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articles : A Painful Season for Mack Calvin
 A Painful Season for Mack Calvin
Aside from the fact that he did not have to do much flying the first half of the season (he hates airplanes), this has not been a very happy year for Mack Calvin. But little Mack is a tough guy to keep down, whether it's on the court or off it.
After an extremely painful trade before the season that sent him from winning Denver to losing Virginia and then a painful injury that kept him out of action until January, Mack is starting to put it all together again and make the best of a difficult and uncertain situation.
He now has played some 24 games this season and raised his average to almost 19 points a game with about five assists per contest as he begins to give the Squires what they had expected when they traded for him. He is fast becoming the All Star Mack Calvin of the last five years.
"We're trying to make the rest of the season enjoyable and make positive progress for the future, whatever the future he says as the improved Squires try to salvage some satisfaction from an otherwise dismal year.
But Calvin can't help but think what had been and what might have been.
"A lot has happened this season," says the 6-0 guard, "and not much of it good. I was very upset to leave Denver. I realize it was a business decision to make the trade, but I still think about the way it was.
"I was in Denver to watch the All Star game and I had, to leave after the first quarter. It was too emotional for me. I kept thinking I should be out there in a Denver uniform or an All Star uniform."
Calvin was not out there in a Denver uniform because of the trade nor was he in an All Star uniform because of the injury to his knee and subsequent surgery.
Following his finest season in six years as a pro as he averaged 19.5 points and 7.7 assists for a Denver team that went 65-19, he was traded with Mike Green and Jan van Breda Kolff to Virginia for George Irvine and the rights to David Thompson.
Thompson, of course, became the superstar everyone expected him to be and the Nuggets have again led the ABA all season with the best record in pro basketball.
Calvin, meanwhile, suffered a knee injury in pre-season play, the first injury he has suffered in the pros, and sat out the first 3 1/2 months of the season while Virginia sank deeper and deeper into last place.
"Those months away from basketball gave me a different perspective about my life," says the graduate of Southern California who all the expects had first said was too small to play in the pros. "Basketball, which had been my whole life, might be over.
"When I was finally able to practice, I couldn't do anything. Afterward, I went up in the stands and cried because I didn't know if I could make it back.
"I still didn't know until my first game when I hit my first five shots and found I could move just as well as before. Now I'm all right and I thank God for bringing me back."
Now, basketball is becoming fun again for Mack, who has had his ups and downs despite a career that includes 10,000 points and three times being selected for All ABA honors.
After signing out of college with the Los Angeles Stars, who went to the ABA final before losing to Indiana, Calvin moved with the Stars to Utah. Then, despite being named to the All Rookie team, he was traded to Florida, where he really blossomed with two seasons of scoring 27 and 21 points, a game.
But when the Floridians folded, he was picked by Carolina in the dispersal draft and enjoyed two years there under Coach Larry Brown, with whom he wound up again in Denver last season. But then came the Virginia trade.
When he finally got into the lineup with the Squires, "we had no enthusiasm, no discipline," he says. "Basketball wasn't fun any more."
However, Zelmo Beaty took over as coach, the Squires worked out their money problems for at least the remainder of the season, and now things are beginning to look brighter.
"We're coming around now," Calvin says. "We're going to give some teams plenty of trouble before the season is over."
(This article appeared originally in a Spirits of St. Louis Official Program, February 29, 1976.)
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