playoffs continue in St. Louis, and they make a crucial play in the closing seconds of the game to win the fifth game and advance to the next series against the Kentucky Colonels. Star player Freddie Lewis sustains an injury and is taken out, costing them the series against the Colonels and taking them out of the playoffs.
On May 29th, 1975, Rod Thorn is appointed the new head coach of the Spirits of St. Louis. He immediately clashes with several members of the team, cutting some of them in an attempt to discipline them. He expresses an interest in trading Barnes away in favor of more reliable and compliant players. Thorn ends up trading Lucas and Williams away, and the ABA as a whole begins to crumble due to mismanagement by its executives. As other ABA teams fold, the Spirits of St. Louis picks up stray players and reinvigorates its talent. Despite this, they are unable to win a number of their games due to the team’s inability to work properly together. Barnes starts using drugs during his second year in the ABA, along with several other members of the team. He becomes associated with a number of drug traffickers, and Williams remains around the team despite being cut in order to supply the players with drugs. Barnes attempts to use underhanded tactics to try to fatigue opponent players before the game, but is generally unsuccessful at doing so.
The ABA continues to lose teams one by one, and in 1976 its dissolution seems to be inevitable. Its management seeks to merge with the NBA, and the ABA enters into a lengthy negotiation with NBA executives over the matter. The NBA ends up incepting the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs, and the New York Nets, leaving the Spirits of St. Louis out of the deal. It is suspected at the time that Barnes is to blame for this, but in reality the NBA is not confident about St. Louis’s uncertain financial situation. The ABA tries to negotiate to get Kentucky and St. Louis bought out; the former is bought out without much difficulty, but the latter is not and the Silnas campaign vociferously to become part of the NBA. They manage to work out a deal to receive a portion of the revenues from television broadcasts of the four ABA teams bought out by the NBA in perpetuity. The Silnas realize that an arrangement like this is much more profitable than if they were awarded a lump sum, particularly as they foresaw the rise of cable television and the broadcasting practices of the NBA. However, their true goal is to leverage their deal into one day gaining ownership of a franchise again. With the rise of the NBA on television, the Silnas earn hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue since the deal in 1976, labeled “the best deal in sports history.”
After the merger, Barnes plays for various NBA teams over a period of four years, but is unable to perform well due to his heavy drug addiction. He is eventually rendered homeless and serves a prison sentence on drug charges. Williams struggles with drugs himself before eventually ridding himself of his habits. Gerard makes a failed suicide attempt in 1993, and uses this as an opportunity to turn his life around. The Spirits of St. Louis are remembered for their “failed greatness” and for representing a brief, unique chapter in the history of basketball. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: ESPN
- DATE: October 8, 2013
- RUNNING TIME: 0:53:15
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 114768
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries; Sports
- SUBJECT HEADING: African-American Collection - Sports; TV - Public affairs/documentaries; TV - Sports
- SERIES RUN: ESPN - TV series, 2009-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- John Dahl … Executive Producer
- Connor Schell … Executive Producer
- Bill Simmons … Executive Producer
- Jason Heilig … Coordinating Producer
- Daniel H. Forer … Producer, Director
- Erin Leyden … Producer
- Jeff Werner … Co-Producer
- Mark Noad … Line Producer
- Boris Zelkin … Music by
- Marvin Barnes … Interviewee
- Billy Cunningham … Interviewee
- James "Fly" Williams … Interviewee
- Gus Gerard … Interviewee
- Steve "Snapper" Jones … Interviewee
- Carl Scheer … Interviewee
- Terry Pluto … Interviewee
- Mike Storen … Interviewee
- Bob Costas … Interviewee
- Michael Goldberg … Interviewee
- Mike Carey … Interviewee
- Roger Holstein … Interviewee
- Bob Ryan … Interviewee
- Rudy Martzke … Interviewee
- Freddie Lewis … Interviewee
- Julius Erving … Interviewee
- Mike Barr … Interviewee
- Rod Thorn … Interviewee
- Mike D'Antoni … Interviewee
- Darren Rovell … Interviewee
- Brent Musburger … Interviewee
- Don Adams
- Maurice Lucas
- Bob McKinnon
- Daniel Silna
- Ozzie Silna