The Ed Macauley Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, November 1st,
2005
You were born on March 22nd, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Please tell me a
little about your childhood – what memories remain with you after all of
these years, and how was your family affected by the Great Depression?
My
father was a lawyer, and his family was from a farm up in Calhoun County,
Illinois, which is about thirty miles north of St. Louis, so the Great
Depression really didn't affect us. We were fortunate in that regard. As
far as growing up, I had two sisters, and I guess you could say that we had
a normal family. Dad was a lawyer, as I said, and he did pretty well. We
used to spend summers at his mother's house on the farm. It was a nice
house with no electricity, and no indoor plumbing. It had a wood stove
[laughs]. So while our summers weren't boring, they weren't that eventful,
either.
I went to a Catholic grade school – St. Barbara's – and I was tall for my
age. So tall that my mother, after the second grade, suggested to the
teacher's that I looked like I'd been held back. I was a very good student,
so they talked about it and decided to let me skip the third grade. I
didn't play many sports in grade school. We had a basketball team that
didn't win a game. I wasn't very athletic. So my basketball experience
wasn't much to speak of, and it wasn't anything like what you see with some
of the kids today. You see kids start playing as early as the first and
second grade, and some of the them keep playing right into the NBA. I
started several years later than that.
You were a three-year letter winner at St. Louis University High School.
Please take me back to this period in your life.
St.
Louis University High was a Jesuit high school. I talked to my counselor,
and I asked him about playing basketball at St. Louis U. High on the
freshman team, and he said that that wasn't going to be possible. He said
that a new class called 'typing' was starting up, and that it was going to
be held after school from 3PM until 4PM, and that I was in the class. He
said that that's when the freshman class practiced. So he told me to forget
about freshman basketball and to concentrate on typing [laughs]. I didn't
argue, because the Jesuits didn't ask you – they told you. So that's what I
did during my freshman year – I learned to type and I didn't raise a fuss
about it..
But just because I couldn't play on the team didn't mean that I was
disinterested in basketball. So after typing class I'd go to the outdoor
courts and shoot. If I was really lucky, I'd get to go into the gymnasium.
I was a substitute center on the sophomore team at St. Louis U. High. The
center on the team was a man named Larry King. He was a good athlete, but
his father was in an accident on the job – he was a laborer, or a carpenter
or something – and in those days they didn't have Social Security and all of
the other benefits that they have today. So Larry had to literally quit
school and go to work to help support the family, and I got to play. I
didn't play very well, but at least I was on the team and getting taller
every year.
As a junior I played on the varsity. We had a fair year, nothing spectacular. But I kept practicing and working – by myself many times, and also with the team – and people would always say, 'Why are you always practicing? Why don't you have some fun, and go out and do other things?' But I just liked basketball and I was tall, and in those days tall people really stuck out [laughs]. Basketball is just what I did for enjoyment.
My senior year was really the first year that I had a breakout year. I was the All-District center, and I was All-State. We played in the state tournament – we didn't win it, but we finished in third place overall. I started getting scholarship offers from colleges, and I didn't know anything about what that meant. It was all new to me.
It has
been said that your mother allowed you to choose any college that was
“Catholic and in St. Louis". Please take me back to your decision to play
collegiate basketball at St. Louis University.
I
got offers from all over – Kentucky, Notre Dame, Boston College, Missouri,
St. Louis University, and a few more. But my father was an invalid at that
point in his life – he had been in an automobile accident and was pretty
much confined to his bed. So for whatever reason, I decided to go to St.
Louis University which didn't have a very good basketball team. In fact,
the year before they didn't even have a basketball team at all – this was
due to World War II…there just weren't very many men around. I think I
agreed to go there before they had even hired a permanent coach [laughs].
The interim head coach was a man named John Flannigan, who was a great player in what was then known as the Industrial League. He was a magnificent gentleman who really taught me a lot. He used to scrimmage against me and beat my brains out [laughs], but he prepared me for what was coming. Many people today don't have any recollection about that league, but Philips Petroleum Company and other corporations would have basketball players on their payroll. Anyway, we didn't do too much as a team during my freshman year. One thing does stand out: I had the pleasure of playing against Bob Kurland, the dominant big man from Oklahoma A&M. Bob was seven feet tall and weighed about two-fifty – I was six-eight, and weighed about one hundred seventy-five [laughs]. That night he put up 58 points against me, which was a new collegiate scoring record at that time. Fortunately, he graduated that year [laughs].
I kept practicing and trying to get better – I didn't have many dates in high school, and none during the first part of my college career, so basketball was my primary form of entertainment. I worked hard during my freshman and sophomore years – I got to play as a sophomore, I had a good year, but I wasn't doing anything that might draw national recognition. We won the Missouri Valley title that year. My junior season was my breakout year.
I want to
ask you about that. But first, you earned your nickname, "Easy Ed" as a
freshman at St. Louis University. Please tell me how you earned your
now-famous moniker.
We
had a tradition of rotating our captains before every game, and Coach
Flannigan came to me and let me know that is was my turn. It was an honor –
and I was really nervous. He said that all I had to do was lead us out of
the dressing room then through a door and onto the court. That’s the only
thing I had to do, and I really didn't want to mess it up. So I did it; I
pushed the door open, ran down the other end of the court with the ball and
took a couple of shots. When I turned around there was no one else there.
Nobody had followed me, because the National Anthem was being played. I was
so nervous I didn’t even hear it [laughs]. The fans started to yell ‘Take
it easy, Ed’, since the game hadn’t even started. Our sports publicity man
liked that so much that he started using it in press releases. It stuck,
and I guess it turned out to be a very appropriate nickname.