Jim O'Donnell: Frisk, Whisler helped Travelers blaze lost local CBA trail

IN HIS 50 YEARS SHEPHERDING the sports department of The Daily Herald, Bob Frisk assigned himself to be the primary reporter on a pro sports beat only once.

That rarity happened in the winter of 1970-71 and the team was the Northwest Travelers of the Continental Basketball Association.

The tale is inbounds this week because of the recent passing of Jack Whisler at 84.

Frisk and Whisler were old chums from Arlington High School.

Whisler was on his way to becoming an extraordinary influence in regional real estate and other businesses through his Brian Properties.

He and fellow local dreamers including the late Ron Wittmeyer Sr. decided the area needed a little wintertime sports fizz.

So the Travelers were born.

Their CBA was a compact eight-team, three-state weekend league. It had franchises ranging from the bright lights of Milwaukee, Peoria, Rockford and Grand Rapids on down to Waukesha, Waukegan and Decatur.

Most Travelers home game were played Sunday nights at the Prospect High field house. Admission was $2.

On a good night, the team might draw 1,200 or so. More common, the live gate was closer to 500.

For those who got into it, a Travelers game was great entertainment.

"Nights we're never going to forget," according to a devil-eyed teen named Steve Schillinger, who took action on the over/under for every game at 227½ points.

The roster boasted some forgettables but also shooting stars like Curtis Perry, Paul Ruffner and Charlie Tucker.

Perry was a project with NBA spring who was on horizontal hold with Tex Winter and the transitting San Diego/Houston Rockets.

One season after his time with the Travelers, he'd be contributing to the defending world champion Milwaukee Bucks alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

His career peaked in 1975-76 with the Phoenix Suns. He started and led the Suns in rebounding on the incredible June Friday night at the Boston Garden when the Celtics won Game 5 of the NBA Finals in triple OT.

Ruffner was a 6-foot-10 second-round draft pick of the Bulls out of Brigham Young. Dick Motta and GM Pat Williams sent him out Northwest for seasoning.

He was good. But his lasting imprint on Bulls history would come in the 1971 off-season.

It was then that the Bulls dispatched him and two exhibition games to the Pittsburgh Condors of the American Basketball Association to settle the dispute over rights to Howard Porter.

Porter led an improbable dash to the NCAA championship game against UCLA by Villanova that spring. The Bulls drafted him in the first round.

The problem was, Porter had secretly signed with the Condors midway through the Villanova season. Eventually, the university had to vacate almost all vestiges of its magical ride.

At Chicago Stadium, Porter had all the impact of a spilled beer

Tucker was an uber-energized left-handed point guard.

His biggest basketball legacy would come around 15 years later as "Dr. Charles Tucker" - doctorate in psychology. He worked with Chicago attorney George Andrews in steering the careers of Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas and Mark Aguirre, among others.

But the most memorable Traveler of all was burly, defiant Sevira Brown.

Brown was a South Sider who - along with Bryant and Greg Gumbel - was in the first wave of Black students at De La Salle Institute, the Roman Catholic bastion on 35th Street that produced both Mayor Daleys.

He was later a decent player for Ray Meyer during the coach's "wilderness years." Fellow Blue Demons included Ken Warzynski and St. Viator's Paul Pomplum.

For the Travelers, he was a poor man's Wes Unseld with a "Mod Squad" mien. And more than enforcer, he was also instigator.

The grand highlight of practically any Travelers game was a wild, theatrical brawl, frequently bloody - real blood - featuring Brown.

One Sunday, the predictable Brown bout was so intense that confused police from Mount Prospect and Arlington Heights were called.

They arrived, saw bloody towels, peered through the crowd and found a lot of fingers pointing toward Ol' Sev.

Player-coach Jack Air - who smoked cigarettes at halftime - prevented any arrest.

In the end, the Travelers scored a lot of points, captured a few hearts and seldom won any games.

Frisk was relentlessly positive. Whisler, Wittmeyer and associates did their part.

But the initiative was one-and-done.

Less than a decade later, a newer iteration of the CBA would stretch from Maine to Alaska and serve as the foundation for what is now the NBA's G League.

The Arlington Heights-Mount Prospect pro basketball corridor was nowhere to be found on the new minor league map.

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• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.