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Fast Break Hoops
Coach Bill Reinhart and the nephew who wanted to preserve his memory
Bob Reinhart ’52 had a story to tell. It was, Bob believed, the untold tale of a largely forgotten college coach who was the father of basketball’s fast-break offense.
The story was to be about Bob’s uncle, Bill Reinhart ’22. Raised in Salem, the UO grad had coached basketball, baseball, and football at the UO from 1923 to 1935, and then gone on to coach the same three sports for another twenty-four years at George Washington University. In both places, Bill Reinhart energized basketball and built solid winning records, earning him recognition in Oregon’s Sports Hall of Fame and George Washington’s Athletic Hall of Fame.
The legendary coaching success of “Red” Auerbach, one of Reinhart’s players at George Washington, would give the nephew’s story the punch it needed to attract broad interest. Bill Reinhart had recruited Auerbach, a Brooklyn junior college student, to George Washington. Auerbach went on to coach the Boston Celtics to nine National Basketball Association championships, and he never stopped giving Reinhart credit for teaching him the basics of the fast break, a key to his team’s success.
William Jennings Bryan Reinhart, who died February 14, 1971, at age seventy-four, was never recognized by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, much to the dismay of his nephew and of Auerbach. “By the time people got around to nominating him he was more of a forgotten kind of guy,” said Ed McKee, George Washington’s director of athletic development.
Bob Reinhart wanted to correct what he considered history’s snub of a coach who, he’d written to the Hall of Fame in 1994, “invented basketball’s fast break and transition defense.” Bob grew up in Portland and attended the UO on a journalism scholarship. He’d worked in the men’s clothing industry and for five years lived in Maryland, sometimes attending George Washington games coached by his uncle.
He suffered a severe stroke in 1979, when he was only forty-nine years old, losing the full use of his left leg and arm. “It changed his life totally,” says his wife, Mary Jeanne, of Sherwood.
Around that time Bob started talking about writing his uncle’s story. Slowly, he gathered materials: newspaper clippings, archival documents from Bill’s high school and the colleges where he’d coached, and letters from the coach’s former players.
Using a typewriter or writing by hand, Bob crafted numerous versions of introductory chapters and produced a table of contents for the unwritten book. He even designed a cover page depicting a basketball aloft above the old Salem High School.
The stories and approaches changed, but never the title: Fast Break Hoops.
But his dream was not to be. Bob’s declining health slowed his progress, and he died in June 2009. As he approached death, he was anguished over a job left unfinished.
“He couldn’t believe it,” says Mary Jeanne. “He was so angry.”
* * *
Bill Reinhart’s life had the makings for a powerful biography. At Salem High School, he played three sports and was captain of the school’s first championship team in football. His classmates included Roy “Spec” Keene, later a celebrated three-sport coach at Willamette University, and Amory “Slats” Gill, who would coach Oregon State’s basketball team from 1929 to 1964. OSU’s Gill Coliseum honors him.
At the UO, Bill Reinhart was quarterback on the 1920 Rose Bowl team that lost to Harvard 7–6. Not long after graduating in 1922 in business administration, Bill returned to the UO as a sports teacher and coach.
He soon got his big coaching break, according to Howard “Hobby” Hobson ’26, who played for Reinhart and would later succeed him as coach. With the 1923–24 season approaching and without a coach, the basketball team was asked to recommend either Reinhart or an outside “name” coach, Hobson later wrote in Shooting Ducks, his history of UO basketball. Although Reinhart had only “dubious credentials,” he won the team’s support and landed the job, Hobson recounts.
Quickly earning a reputation as a taskmaster, Reinhart produced three championship teams in four years. As its name transitioned from the Lemon-Yellows to the Webfoots, the team generated so much excitement that UO students in 1926–27 voted to pay the $185,000 cost of a new arena—Mac Court—to replace an old armory as the team’s home court.
“The students indebted themselves and paid off the thing in three years—all because Reinhart was up to date on how to play basketball,” says Keith Richard, University archivist emeritus.
Reinhart left Oregon in 1935, having achieved a basketball record of somewhere near 180 wins and 101 losses over eleven seasons (sources vary), to take a three-sport coaching job at George Washington.
His time with the Colonials was sliced in two: from 1935 to 1942 and again from 1949 to 1966. In between, he served in the Navy and coached the Fleet City Blue Jackets football team, which won the national service championship in 1945. In this period he picked up a cigar-smoking habit that would later become a trademark. He then became athletic director-coach at the Merchant Marine Academy before returning to George Washington in 1949.
His basketball teams at George Washington achieved a 316–239 record and he won 524 games in the three sports he coached. His 1954 and 1961 basketball teams made it to the NCAA tournament, and the 1961 team was among the most memorable, dubbed “The Miracle of 1961” by one sportswriter. The Colonials finished a dismal seventh place in the nine-team Southern Conference, with a 3–9 season record. But in postseason play they stunned second-seeded Virginia Tech, then knocked off William and Mary to make it to the NCAA tournament, where they lost in the first round.
Reinhart’s most famous player-turned-coach, Red Auerbach, never stopped talking about the man who shaped his career.
“Red must have used his name a million times,” says Jack Kvancz, George Washington’s athletic director and a long-time friend of Auerbach, another trademark cigar smoker, who died in 2006. He always said that Reinhart deserved a place in the Hall of Fame, Kvancz says.
“I would never see his [Auerbach’s] eyes light up as much as when he talked about Reinhart,” he says.
Bob Reinhart’s files include a newspaper clip of a 1974 speech by Auerbach, then general manager of the Celtics, at Pacific University in Forest Grove. “Auerbach Says Bill Reinhart Was Best Basketball Brain,” the headline reads.
Bob Reinhart’s files also include two typed pages of what appear to be a more complete summary of Auerbach’s comments at Pacific University. The first sentence gets right to the point that Bob Reinhart hoped to make with Fast Break Hoops.
Auerbach says, “I don’t know who claims or is given credit for introducing the first organized fast break but I know who did it—Bill Reinhart.”
* * *
Probably the closest Bob Reinhart ever got to achieving his dream was when he floated his book idea to Bruce Taylor Hamilton, director of publications and special projects for the Oregon Historical Society, in 1993. There’s no copy of Reinhart’s original pitch, but on October 4 of that year Hamilton responded that he’d been expecting to hear again from Reinhart.
“For some reason, I thought I remembered you would be sending some additional material,” Hamilton wrote. He offered to provide direction but says he would only be willing to review a finished manuscript.
Reinhart answered a month later, providing new material and outlining a book not only about Reinhart but also about Slats Gill and Spec Keene.
“I appreciate the task before me, in transforming the facts and accomplishments of each man into a polished narrative, suitable for publication,” he wrote.
The file contains no further correspondence between the two men.
So perhaps it’s best to give Bob Reinhart the final word, with one of the introductions he wrote for the story he wanted to tell:
This book is a celebration of lessons in life not found in the classrooms, but on the hard wood floors, baseball diamond, and between the yard lines of football fields . . . the character and inner strength to assist us around, through, and beyond the rocks in the road of life.
It is the story of Bill Reinhart and how he played the game.
—Gordon Oliver
Hail to the Chiefs
What do student government leaders do after graduation?
At the end of their tenure as president, those who’ve held the Associated Students of the University of Oregon’s highest-ranking position don’t get to build a library and retire to a life of leisure and occasional diplomacy. Instead, the ASUO presidency is merely the beginning of a long résumé filled with interesting achievements and notable positions. After all, these are young men and women with the passion, creativity, and drive to be elected as leaders by fellow students during their years on campus. What work will they choose once they leave Eugene, and what places will they take in the world? With a few famous and infamous exceptions, such as former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt ’63, who served as ASUO president during the 1962–63 academic year, most former presidents don’t make the national headlines. But many of them, like so many UO alumni we have the honor of profiling in the pages of Oregon Quarterly, have continued to demonstrate their capacities for leadership in a surprising variety of ways. These are just a few of the stories from 110 years of ASUO presidents we gathered when we asked, “Where did they go from here?”
The newly created ASUO’s first president, Clifton “Pat” McArthur ’01 (ASUO president 1900–1901) had a career that would be echoed by many of those who followed him. McArthur dabbled in journalism, farming, and law during his early career, before turning to state politics. He was Oregon governor Frank Benson’s secretary, until Benson’s poor health forced him to turn over the governorship to State Senate President Jay Bowerman, father of Bill Bowerman ’34. McArthur served as speaker of Oregon’s House of Representatives during the 1909 and 1913 terms, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1915, where he served until 1923. Sadly, he did not live to see McArthur Court, named in his honor, completed in 1926.
Claude Robinson ’24 (1923–24) was completing a master’s and PhD degrees in sociology at Columbia when he had an idea for an invention that would measure when a radio was turned on, the station it was tuned to, and how long it remained on that station. Although a ratings industry didn’t yet exist in America, Robinson figured it was only a matter of time until the need for such measurements would present itself. Turns out he was right: Robinson, along with George Gallup, was instrumental in designing the scientific sampling techniques now common in polling and public opinion research.
Thomas Tongue ’34, JD ’37 (1933–34) earned both his undergraduate and law degrees at the UO before enlisting law school dean Wayne Morse’s help to win a Yale Sterling Fellowship and adding a doctor of the science of the law degree to his credentials. Tongue worked for the federal government and the UO before entering private practice in Portland. Governor Tom McCall ’36 named Tongue to the bench of the Oregon Supreme Court in 1969, where he remained until his retirement in 1982.
John Dick ’40 (1939–40) managed to balance a trio of heady commitments during his days in Eugene, serving simultaneously as a student, ASUO president, and starting forward on the UO’s 1939 national champion Tall Firs basketball team. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dick enlisted in the Navy, embarking on a thirty-one-year career and achieving the rank of rear admiral. He was inducted into the UO Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993.
Art Johnson ’50 (1949–50) served in the Air Force after graduating from the UO and then went on to law school at Harvard before returning to Eugene. He has made his career as a litigator and currently is the senior shareholder at Johnson, Clifton, Larson, and Schaller, in Eugene. He is a former president of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, the Lane County Bar, and the Oregon State Bar. Johnson received the Owen M. Panner Professionalism Award in 2006 and has also been recognized for his distinguished career by the UO School of Law.
Phil Sherburne ’64 (1963–64) also graduated from Harvard Law School but was drawn away from practicing law by the opportunity to work on developing a low-income housing project in Chicago. From there, more developments and projects, each based on principles of sustainable, nature-conscious design, followed. Sherburne has left his fingerprints up and down the West Coast, on projects ranging from a Napa Valley eco-luxury hotel to Seattle’s Pacific Medical Center to a planned community in the San Juan Islands where cars are outlawed and a community ferry provides the only access. Sherburne’s projects have not only set new standards for low-impact architecture and landscaping, but they also continually amaze and inspire those who work on, inspect, visit, and stay in his creations.
Ron Eachus ’70 (1970–71 and editor of the Oregon Daily Emerald during the 1968–69 school year) served as an Oregon legislator and was chairman of the state’s Public Utility Commission for fourteen years. These days, Eachus is a political columnist for Salem’s Statesman Journal.
Bill Wyatt ’74 (1972–73) was chief of staff for Oregon governor John Kitzhaber, MD ’73, during the governor’s first stint in office, and since late 2001 has been executive director of the Port of Portland, where he oversees three airports and four marine channels. He has worked on behalf of various Portland- and business-promoting groups, and was a state representative in the mid-1970s.
Jim Bernau ’76 (1975–76) started Willamette Valley Vineyards in 1983, when he first cleared away acres of tangled blackberries and ancient plum trees to make way for pinot noir vines. At first, he watered each vine by hand with hundreds of feet of garden hose. Since then, the vineyard-on-the-hill that one passes on I-5 just south of Salem has grown into “One of America’s Great Pinot Noir Producers,” according to a headline in Wine Enthusiast magazine. Along the way, Bernau has been active in shepherding small business and wine-growing legislation through Oregon’s legislature, paving the way for the industry as we know it today.
Andy Clark ’90 (1989–90) is director of legislative affairs for the University System of Maryland, which oversees 150,000 students at twelve institutions. Clark was a legislative assistant for U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio, MA ’77, before moving on to serve the Oregon University System. He founded a political consulting firm, NorthPoint Communications, in 2005 and assumed his current post in Maryland in 2008. He serves on the UO Alumni Association’s Board of Directors.
Jennifer Bills ’96 (1991–92) surprised many who knew her during her activist campus years by joining the Eugene Police Department after graduation. She currently serves as a lieutenant with the EPD, where she has been responsible for numerous tasks not suitable for the faint of heart, such as overseeing the department’s patrols in and around Autzen Stadium on game days.
Bobby Lee ’93, MPA ’97, (1992–93) was appointed by former governor Barbara Roberts to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, and later served as a Eugene city councilor during the “anarchist capital of the United States” years of the late-1990s. He now works as corporate communications officer for Hynix Semiconductor, which manufactures the brains (well, memory, anyway) of electronic gadgets around the world.
Rachel Pilliod ’04 (2002–3) is currently a medical student at Oregon Health and Science University, where she plans to specialize in women’s health and health policy. But she’s not waiting until graduation in 2012 to start working for change: Pilliod was named to a four-year term as the OHSU Board of Directors’ student representative in 2009.
Emma Kallaway ’10 (2009–10) is the newest member of the former presidents’ society, but is wasting no time getting started on her career. Kallaway served as a field organizer for the Democratic Party of Oregon’s Lane County office during the cliffhanger 2010 gubernatorial election. Her next assignment is as the legislative director of the Oregon Students Association, where she’ll work with Executive Director Emily McLain ’08 (2007–8). Kallaway says she’d love to stay involved in Oregon politics in the future, but she’s also interested in entrepreneurship. If Oregon Quarterly should happen to write this story again in a decade or two, she hopes that her entry might read something like this: “helped people start the business of their dreams, supported her community through politics, and built a strong family with the person she loved.”
—Mindy Moreland MS ’08
Big League Voice
Duck calls play-by-play for Portland’s new pro team.
As soccer fans across the state are overcome with joy to report, Oregon’s resident professional team, the Portland Timbers, is preparing for its Major League Soccer debut on March 19. After a decade spent playing on the second tier of the American professional soccer pyramid, Portland is moving up to the Big League, and much must be done before the first kickoff. PGE Park is getting a facelift. Newly drafted players are tuning up for the season, dressed in revamped jerseys of fir-forest green and Rose City red. The Timbers Army, which may have attended the same training academy for fan raucousness as the UO’s Pit Crew, is stockpiling confetti. The team mascot is revving up his chainsaw. And a familiar voice is preparing to take his place in the press box.
Andy McNamara, whose duties as the assistant director of media services for UO Intercollegiate Athletics include spending the fall and winter blogging about Ducks football, has served for the past decade as the voice of the Timbers at PGE Park. This means he’ll be spending much of this spring and summer calling the play-by-play for that other kind of football.
McNamara grew up far from both Oregon and soccer, playing baseball and basketball in the Northeast and listening to legendary sportscaster Fred Cusick calling “Score!” during Boston Bruins hockey games. After majoring in broadcast journalism at the University of Maine, he made his way west, where he took a job announcing for the Portland Pride, an indoor soccer team. McNamara felt an instant affinity with the sport, which was, “like hockey with a ball.” When the Pride folded, it was, McNamara says, just a natural progression that led him to the Timbers’ announcer’s chair. That was 2001, and he’s stayed there ever since, yelling “Score!” at each goal in homage to Cusick and those back-east roots.
The voice of the Timbers expects that the club’s inaugural MLS season will draw both soccer diehards and curious newcomers. And while the sport’s subtle complexities may take a while to fully appreciate (“it took a good three or four years before the light bulb truly went on for me,” McNamara says), the electric atmosphere of the games, combined with the bliss of a warm Oregon summer evening, will surely make PGE Park one of the best places outside Autzen or Matt Arena to be a fan.
—Mindy Moreland MS ’08
On the Job
Longtime Congressman reflects on politics, trends, and life on The Hill.
Peter DeFazio, MA ’77, is Oregon’s longest serving sitting congressman, representing southwest Oregon since 1987. He’s a staunch progressive, known for being outspoken and independent, especially when he opposed the Iraq War and, more recently, President Obama’s compromise with Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts. A resident of Springfield, he graduated from the UO in gerontology and counseling.
You’re originally from Massachusetts. What made you stay in Oregon after graduating from the UO?
When I got to Oregon I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I couldn’t imagine a place so beautiful and ideal. I love the ocean and I love the mountains, so when I was a young man I thought this was pretty incredible. And the culture here. People were nice. It’s this open place, small-town kind of thing. It’s really different.
What is your favorite memory of your time at the UO?
It was a tumultuous time, so there were demonstrations. I remember being in an economics class in [Condon Hall]. The windows were open. It was a hot fall day. And there’s this [chant]—“Save French Pete, Save French Pete.” The professor looks out and says, “Oh, there’s Ken Kesey and a group. I guess they’re going to march down to the BLM office. It’s a beautiful day, and it’s a good thing to do so why don’t you all go along if you want.” So, I did and we marched over to the BLM offices. Then Kesey gets up in this buckskin jacket and starts talking about French Pete. I’m a month into Oregon and I’ve never seen anything like this before. That was definitely the beginning of my activist phase: French Pete and environmental issues and also the secret war, the bombing in Cambodia.
After twenty-four years in Congress, what achievement is the most satisfying?
I’m doing ten community college scholarships a year with pay raises I turn back. Legislative achievements are one thing, but when you’ve really made a definitive difference in somebody’s life, that’s incredibly gratifying.
What was your hardest vote?
Issues of war and peace. To be engaged in the briefings, the lead-up, the debate, and to know that you are part of a group that is deciding to send young men and women off to war, some of whom will not return and some of whom will return grievously wounded and changed.
You represent some of Oregon’s most liberal and conservative areas—how do you do balance those interests?
It’s not easy. I listen. I get out; hold town meetings. Part of it is treating people with respect even though their views are very different and responding forthrightly. You tell them your values and in some parts, they agree, and in other parts they say, “I think you are out to lunch but I appreciate the fact that you’re honest with me.”
How do you feel when you make a choice contrary to most of your constituents?
Well, that’s interesting. Particularly during the health-care debate, people [said], “Why don’t you do what people want?” Well, you hired me to get into the guts of issues, really understand them, and make a judgment in the end whether this is good for the country and for us in Oregon. If I did a poll, a lot of times I’d do things that seem popular at the time but a little later everyone would [say], “Why did we do that?” For instance, the Iraq War—remember the crescendo that built up, the “cheese-eating frog monkeys” or whatever they called the French, and all this bizarre stuff that went on? But later, people said [the war] wasn’t a good idea. Sometimes you go through a very difficult time, but all that changes. I’m not always right, but you just have faith that you’ve spent a lot of time on this. People respect that on some level.
After Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008, were you encouraged about the progressive agenda?
Yes, incredibly excited. The potential was phenomenal. And then you get down to the nitty-gritty of governing. Unfortunately, things unwound pretty quickly.
Do you think Americans lost confidence in the progressive agenda?
No. A truly progressive agenda would have been getting to the bottom of what really happened on Wall Street, having subpoena power, putting some people in prison, sending a message about real reform, and rein[ing] in reckless speculation. People will argue for years over what happened. Some columnists’ retrospective is that Congress and “those liberals in the House” ran us off the rails. Actually, more of it came from the White House or the Senate leading us down paths that were not clear expressions of truly progressive values. So, I don’t think we ever had a chance. We never did express a progressive agenda, so I don’t think it was rejected.
What do progressives need to do over the next two years to regain momentum?
I’ve had truly conservative Republicans say, “We share your concerns about the debt we’re creating and the threat to Social Security, [let’s] talk about a better way to move us toward something fiscally responsible.” There may be new meeting of the minds in some very strange ways, or different ways, than we’ve seen so far.
Critics say your vote for health care reform revealed socialist tendencies. Do you think government is overreaching?
Look, that health-care bill, which constrains any competition by the public sector and doesn’t take away the health insurance industry’s antitrust exemption doesn’t go far enough with reform. [The] individual mandate is very controversial. The problem is that people who should buy insurance don’t until they get sick. There is another way to deal with that. I call it personal responsibility, but let’s have enforceable personal responsibility. Everybody when they do their taxes would be confronted with a choice: either have health insurance or sign a form waiv[ing] any right to any reimbursement under any government program for any health care you might obtain, and mak[ing] your debt nondischargeable in bankruptcy. There are different ways we could’ve done this that avoided this screaming about socialism, but the bill, in its essence, couldn’t be further from single-payer or public option or anything government-run than it is and still provide comprehensive coverage.
Do you find it hard to compromise?
As a legislator, I’m pretty good at working stuff out. I don’t know if I want to call it compromise. Some of it is mechanics. Persistence. Listening, hearing people, and saying, “So how about we do this?” I don’t compromise on big values. I’ll fight for them and if I lose, I lose. But to get things done you’ve got to be very pragmatic and willing to work within your value system.
With fewer moderates in the party, do you see the GOP compromising in the coming two years?
There’s some possibility—[with] people who recognize we’ve got big problems and not pretend all you’ve got to do is cut. There has to be some pragmatic compromise if people have a shared goal of a sustainable fiscal path, which is going to be a combination of more revenues and a robust discussion about spending and priorities. The first three or four months are going to be the new Republican majority feeling their oats in the House and jamming stuff through that isn’t going anywhere. But after that, they may want to start really working.
What is Sarah Palin’s impact on American politics?
She’s giving speeches inspiring to a segment of the society and earning a pile of money doing it. It’s the American dream for her. Hopefully, it won’t evolve into a serious presidential bid but I’ve been saying for quite some time not to underestimate her.
Finally, why is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington your favorite film?
I’ve had that poster up [in my Congressional office] for a long time. Those were the days when the Senate used to really filibuster. For the life of me—if people are doing something indefensible, expose it by making them stay and talk about it. When Republicans insisted on not allowing unemployment to continue, they called people “lazy,” “shiftless”; they said unbelievably mean and stupid things about people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and are just trying to make ends meet. We used to have long fights over public policy that exposed where people stood. We don’t do that anymore and we are worse off for it.
—Kirk Bailey ’91, JD ’96
• WEB EXTRA
Click here to read a longer version of this interview.
UO Alumni Calendar
Go to uoalumni.com/events for detailed information
March 13
Jim Warsaw and Annalee Thurston dinner, auction, and awards gala
Indian Wells, California
March 15
Duck Biz Lunch
Seattle
April 28
Bend Music Fest
Central Oregon
May 21
A Taste of Oregon
San Diego Scholarship Fundraiser
San Diego, California
The Edge
It began as a routine diplomatic courier trip, an early morning flight originating in Dakar with twenty-one diplomatic pouches on one of the region’s most notorious carriers: Zambezi Airways. After an airport exchange in Banjul, the flight was scheduled to continue on for exchanges in Conakry and Freetown before terminating in Abidjan.
Zambezi Air only had three planes in 2003. This particular 737 had to be one of the oldest in operation. When wheels-up came, I found my heart and mind maintaining high anxiety levels as we rose over pirogue-crowded beaches framing the peninsula jutting from the African continent like a crooked finger.
We got to Banjul, a trip of only forty minutes, just fine. From our sea approach heading upriver, we had spectacular views of the city built on a sand-spit. We beheld the Gambia River as we banked to land: from wide estuary to rapid diminution in the direction of its mysterious desert origin. On the ground as we taxied, I could see the embassy contact waiting with outgoing pouches. Before exiting, I asked the flight attendant to save my seat, explaining that I was the diplomatic courier and I’d be flying on to Conakry. She nodded unconvincingly.
The escort and I exchanged pleasantries before signing over our respective pieces. We kept an eye on the classified pouches that were to be loaded in the rear hold. Everything seemed fine . . . until I returned to the cabin to discover my second row seat had been taken. The flight was oversold.
The attendant looked vacantly down the length of the aircraft and shrugged. I offered to sit in the cockpit jump seat. But on this plane that seat had been “removed.” Finally, the attendant slowly walked along the torn carpet, glancing at each row. At row twenty-seven, eight rows from the back, she spoke rudely to a woman seated with a young boy. They argued. The woman looked angrily at me, then motioned for the boy to sit on her lap.
The old bird again lifted into the sky like an eager fledgling, leaving the opaque, arid Gambian countryside under blossoming cumulus clouds as we headed south along the estuary-carved coast. As I completed paperwork in the cramped space, the woman shot nasty glances and muttered. About halfway to Conakry, at 25,000 feet, refreshments were served (a mysterious orange drink). The captain came back to chat and imbibe some of the liquid. Five minutes later, the copilot joined him. The aircraft was obviously on autopilot. A short time later, as I meditatively sipped the last of my enigmatic orange, we hit a bad patch of turbulence.
The plane dropped precipitously for a few seconds, the pilots actually catching air before being dashed against the fuselage. A few passengers ended up on their neighbors’ laps, but the autopilot righted the aircraft quickly, so damage was slight. Everyone seemed to shrug the episode off with nervous laughter as the pilots gingerly picked themselves up. But the copilot had a look of panic. He stepped toward the cockpit and tugged frantically at the door. It was locked. The bump had jarred it loose and slammed it shut. The key, if there was one, was apparently in one of their coat pockets, inside.
So we were flying south over Guinea Bissau at 500 miles per hour with both pilots locked out of the cockpit and twenty-seven diplomatic pouches in the hold. The pilots pulled on the door, picked at the lock, kicked it, hit it, all to no avail. The situation was dire, but they were remarkably calm. Scrunched in my dilapidated seat, I too took it in stride, initially anyway, writing it off as typically WAWA: West Africa Wins Again.
After about twenty minutes the seriousness of our predicament began to sink in, as the door built to protect pilots from hijackers refused to budge. Passengers shouted advice, but the pilots waved them off. Then a burly man in a dashiki offered his help. The pilots respected his size and agreed to let him try. Lowering his shoulder, the man gained momentum in the aisle before ramming the door. It shuddered and buckled a little. The crowd roared encouragement for him to try again. He held up one hand like a savior, reassuring all that on his next try the impediment would collapse and all would be right.
He took a longer run down the aisle, but before he got to the bulkhead he tripped on the ragged carpet and went down hard at the feet of the pilots. He was hurt. A collective moan filled the cabin. He held his right shoulder and shook his head dejectedly as he was helped to his seat. Even the pilots looked at a loss. I glanced out the window and, despite a yellowish tinge, saw the distinctive shape of the Conakry peninsula with its impoverished masses jutting out to sea.
There was obviously only one solution, but the captain had avoided it. He marched to the back of the plane, his stoic face revealing the vaguest tinge of anger or embarrassment. His was the only plane that serviced this route and was a third of the nation’s fleet. Having to replace the door might cost him his job.
He reappeared carrying an axe with an unusually long handle. The sight of the axe startled the passengers into a frenzy. The captain was oblivious to their reaction. The copilot offered to do the dirty deed, but the pilot would have none of it. He hefted the ungainly tool and with the entire plane in anxious silence, swung down at the locked door handle. The axe caught just a bit of door before glancing off and narrowly missing his leg. I slumped back in my seat, muttering, “Come what will.”
About an hour later, little remained of the door. Never able to bust the lock, they opted to slice a hole through the door. It was barely large enough, with jagged metal ripping their clothes as they squeezed through. By the time they were back behind the controls, we had passed over not only war-torn Freetown, with its fine beaches and green mountains plunging dramatically into azure seas, but perpetually strife-torn Monrovia as well. We were already well offshore, just three degrees from the equator.
After a sharp turn to the northeast, the pilot came over the intercom and apologized. He said that we didn’t have enough fuel to make it back to our scheduled destinations. We were flying on to Abidjan. Half the plane was enraged since flights to the missed stops were a rarity. It’s always interesting how soon people revert to their old habits after narrowly escaping disaster. I was content to be alive. The pouches would only be delayed a week, and as far as I knew there were no urgent pieces. Flying in over the pounding surf and palm-fringed lagoons of Cote d’Ivoire, then past the soaring skyscrapers of the harbor city, Abidjan had never looked so good.
James B. Angell ’81 is deputy regional diplomatic courier director for the U.S. Foreign Service in Frankfurt, Germany. He has previously served in Seoul, South Korea, Bangkok, Thailand, and Washington, D.C., where he was based when this incident occurred. The names of the carrier and its base of operations have been changed. He is the author of Water Is the Animal, a journal of global travel, and In Our Dreamtime, a short story collection.
