Farewell to the Twirl

Earl Cureton seemed to always be in the right place at the right time--on and off the court.

The big, throaty laugh on the other end of the line was unmistakable.

And the voice attached to it was confirming news that I scarcely could believe.

“You’re back in the NBA?” I asked incredulously.

“I am,” Earl Cureton said. Then another throaty laugh, because he knew I was flabbergasted.

I had just found out that the 39 year-old Cureton had been signed by the Toronto Raptors. It was December 1996. Just a few days earlier, the Raptors signed 40 year-old John Long.

Cureton had been out of the NBA for about a year-and-a-half. His most recent basketball playing had been done in Argentina during the 1995-96 season.

Long’s situation was even more jaw-dropping. For the man of the “rock set” shot hadn’t played in the NBA since 1991.

But there was some method to the madness.

The two University of Detroit-Mercy alumni were brought on board in Toronto by Isiah Thomas, who ran the Raptors at the time. And Long and Cureton were both former teammates of Zeke’s.

As soon as I got the news off the wire, I called Earl.

Our relationship had gone back to my days at Barden Cablevision in Detroit, where from 1994-97 I was the local programming manager. And it was in that capacity that I hired Earl to do color commentary for the Titans games our channel broadcasted.

From that gig, Earl spun it into doing radio work for the Raptors. Until Isiah called him away from the press table and told him to suit up.

“What the hell?” I asked Earl, or some form of that.

He told me that Isiah sensed that his rookie head coach, Darrell Walker (another former Pistons teammate) was having trouble keeping the roster in check, from a discipline standpoint. So would Long and Cureton mind being the 11th and 12th men, while also helping Walker keep a tight ship?

Absolutely, they said.

“I’m just there to watch the end of the bench,” Cureton told me. “Help keep the young guys in line.”

Earl got into nine games that winter, playing 46 minutes, hacking his way to 10 fouls. But it wasn’t what he could do on the court that attracted Isiah to him.

Isiah and Earl played three seasons together in Detroit, and the Smiling Assassin point guard remembered the kind of teammate, competitor and man the 6’9” Cureton was.

So we laughed and talked that December day in 1996, Earl and I on the phone. I was both proud of him and tickled. That throaty laugh told me that he got it. He chuckled several times during the conversation, realizing how ridiculous it was that he was back in the NBA.

It wasn’t always ridiculous.

Earl won two rings in the league—did you know that?

The first was in his third NBA season in 1983, when his Sixers beat the Lakers in the Finals. The second was totally unexpected.

It was in 1994, Earl being 36 years old. Again, he was out of the league, playing overseas. Earl did that a lot. The Houston Rockets signed him on April 21, 1994 as insurance for a team that was expected to make noise in the playoffs.

Earl played in two late-season games, then 10 more in the playoffs for the Rockets, who outlasted the Knicks in seven games to win their first NBA title. That was ring number two.

The following winter, Earl was back at Calihan Hall on Livernois, wearing a headset instead of Nikes. We needed a color analyst for Titans games and who better to do it than a former Titan?

As for the Nikes, Earl was fini, oui?

Not quite.

Finally, after the stint with the Raptors, Earl hung up the sneakers for good and went back into radio.

Earl literally did radio until he died.

The news came to me Sunday over Facebook, posted by friend and fellow former Barden employee, Montez Miller.

LORD, how much more can we bear?

That’s how Montez started her post. I didn’t even have to read the rest of the text after I saw a large photo of Earl below. My heart sank.

Earl Cureton passed away Sunday, suddenly, at age 66.

He had just done a Titans radio broadcast the day before, against, ironically, Robert Morris, the other school that Earl played for. He had filled in for Ricky Mahorn on the Pistons radio broadcast on Friday night.

On Sunday morning, he was gone.

It had been awhile since Earl and I spoke. He was a guest on the The Knee Jerks podcast I co-host with Al Beaton, maybe 12 years ago now. I texted Al soon after getting the bad news Sunday.

“Far, far too young,” Al replied.

Indeed.

In 1998, Earl and I had discussed his possibly hosting a local cable TV show when I worked for Comcast. We met at a local eatery to chat and when he saw me sidle up to the booth, he flashed that big smile of his.

“You’re losing weight!” Then that throaty laugh.

He was right. I was.

The TV show never came to pass but we kept in touch. When I asked him to do the podcast, he didn’t hesitate in saying yes, even though we hadn’t seen each other in several years. It was a great interview. Earl was even edgy at times, talking about his support for NBA players calling the shots when it came to they deciding which teams they should play for—something that we mildly disagreed on.

Al and I talked several times in recent years that we needed to have Earl back on.

I was always proud of Earl Cureton from afar. Of his work as an ambassador for the Pistons. His induction into the Titans sports Hall of Fame. His jersey retirement at UDM. His fierce pride of and loyalty to his hometown of Detroit.

If you had something bad to say about Detroit, you were going to get an earful from Earl.

Earl Cureton wasn’t the greatest of Pistons. But he played for his hometown team and represented it well. And he has as many NBA championship rings as Isiah has. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. And Earl had a knack for doing that—on and off the court.

There’s a reason why Rudy Tomjanovich, the Rockets coach in 1994 and Isiah Thomas, the Raptors GM in 1996, called Earl to their teams when they did.

It was the X-factor that Earl could provide. That je ne sais quoi. And he did provide it, when it was needed.

I really can’t believe that he’s gone.