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Atlanta, Georgia – May 15, 2009
As I sat at what was left of his feet on that warm November day last year, I could have sworn I saw the right one slowly, patiently, tap out a tune. If there were ever anyone who could have made a prosthetic move to his rhythm, it was the enchanted Wayman Tisdale. He closed his eyes behind the dark-framed glasses, and, with a slight move to his ever-present smile, played a riff off his latest CD on the upside-down bass guitar. He played left-handed, but in the beginning, didn't know the difference, so he turned his first one to suit him and stunned veteran musicians for years with that trick. The jazz, low and thumping, warmed the small studio in the right wing of his Tulsa ranch house where he spent so much of his time. The lights were low, and yes, the right foot moved to the music. "It's a trick I learned," he laughed after I asked how a man with nothing below his right knee but aluminum and titanium could do such a thing. "It just moves through me, all the way through me." He had picked up the guitar as a child and made millions with it beginning in the final few years of his NBA career. Google him, if you must, find him however you can. You won't ever regret it. If we are supposed to remember a man at the best of his times, I choose to gloss over those seasons at the big man's heights when he ruled college basketball at Oklahoma and then the NBA for so many years, instead remembering him at the best of his battle. It had been the middle of a cold night the year before when he got up to get his wonderful wife, Regina, a glass of water, and never made it down the stairs. Halfway, his right leg snapped nearly in two, the cancer having eaten its way deep into the bones.  Wayman Tisdale died on May 15, 2009, at age 44. He fought it valiantly with round after round of chemo, but even during what he called his lowest times, he still found solace in his music. One CD, in fact, was recorded when the nausea and pain was at its worst, and you can hear it, he said, you can hear it plain as day. And then they took the leg, just sawed it off below the right knee. One of the greatest basketball players in history, a three-time All-American and a member of the historical Dream Team at the '92 Olympics was reduced to one leg. Still, neither the smile nor the music ever ceased. I choose to remember Wayman Tisdale, who passed away so surprisingly at the age of 44, as the magician who made a prosthetic foot tap to his tune. After a while, it just made sense. Author, producer and writer Jim Huber spent 16 award-winning years at CNN. His accolades include an Emmy for his writing during the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta and the Edward R. Murrow award for excellence in writing. |
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