Death of an import - SPORTING CHANCE by Joaquin M. Henson

He wasn’t from Graceland. He wasn’t related to Elvis. Bob Presley was his name and in 1971, he was flown here by Meralco to stop Crispa import Tom Cowart’s reign of terror in the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA), the precursor of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

Presley was huge. He was listed at 6-10 1/2. When he walked on the streets of Manila, people couldn’t believe their eyes that someone could be so tall. Presley teamed with Reddy Kilowatt stars Robert Jaworski and Big Boy Reynoso to power Meralco to the MICAA title that year.

On the court, Presley appeared invincible. Off the court, he was a broken man.

Presley grew up in abject poverty in Birmingham, Alabama. Looking for a new beginning, Presley’s parents moved to Detroit and brought their five children. They lived in the attic of a relative’s house and slept on the floor. There was no bathroom — only a "slop jar." Presley’s father tried to make both ends meet by working late hours at the Ford Motor Company assembly line but the money just wasn’t there to put enough food on the table.

When Presley turned 12, he stood 6-4. Playmates teased him because of his unusual height and nicknamed him "Treetop." Presley was a lost soul in a sea of humanity. "It’s like he doesn’t have any sense," said his mother, quoted by Herb Michelson in Almost a Famous Person. "I wonder sometimes if he’s crazy."

Bruce Jenkins, in his book The Pete Newell Story, said: "Presley seemed indifferent to everything, especially school. Basketball was a natural outlet for him but he wasn’t much into the team thing, preferring to shoot baskets alone."

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Because of his basketball ability, Presley was enrolled at Pershing High School where stars like Spencer Haywood, Mel Daniels, and Ralph Simpson played. But he didn’t stay long on campus. He was suspended in 1962, at the age of 16, for cutting classes. Out of school, Presley turned to marijuana and booze.

"He wasn’t dumb," said Pershing coach Will Robinson. "But he looked to me like a person who was lost. I couldn’t get mad at him because he wasn’t a mean or nasty kid. What he had was a short attention span. He just did whatever he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it. And nothing else."

Presley transferred to Northern High School in Detroit and took the varsity to the state finals. But one day, he showed up drunk for classes and after brawling with an English teacher, was thrown in jail. Presley was eventually released and in 1965, played at Banning High School then went to Mount San Jacinto Junior College.

In 1967, Presley averaged 21.4 points and 18 rebounds as he led Mount San Jacinto to a 25-5 record. Then he was recruited to play for the University of California. Presley shone brightly for the Golden Bears early in the 1967-68 season until Lew Alcindor, later to be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, embarrassed him by scoring 44 points in a University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) blowout. That shattered Presley’s confidence and he again lost focus as a player. He got involved in racial issues at Berkley and used his big Afro as a rallying point for "black power."

After two tumultuous seasons at California, Presley was picked by the Milwaukee Bucks on the 11th round in the 1969 National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. He was also chosen on the fourth round by the Denver Rockets in the American Basketball Association (ABA). Presley decided to try out for the Rockets but didn’t make the cut. Despondent, he tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists in a marijuana-and-sleeping-pills haze.

Then, Presley went overseas. He played in Belgium and the Philippines.

For a while, it seemed like Presley had settled down. He married his long-time sweetheart Rae Oreskovic, a white woman. But when Presley got violent at home, his wife left him. Alone in the world, he thought of making one last try to make it to the NBA. But no one would give him a chance.

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Presley wandered aimlessly around Portland where he lived and wound up in a "crash pad" — a place where people willingly took on strangers for a night. His hosts were worried about him. One night, they saw him in the kitchen, cleaning the floor and talking to himself. He wore a black, full-length shirt.

"I’ve got to go," he said as he scrubbed the floor. "I’m a woman now and I’ve got to go. I do dishes. I clean house. I’m a housewife and a woman’s got to go. I guess I’ll hitchhike. I can see it all now. I can’t be forgiven. This is the end."

The next morning, the tugboat US Lewiston was moving along the Willamette River when crew members saw a body floating in the water. State medical examiner Dr. William Brady said Robert Nathaniel Presley, 29, drowned to death. Apparently, Presley threw himself off the Hawthorne Bridge into the river. There was no evidence of foul play and the death was ruled a suicide.

Presley never found himself in this world. He could’ve been a star. But he chose to live a life of drugs and booze. Surely, there’s a lesson to be learned from this tale of woe.