Bill Lyon | Tragedy, triumph in a well-worn life

His special genius was fashioned out of scavenged junk: The backboard was a cracked plank of plywood, the basket was a rusted bicycle tire rim, and the ball, thrown out with someone else's garbage, had been dribbled until the seams were worn smooth.

And by the light of the Florida sun and of the silvery moon, night and day, day and night, the sweat running off him in little rivers, he honed his jump shot to silky perfection.

He would grow to 6 feet 8, with cannonball shoulders, and he moved with a feline grace, cheetah-sleek. His childhood was one of grinding hopelessness, of fatherless impoverishment, his future a certain dead end. The only way out was through the Oscar Robertson instructional basketball booklet his mother bought, and then a million jump shots followed by 10 million more.

Howard Porter scuffled his way out of despair and that certain dead end, all the way to the Main Line. From 1967 through 1971, he played 89 games for Villanova, scored 2,006 points, grabbed 1,317 rebounds, and blocked shots with such looming fury that cowed opponents became gun-shy. His game was equal parts suppleness and strength, and he made all-America three straight seasons. The man known as "Geezer," likable and cordial, also made hundreds of friends.

In the middle of his senior season, he succumbed to temptation. An agent offered him a signing bonus of $15,000 to put his name on an ABA contract, that league then in competition with the NBA and desperate for talent. If you've never had 15 dollars in your whole life, what must 15 thousand look like?

Porter drove 'Nova all the way to the Final Four in 1971 and into the championship game against John Wooden's UCLA dynasty. 'Nova lost, barely, and Porter was named the most outstanding player. The balloting wasn't even close.

His transgression was soon discovered, his name replaced in the record books by vacated - a cold and unforgiving word. And in those same record books, national runner-up Villanova was labeled with an asterisk that has remained as permanent as a tattoo. From a distance of 36 years, and in the context of all that goes on today, his transgression seems almost benign.

But not then. Then, forgiveness was not immediately forthcoming.