Don Cheney Turns 34

March 20, 1980

DON CHANEY: OLDER, JUST AS CLASSY

When it's your birthday, you somehow have the notion that, notwithstanding the fact that you're a year older, something good will happen on that day. Your blind date will resemble Bo Derek more than Godzilla. Your Master Charge account will mysteriously pay itself up.

Well, today is Don Chaney's birthday - his 34th - and probably the first thing he would give thanks for as the Celtics visit the Pistons in Detroit tonight (8 o'clock, WBZ Radio) is that he isn't wearing his age on his knees, as some of his NBA contemporaries currently do. The older many of them get, the more operations they have. The scars around the knees begin to look like the rings of oak trees.



Chaney at least can say that he's played on a couple of championship clubs, been on some memorable squads and finds himself now on another playoff- bound team. Many who have reached his age and are still in the league can't plead guilty to any of the above.

But then again, when you cut through the obvious accomplishments and get down to the specifics, Don Chaney, nearing the final punctuation of a fine career, is caught up in the emotional battle of being a "noncontributor" on the hottest team in pro basketball, a rather esoteric kind of experience because most people never play in the NBA. Yet, for Chaney, it's tough being the 11th man, aka "benchman."

"Right now I don't have good feelings about my contribution to the team because I'm not playing. I feel more like an outsider and not in the swing of things. Maybe the average person would say I should be content to just sit on the bench," said Chaney on his eve of cake and candles.

"People might call it bitching,' but I do want to play more," he continued. As a player, you feel the game in your whole mind and body, and because you love it, you can't walk away from it. For 95 percent of my life, it's been basketball, and all of it has been learning to play from a competitive standpoint.

"I've seen guys leave the game after five or six years and not have regrets, but to me, those guys never really had basketball in their lives. Then, on the other hand, I've seen guys go out of the league after seven years while still in their prime, and they were bitter."

And then there are guys like Chaney, who, in 12 years of NBA play, has gone past the prime of his on-the-floor ability but is still not content just sitting and watching. "Hey, I've lost a step and some of my stamina," he admitted. "But on a good ballclub, guys want to play so badly that when they are on the floor, they try to outplay the starters. This makes a team stronger. A player loses it all when he resolves that he can't beat another player out of a job.

"When I was young, I would think about what it will be like when I have to stop playing. I don't think the media can really understand the inner thoughts of a player on something like this. Not really. You can only undertand it if you've been there yourself. It's why even John (Havlicek) will go out and pick up a basketball now. Just to feel it."

After last year's fiasco of a season, which sent the Duck and a few other players reeling in the general direction of the Alka Seltzer counter, the success of 1980 has been more than a little gratifying. "This team has a very good chance of making it to the finals," Chaney understated. "It's a well-balanced team; we have a good attitude, and everyone gets along with each other.

"Maybe right now we're playing a little routinely because of the anticipation of the playoffs. But the playoffs are like a whole new season, a rebirth. "It's just such a difference for me to be playing on a team that's playing to win this year, as opposed to last year when, I think, many of us played to lose. It makes my not playing this season a little easier to take because we have a good team."

After a dozen years in the pros, his opinion on some issues may have changed, but one basic facet of the Chaney personality, his on-court defensive philosophy, remains intact: "Be physical, stop the superstar early in the game, and make the man you're covering know you're on the court." Chaney has stayed as true to that tenet as he has in maintaining his professional demeanor, which has always been best described as "gentlemanly."

"I believe in making positive statements," Chaney explained, "because it is important to the young players who may be on the borderline of a career and who are listening to what you say. "I try to help out players defensively if I see something in the game, but Bill (Fitch) and K.C. (Jones) are such thorough coaches that they seldom miss a thing on the court."

More than anything else, Chaney wants to go down swinging. He does not want the end of a noteworthy career to find him sitting instead of playing. "The only thing to do in my situation," he reasoned, "is to be always ready to play, be ready to contribute." Even if that means - or in his case especially if that means - playing eight or nine minutes on 34-year-old knees.