00;00;00;05 - 00;00;23;18
Joe Carr
Hello. My name is Joe Carr. When fans start listing the legends from the long and glorious history of Providence College basketball, it doesn't take long to get to the name Ernie DiGregorio. First team all-American NBA Rookie of the Year, a leader and a star on the team that made the Friars famous in the 1973 Final Four. And the ultimate local guy makes good story.

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Joe Carr
That's Ernie Dee, And Ernie is our guest today. Thanks for joining us, Ernie.

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Ernie DiGregorio
Joe, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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Joe Carr
Great to be here in the lane Friar Development Center, where the friars practice now the home of Friar Basketball. I heard you missed a shot the other day out there, though.

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Ernie DiGregorio
I miss a lot of them. Now, at 72 years old, it gets a little tough in the Vandals knees.

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Joe Carr
But you made the other nine. Well, so that's pretty good.

00;00;43;08 - 00;00;57;13
Ernie DiGregorio
I used to shoot free throws when I was ten years old all the way up till 27, 100 a day, and keep track. So when you do it and you keep track, once you start making 93, 94 in a row, you feel pretty confident on that free throw.

00;00;57;15 - 00;01;07;05
Joe Carr
That muscle memory is a great thing. Yeah. Kim English and his staff seem to be making a real effort to keep the program alumni involved in the program. Are you feeling that? Do you think that's important?

00;01;07;07 - 00;01;27;05
Ernie DiGregorio
Oh, I think it's hugely important because, you know, that's what makes this college what it is the alumni and the history. And he's a tremendous coach and even a better person. I really come to a lot of practices and really respect the fact that he asks my opinion and lets me talk to the team and my teammate Kevin take him.

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Ernie DiGregorio
So he's been special.

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Joe Carr
And there's a real connector to all this. A guy named Harold Starks, who played for the Friars in the late eighties. He's on the senior staff here in athletics too. And a former player, a guy who really forges those connections, doesn't he?

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Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, he does a great job with the former players. And I have a lot of respect for Harold. I always tell him he was a defensive player, but he definitely couldn't stop me.

00;01;50;13 - 00;01;59;15
Joe Carr
It goes without saying for sure. So what's your outlook for the Friars this year as we speak? They're Cubano preparing to play Wisconsin tomorrow night. A good start.

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Ernie DiGregorio
No question. You've got to keep winning games. And they have like I think, eight or nine players that'll contribute. They play really hard. And the only thing that scares me about any team today, whether it be PC or any team, is I think when you rely on that three point shot all the time. There's an old saying in the NBA, you live by the jumper, you die by the jumper.

00;02;23;07 - 00;02;36;01
Ernie DiGregorio
I'd like to see any team take it to the basket and get foul. They get free throws because it gives you that confidence and in a rhythm. But he's been playing great and I look for them to have a real good year.

00;02;36;05 - 00;02;51;22
Joe Carr
Yeah, it'll be fun to see how it plays out when you go to games at the app and look at 12,000 people there. It's just an incredible home court atmosphere. Do you ever think about the fact that you played on the first team that played in what was then the Civic Center and all this has become in terms of a home home environment?

00;02;51;27 - 00;03;18;29
Ernie DiGregorio
Oh, yeah, it's huge. Providence has a history going way back, you know, with Joe Mulaney of supporting the team and really loving their friars. And you have to use that to your advantage and come out and be aggressive and get the crowd involved. Because when the crowd gets involved, then the officials get involved and they don't want to blow a whistle and have 12,000 people screaming at them, you get stuck getting the calls.

00;03;19;01 - 00;03;25;22
Ernie DiGregorio
So I really like the way PC plays really hard and taking it to the basket and getting the crowd involved.

00;03;25;23 - 00;03;28;04
Joe Carr
Spoken like somebody who's won a lot of basketball games.

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Ernie DiGregorio
So we never lost when I was there in the Civic Center because we had this guy named Marvin Bonds who could rebound and he made a difference.

00;03;36;02 - 00;03;52;08
Joe Carr
One of the reasons we wanted to visit with you today is to talk about your autobiography, A Star with a Broken Heart. So this title of the book says a lot about what you are trying to say with this with this piece. Tell us the story that you want us to learn from this book.

00;03;52;09 - 00;04;12;26
Ernie DiGregorio
And the story is that, you know, I grew up watching the great players of Providence College, Lenny Wilkens, Johnny Egan, Jimmy Walker, and you can go on and on. And that made such an impression on me. I wanted to play for Providence College, and I did it. I was fortunate to play for a great coach and a brilliant human being.

00;04;12;26 - 00;04;50;14
Ernie DiGregorio
And Dave Gavitt, who was our coach and went on to establish the Big East and become a major power in college basketball. And also my teammate was Marvin Bonds, the rebounded defensive player and a dear friend of mine. As the years went on, we bonded, the three of us, and we had a relationship that was really strong. And this book is about the history of the three of us together, fighting our battles on and off the court and in the end, you know, they both have deceased and they passed away.

00;04;50;16 - 00;05;23;22
Ernie DiGregorio
And I'm the only guy left. And I just thought it was important for me to tell the story about those special moments that I cherish that we had together. And the title of the book is, you know, with those two guys gone, my family, my basketball family is no longer there. So I thought of the title, believe it or not, when I was driving to Buffalo because I couldn't come up with the title and I was singing to myself because trying to stay awake in the car and I came up with a star with a broken heart, and I said, Gee, that sounds like the title.

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Ernie DiGregorio
And I called my daughter, who went to PC and graduated. She loved it. And I called my buddy from TJ Max, this gentleman, Ben Cammarata, the founder, and he loved it. And that's how we got the title.

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Joe Carr
So much of the book is really about focuses on your relationship with Marvin Barnes. You refer to him many times as your brother. There's a great anecdote near the beginning of the book about him coming to your home in North Providence for Sunday dinners with your family. Tell just tell us about your relationship with your teammate.

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Ernie DiGregorio
Well, the thing that we had was we both had the same goal, which was to be a professional basketball player. So we worked on every single day in practice to reach that goal and we became very close. And those days, race relationship was really crazy, just like, you know, it still is now. You know, a lot of the blacks hated the whites.

00;06;15;29 - 00;06;36;11
Ernie DiGregorio
The whites hated the blacks. And it was really weird that him and I got together because all my friends used to say, What do you hang with that guy for him for? And his friends used to say, Why are you hanging? You know what, Ernie? You know, he's not black. And so we never looked at color. We just looked at the goal.

00;06;36;11 - 00;06;58;22
Ernie DiGregorio
And he was a funny guy and he was really smart, you know, And we just got along really well. He eventually came to my wedding and he used to come over my house on Sundays and he dinner with my family. He loved my mother, made like a typical Italian mother, macaroni and B balls. And I used to go to his house with his mother, Lula, who was a beautiful lady.

00;06;58;25 - 00;07;02;27
Ernie DiGregorio
And we just formed the relationship that was unbreakable.

00;07;02;29 - 00;07;05;27
Joe Carr
Tell us about his game, the things he could do on the court.

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Ernie DiGregorio
Well, he was a he was a very coordinated six foot nine guy that when he got to rebound, he would pitch me the ball and I would throw him a long pass. And even if you threw it at his feet, he was so coordinated he could catch it in stride and score and excuse me. So he was very naturally gifted as far as having coordination.

00;07;29;12 - 00;07;50;10
Ernie DiGregorio
Well, what separated him from almost anybody And if you look into the PC yearbook, he sets all the records for rebounds. I mean, he averaged like 19 rebounds for three years in a row, which was phenomenal. And when he rebounded, he would get me the ball and sometimes he'd be the first guy to beat everybody down the court and get a layup.

00;07;50;12 - 00;08;03;01
Ernie DiGregorio
So he had some unbelievable skills when college, then went on to the ABA and developed his offensive game and became a great offensive player On top of it, there was no limit to how great he was.

00;08;03;08 - 00;08;07;20
Joe Carr
So it was essentially a fast break offense, which you start with the defensive rebounds.

00;08;07;23 - 00;08;28;01
Ernie DiGregorio
And yeah, Coach Gabbert was super because he had no ego. A lot of coaches like to control their players and tell him where to go and what pass and do this. Coach Gavitt knew that I had an ability to make people better and pass the ball and you know, he let me do my thing. He let me set up people.

00;08;28;05 - 00;08;45;02
Ernie DiGregorio
Soon as Marvin rebounded, he got it to me and we were off to the races. If we didn't get a fast break layup, then we would just move the ball. I tell people to this day they still don't believe it. We never ran a play. If we played Zone, we get in the gaps and move the ball. If we played against man to man, we play pick and roll.

00;08;45;04 - 00;08;59;27
Ernie DiGregorio
But he had the first team all-American, both of us. Were you know, in each of those years. And then he had two guys that made Rookie the year in the NBA. Me and Marvin made Rookie of the Year in the NBA. So he had two really talented players.

00;08;59;29 - 00;09;19;19
Joe Carr
With an era. This was So Marvin came along for your second year and then Kevin's take him transferred in from your third year from Holy Cross. So you have the three of you on the team that went to the Final Four and we'll talk a lot more about that experience in a few minutes. But it's also, as we mentioned, the transition to playing at the big arena downtown.

00;09;19;27 - 00;09;23;03
Joe Carr
Did you have a sense that this was really growing into something big?

00;09;23;09 - 00;09;40;24
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, we knew it. We knew our junior year, you know, Marvin had a year experience that we had a great team and coach gathered, did something that very few coaches ever do. He took me in his office and he said, Ernie, you got the keys to the offense. We're going to go as far as you can take it.

00;09;40;27 - 00;10;08;06
Ernie DiGregorio
And any player that's a player's dream to be allowed to make mistakes and to be able to create. And he allowed me to throw behind the back passes and all those things. And so the thing that made Coach Gavitt special was he had no ego. He let us be ourselves and let us play to our strengths. And when we added Kevin's take him, we added someone who could score on the wing and could run.

00;10;08;09 - 00;10;26;13
Ernie DiGregorio
So now we had the whole nucleus and then Costello Frank Costello gave us a69 guy who could rebound, who was unselfish and they were looking good, stick the little short jumper and could run and Crawford could rebound. So we had six players and we went 24 and two with six players.

00;10;26;15 - 00;10;40;17
Joe Carr
So the third person in this holy trinity of Friar basketball and the other subject of this book, whom you talk a lot about in the book is Coach Gabbert. What was it about him that made him special to you beyond his prowess and his expertise as a coach?

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Ernie DiGregorio
Well, because he was a real person, you know, he didn't think he was better than anybody and treated us all with respect. And the players would run through a wall for him because they knew he had our back. He kept it very simple and he allowed us to use our strengths and cover up our weaknesses. And every single day we went to practice.

00;11;05;08 - 00;11;32;13
Ernie DiGregorio
It was fun and we couldn't wait to have practice because we knew we were getting better. And his philosophy was always, It's not where you start, it's where you finish. Because he wanted us peaking for the NCAA tournament at the end of the year. And that year, our my senior year, we made it to the Final Four and we were 16 points ahead of Memphis State until Marvin got hurt and then we couldn't run our fast break.

00;11;32;13 - 00;11;49;25
Ernie DiGregorio
And so we got beat. So we would have had a great chance of beating that team Memphis State and played UCLA for the final. And that would have been the second time we played them. We played them out and play Pavillion early in the year and we played them a close game, but we lost. But we were peaking.

00;11;49;28 - 00;12;09;02
Joe Carr
And these relationships continued after that. You're playing days and Mervyn's ended later in the 1970s. Let's talk about all of these some of the the things that happened around these relationships. And a lot of it has to do with the demons that the Marvin Barnes faced. His struggles are well known as for much of the rest of the rest of his life.

00;12;09;02 - 00;12;17;03
Joe Carr
You became a teammate, really, of a different kind. Tell us more about your relationship with Marvin over the next 40 years. Really until he died in 2014?

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Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah. Coach Gavitt always used to tell me, Ernie, your greatest assist and wasn't on the basketball court. It was keeping your brother alive. And Marvin struggled. We all knew it. He had his times where, you know, he cleaned up and got his act together. But those demons always came back and I chronicle them in the book how both me and Coach Gavitt did everything we could to help Marvin, and we had some success.

00;12;44;08 - 00;13;19;19
Ernie DiGregorio
But in the end, you know, the drugs won and we lost him. But the experiences we had that I outlined in the book were really unique and special because they were two really great people and so talented in their own ways. You know, Coach Gavitt was a genius in college basketball for years after he retired from coaching, and Marvin was a genius on the court and it was very special and when I lost those guys, you know, I lost family because they were my basketball family.

00;13;19;24 - 00;13;33;06
Joe Carr
It's notable that several times during the book you write about how you and coach Gavitt strategized about how to help Marvin. You recount a number of phone conversations in person, conversations about, okay, what are we going to do? How and and how are we going to get to Marvin?

00;13;33;08 - 00;13;54;27
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, because coaches are a lot smarter than me. I mean, Marvin would laugh at me, but he respected Coach Gavitt and he would listen to Coach Gavitt because he knew that Coach Gavitt loved him and had his back and didn't want anything bad to happen to him. But coach was special. He he cared about people and he was a great human being.

00;13;54;27 - 00;13;57;23
Ernie DiGregorio
Besides being a brilliant basketball coach.

00;13;58;00 - 00;14;14;25
Joe Carr
And obviously you did too, because even when you were in the NBA in 1976, you related an anecdote about you were playing for the Buffalo Braves. You took time away from your team to go to Detroit to visit with Marvin, and it sounded really sort of like an intervention in check in with Marvin. But that's during the season.

00;14;14;25 - 00;14;16;07
Joe Carr
Really remarkable that he would do that.

00;14;16;10 - 00;14;37;10
Ernie DiGregorio
Well, because, you know, Marvin can go back quick. You know, he had a history of once he got on those drugs, you know, stuff to stop. And, you know, you worked so hard to get himself clean, you'd hate to see him. You know, something happened to him and, you know, lose his salary. And, you know, more importantly, you know, something bad happened.

00;14;37;12 - 00;14;50;04
Ernie DiGregorio
So Coach Gavitt, I would always call him for advice on how to help, you know, make the situation better for Marvin. And we all work together, even my other teammates, to make it better for him.

00;14;50;06 - 00;15;01;11
Joe Carr
Your numbers 15 and 24 were raised to the rafters the same day. In the book, you have a nice story about the conversation you had with Marvin that day on the court. You relay that. We picked that for us.

00;15;01;14 - 00;15;22;26
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, it was crazy because I get emotional. I'm an emotional person and I was very close to my family, so I immediately thought of my mother, you know, because she passed away, how happy she would be. And then I went over to Marvin to give him a hug, and he was telling me he was a warrior. And I'm saying to myself, What the hell is this guy talking about?

00;15;22;26 - 00;15;54;01
Ernie DiGregorio
I'm a warrior. And I couldn't figure it out until, you know, later on I left. And what I guess he meant was, you know, he had so many demons and so many issues with his health and, you know, the drug history that he, you know, for him to be standing there at that time and getting his, you know, number raised to the rafter, proved that he was a warrior and he fought through all those demons and he was really excited to be in there.

00;15;54;01 - 00;15;58;01
Ernie DiGregorio
And that was a very special, an emotional time for me.

00;15;58;03 - 00;16;16;01
Joe Carr
So, again, the book is called A Star with a Broken Heart. It's available from Barnes and Noble. Now we'll put information in the show notes about how you can get your hands on a copy. And we're also planning for some book signing events at games, at the app before very long, and also at the Barnes Noble Bookstore here on the Providence College campus.

00;16;16;01 - 00;16;37;29
Joe Carr
So it's more about that, about the book and its availability. Let's talk just more broadly about basketball. I'd like to go back to the 1972 73 and have you kind of put things in context for us, That's around the time where college basketball is exploding national television. I think a lot of this probably relates to the success of the first Lew Alcindor and later Bill Walton.

00;16;37;29 - 00;16;46;22
Joe Carr
UCLA teams under Coach Wooden. But the profile of the sport was really kind of beginning to explode. Did you sense that you had this kind of what happened at that time?

00;16;46;23 - 00;17;16;06
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, I think the more visibility into television and that got involved and now you get ESPN coming in and you get all these networks and you know, there's so many games on that it exploded basketball. That was a great time in 73 for me because of I had the opportunity to play for Providence College in what a history Providence College has, Joe, you know, Lenny Wilkins, Johnny Egan, Jimmy Walker.

00;17;16;08 - 00;17;24;01
Ernie DiGregorio
I mean, you can go way back, way before we played in 73 and we just wanted to be just like them.

00;17;24;03 - 00;17;36;18
Joe Carr
The friars were limited by by Memphis State in that Final Four, as you mentioned just a minute ago, most fans seem to agree with you that if Marvin had not gotten hurt in that game, there's virtually no way he would have lost the game. They hadn't been into the.

00;17;36;20 - 00;17;56;22
Ernie DiGregorio
16 and we were running it down their throats, So we would have kept running and running and I would couldn't believe that they could come back and they couldn't stop it. But when he left and he couldn't run anymore and his knee locked up on him, we couldn't get the rebound. And you can't run unless you get, you know, a rebound.

00;17;56;22 - 00;18;14;15
Ernie DiGregorio
And Joe, an outlet pass. So we had to play half court and they were too big. They would get two and three shots on the offensive end and we'd be one and done when we shot. So that made the difference. You can't you take 19 rebounds out of the game, you know, that's that's a difference.

00;18;14;17 - 00;18;22;06
Joe Carr
And the other team on the other side of the bracket was Indiana. And this sounds like a bad idea, but there was a third place game in the Final Four. You ended up playing against Indiana.

00;18;22;11 - 00;18;37;24
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, because, you know, once you lose, you are deflated. Right. And you know, the third place game is like no one's really playing with any purpose because, you know, you go for the national championship. They eventually got rid of that third place game and they don't.

00;18;37;24 - 00;18;38;11
Joe Carr
A good idea.

00;18;38;16 - 00;18;46;12
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, because it didn't make any sense because now this March Madness has ballooned to like a spectacle where everybody watches it.

00;18;46;19 - 00;18;55;00
Joe Carr
But at least it's an opportunity for me to ask you if you had any beyond that, any other interaction with Bobby Knight, who, of course, just died recently. So a lot of people have been sharing Bobby Knight stories.

00;18;55;04 - 00;19;20;12
Ernie DiGregorio
No, I never really knew Bobby Knight that well. But my teammate Kevin Steak did, because his teammate and my teammate, John Havlicek at Boston, he used to be Bobby Knight's teammate at Ohio State. So a lot of times Kevin said he would go out on a road trip with the Celtics and Havlicek would go out to lunch with Bobby Knight, and Kevin would go, So you got to know, Yeah.

00;19;20;13 - 00;19;27;19
Joe Carr
It wasn't very long after that raid. So four years later, he had the undefeated team, right? 76. So you put that together.

00;19;27;23 - 00;19;32;27
Ernie DiGregorio
He could coach. You just had a temper. You know what I mean? That temper sooner or later, will catch up.

00;19;32;27 - 00;19;55;09
Joe Carr
With quite a figure in the history of the sport, that's for sure. Yeah. So after that senior season, you had an interesting experience, which was the opportunity to play for Team USA and a six game sort of barnstorming tour with the team against the team from the Soviet Union. Coach By your sort of stylistic ancestor, Bob Cousy, what was that experience like for you and how did that help get you prepared for starting to play in pro basketball?

00;19;55;09 - 00;20;16;28
Ernie DiGregorio
It was very physical. Russia played a very physical brand of basketball. They look like football players. They were really big. They didn't have the fluidity that the USA had, but they had the physical strength and they wanted a bang. And it was a great six game series. We had a lot of fun. They beat us twice. I think we beat them four times.

00;20;17;00 - 00;20;33;27
Ernie DiGregorio
The big game for me and Marvin was the one in Madison Square Garden where we beat him in overtime and I put a little dribble and show on AP at the end where they were trying to get the ball on and I hit Muhammad Ali, dunked it underneath it. I remember him running down the court with his arms up in the air.

00;20;33;29 - 00;20;55;23
Ernie DiGregorio
So that that six game series was really good because in the beginning we had Walton on our team, but the Russians went for his knees and he quit after one game. So after that, you know, it was more a freelance open type of a game fast break, and I had a lot of fun. It really gave me some great exposure to the national TV audience.

00;20;55;25 - 00;20;58;29
Joe Carr
Didn't you hit a shot in Madison Square Garden to put that game into overtime?

00;20;58;29 - 00;21;12;10
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, the last two buckets, you know, And they get us there. And I remember after that game, I was exhausted, you know, very few games. I can actually say that I was spent, but I was I was exhausted.

00;21;12;13 - 00;21;32;16
Joe Carr
Those games meant a lot to back again to historical context because that's just a little more than a year after Team USA really got robbed in the Olympics in that game against against the Russian team, the only time up to that point, USA, the Team USA had failed to win the gold medal. So I suspect that there was a lot of emotion and really some extra pressure because of that, right?

00;21;32;18 - 00;21;51;24
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, well, I feel a pressure because when you play this game and you played as much as I did, it's just part of who you are. And to succeed at a certain level, you never think of pressure. You just do what you do every single day. Remember, I played this game 10 hours a day since I was ten years old.

00;21;52;01 - 00;22;12;11
Ernie DiGregorio
If you're not good after that, you've got give it up. So but a lot of people were wanting revenge after the US got robbed. Everybody knows, you know, they won that game and that was, you know, that was terrible. But it was really physical. Russia was no slouch. I'm telling you. They were good.

00;22;12;13 - 00;22;17;15
Joe Carr
What was the story about you talking Bob Cousy into changing the offense when you run?

00;22;17;18 - 00;22;22;26
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, well, when Walton left, that left when Nader as our center is.

00;22;22;26 - 00;22;23;27
Joe Carr
Back up at UCLA.

00;22;23;27 - 00;22;41;12
Ernie DiGregorio
Exactly. And, you know, it's one thing to throw the ball into Walton because he was a great passer and he was such a great player. He made everybody better. But one day he didn't have that skill. So Coach Cousy will allow us to keep John the ball. So one it. And I said, you know, I called up my agent.

00;22;41;12 - 00;23;00;14
Ernie DiGregorio
I said, you know, I'm out of here. He said, What do you mean? I says, Walton is one thing, but to drive this one, Nader I mean, that's crazy. He says, Do me one favor before you leave. Go talk to the coach. So I went into his room, hotel room, knocked on the door. He was with his coach in a college bus.

00;23;00;15 - 00;23;19;18
Ernie DiGregorio
The sharing. I said, Coach, I'm leaving. He said, What do you mean leave leaving? I says, Exactly. You know, you want to get the ball in just one night. He's not Bill Walton. He said, I said, all these other guys feel the same way, but they're scared to tell you. He says, Well, what do you want? I said, Just let us open it up, Let us freelance, let us run.

00;23;19;21 - 00;23;24;10
Ernie DiGregorio
And no one knew how to run more than Bob Cousy, right? He was the magician.

00;23;24;15 - 00;23;25;01
Joe Carr
Invented it.

00;23;25;01 - 00;23;31;20
Ernie DiGregorio
Yes, he invented it. So he said, You got it. So he let us run it and the rest was history. We played great.

00;23;31;22 - 00;23;50;16
Joe Carr
So after that, you were out there. You're drafted third overall by the Buffalo Braves. But at that time there also the ABA in operation, You're picked there by the Kentucky colonels. And part of the draw to Kentucky might have been the Joe Mulaney who had recruited you initially to pick. He was the coach. Yeah, there. But but you decided to go in the NBA direction and play with Buffalo.

00;23;50;23 - 00;23;53;04
Joe Carr
Take us through that thought process and that decision.

00;23;53;04 - 00;24;15;08
Ernie DiGregorio
Well, you know, my whole life I've always been told, you know, I'm too short, I'm too slow. I could never play a class-A in high school. I played in be we won the championship. We could never play in a Then I went to prep school They say you can never play at college. Then I went to PC as a freshman and we won a lot of games and I scored 30 points.

00;24;15;08 - 00;24;38;08
Ernie DiGregorio
You'll never make the varsity and I make the varsity. You'll never be an all-American. Now, as an all-American, you'll never be a pro. And I was rookie the year one guy said it best. He always said to me, Ernie, after you made Rookie the year, the only skeptics that remained the true skeptics. So I knew in my heart, you know, I understand the money is very important on both sides.

00;24;38;08 - 00;25;12;09
Ernie DiGregorio
You got to listen to the ABA and the NBA, but I wanted to play against the greatest players in the world because that was a life long dream of mine to compete against. Jerry West, Oscar Robinson, Earl Monroe, Tony Archibald. These guys were unbelievable. Calvin Murphy and I did it. So even though we had, you know, negotiations with Kentucky and I sat through them and they offered more money than Buffalo, I definitely wanted to play in the NBA and that's why I picked the NBA.

00;25;12;14 - 00;25;21;05
Joe Carr
Is it accurate to say that John Mulaney initially recruited you a PC and he was in on your decision to pick the Thomas Moore Prep route right before coming to pick?

00;25;21;05 - 00;25;56;19
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, Joe was here. Dave was at Dartmouth. You know, we went to Dartmouth, the coach's alma mater, and I had a lot of respect for John Mulaney. He really knew the game. And I used to go to a lot of PC games in Alumni Hall and watch, you know, all the great players, you know, Locker And I see Larranaga Colucci and Donnie Lewis and players like that and just the TV of watching PC and Chris Clarke put an impression in my brain and I said I that's where I got to go because I had scholarships all over the country.

00;25;56;19 - 00;26;21;12
Ernie DiGregorio
You know, I didn't even visit another school. That's how my mind was set. The PC is where I have to go. And, you know, I, I always told coach, you have it in the book. I say that after it was done, the reality of playing for the dream, for playing for PC was one thing, but the reality was better than the dream.

00;26;21;15 - 00;26;33;26
Ernie DiGregorio
You know, the way it turned out, the the career I had there and that last year was so special that what, 50 years later we're sitting here talking about it.

00;26;33;29 - 00;26;43;05
Joe Carr
Let's talk a little bit more about the NBA experience and what an era of the NBA of everybody you played against. Who are you most proud of having shared the court with?

00;26;43;08 - 00;27;04;20
Ernie DiGregorio
Well, that's a tough question because there's so many great ones. But I got a kick out of playing against Pete Maravich because he was such a showman, you know? And one of my favorite stories in the book was that we used to fly commercial in those days, and we just got beat by Atlanta and were both flying out of Buffalo Airport.

00;27;04;22 - 00;27;23;03
Ernie DiGregorio
And I used to have my little headsets and I'm sitting on the ground waiting to get boarded and stuff like that. And Pete comes up to me and I had been benched and not playing that much. And so I was going through a tough time. And he says, Ernie, how you doing? I said, I'm all right, Pete. He says, Remember one thing.

00;27;23;05 - 00;27;45;16
Ernie DiGregorio
Once they get your confidence, it's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And I'll never forget that, you know, because he went through some tough times, you know, when he played. Sometimes when you make a lot of money and other people don't, there's an envy factor there. And so Maravich went that through his career, and I had a little bit of that myself when I played in Buffalo.

00;27;45;18 - 00;28;08;11
Ernie DiGregorio
But one of the most things I'm proud of is even though I was so upset with Ramsey because, you know, he benched me and played me a lot at the end. Then he eventually got fired. I became really good friends with him. At the end of his life, he passed away from cancer and maybe about a year before I called him up and buried the hatchet.

00;28;08;11 - 00;28;17;25
Ernie DiGregorio
And we became good friends and he was happy. And I kept really close with him so that that special to me, they know that I had that relationship with him at the end of his life.

00;28;17;28 - 00;28;28;29
Joe Carr
Yeah, it's a great story. Now, during your playing days in your second career, the injury happened. You know, that really changed everything. So tell us about that, how it happened and what that did to the trajectory of your career.

00;28;29;01 - 00;28;53;11
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, when I had my rookie year, you know, being Rookie of the Year speaks for itself. I led the league in assists in free throws. Then my second year we play up in Boston. The first game, I start off in Boston with 33 points because once you get that experience, you know you're a lot better player, you get a lot more comfortable, you have a lot more poise, and we go and play Chicago.

00;28;53;11 - 00;29;16;15
Ernie DiGregorio
And I had 25. So I'm saying to myself, This is going to be an all star year. I will be an All-Star this year. And then we go out to the West Coast and play some games. First game is Golden State and Golden State, and I just made a step to my left and turned to make just a normal pass, and I felt a little pinch in my knee and then it swelled up so I knew something was wrong.

00;29;16;18 - 00;29;39;03
Ernie DiGregorio
And I came out of the game and we continued. On that West Coast trip to Phenix, Seattle and a couple other places. And everywhere I went they had a doctor check me. You know, they didn't really go through a thorough examination, but they checked my knee and they said, you know, you just straight that you'll be fine. Start lifting weights.

00;29;39;03 - 00;29;58;01
Ernie DiGregorio
And I knew something's wrong because my knee never, ever swelled up. So I get home to Buffalo and I go see our team doctor. Steve Johnson was a great guy and he said, Doc, how you doing? He said, Not too good. My mom just had a stroke. And when I heard that news, I said to myself, I'll bet you I don't have any good news either.

00;29;58;04 - 00;30;13;21
Ernie DiGregorio
And they shot My knee would die. Like that's how they did it. And had we been done, I could still feel a pain. Oh, it hurt. And there was a torn cartilage. Now, today they go in with half the scope of surgery and they just take the cartilage out and boom, you're ready to play in a couple of weeks.

00;30;13;23 - 00;30;33;08
Ernie DiGregorio
Then they took the whole cartilage out, put you in a full cast, put you in a hospital for four or five days. So when I came back, I felt good. I was jumping. I was almost dunking it. But the doctor told me I wasn't locking my leg. They wanted you to put your leg straightened and lock your knee.

00;30;33;10 - 00;30;55;18
Ernie DiGregorio
So he made me do these weightlifting things all over again. And it was dragged on for about a month or so. When I came back, the team was winning and they didn't want to change that chemistry, which I can understand. So I never played that much. But, you know, I say to myself, people say, Well, that's too bad.

00;30;55;20 - 00;31;08;20
Ernie DiGregorio
I said, It could have happened in college and I would never even been Rookie of the Year and in a never signed a great contract that I did sign. So I have no regrets. That's that's part of life. You know, you have ups and downs and that was one of the tough times.

00;31;08;22 - 00;31;20;04
Joe Carr
A little bit out of order. But let's go back to the better times and talk about that Rookie of the year. Looking at some of the things that happened that season, you having one game with 25 assists, New Year's Day and 1974.

00;31;20;07 - 00;31;20;27
Ernie DiGregorio
And Portland.

00;31;20;27 - 00;31;33;22
Joe Carr
And Portland of all places. So that was great. But leading the NBA in free throw shooting is pretty tricky when Rick Barry is in the NBA, right? So that was pretty close. You had to you just kind of edged him out.

00;31;33;24 - 00;31;49;24
Ernie DiGregorio
You're right. And the amazing thing is we were out in Golden State a day early before we were playing them. They had a game. I went to the game and we were like, you could see all year long in the newspaper. He was ahead of me by five percentage points. I was right behind him. So he goes to the line.

00;31;49;24 - 00;32;02;03
Ernie DiGregorio
He does that, Oh, the hard thing, I'll miss it any less. And I beat them like .90 to the point eight, nine nine. So maybe I got lucky that I pulled them and he missed it.

00;32;02;06 - 00;32;20;28
Joe Carr
Taking matters into your own hands. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's ahead of us. So after that period of your career in Buffalo, you had a brief time in L.A. with Lakers. That didn't go very well, but then you had a back in New England. You finish your career with the Boston Celtics. What do you how do you reflect on your NBA career in its entirety?

00;32;21;00 - 00;32;22;18
Joe Carr
Any regrets?

00;32;22;21 - 00;32;43;12
Ernie DiGregorio
No. You can't look back and regret. You know, it could have been a lot better if I didn't get hurt. You know, I would have played 1015, 12 years and, you know, weren't doing some of the amazing things. But you know that that's the card God gives you and you have to deal with it. But like, I'll be going back to Buffalo this week and the people love me there.

00;32;43;15 - 00;33;08;06
Ernie DiGregorio
And it's it was a great four years in Buffalo because of some of the things I accomplished and the play with the Lakers which if I was was interesting but to be able to throw John Havlicek his last basket the last assist anybody gave to him, that's a special thing in my life. So I look back at my career and say, five years, you know, I had some great moments.

00;33;08;06 - 00;33;10;27
Ernie DiGregorio
I had some tough moments, but I wouldn't change it.

00;33;11;04 - 00;33;23;20
Joe Carr
I'm glad you mentioned Hondo. So his last game was your last game? Yeah. Obviously it seems from the way you wrote about about him in the book, he was someone you admired. He was my favorite player when I was a kid. What was that relationship like?

00;33;23;22 - 00;33;51;23
Ernie DiGregorio
First of all, he's the most humble guy you ever want to meet, and he's such a gentleman. He played so hard, you know, is history as well as anyone. He did some unbelievable things. You know, the guy was just a great, great competitor. And like, after we played them in the playoffs our first year in Buffalo, we lose in Buffalo, the six game he comes in the locker room looking for me to come and shake my hand and tell me what a great year I had.

00;33;52;00 - 00;34;09;17
Ernie DiGregorio
So, I mean, that shows you what type of person he is. Why does he have to do that? He's John Havlicek and then when I played with him at Boston, he was funny because Boston used to have practice. They throw the ball up and play a game of seven. When you stay out. And so his team won the game.

00;34;09;17 - 00;34;28;15
Ernie DiGregorio
I come in the next team and he's next to me and he's holding my pants and stuff and he says, Ernie, this is your big chance. He said, Red, he's got to keep an eye on you. You better play good. I looked over the stands and all back was he was sleeping so he had a sense of humor.

00;34;28;15 - 00;34;32;22
Ernie DiGregorio
He was it was just special. Really special.

00;34;32;25 - 00;34;52;14
Joe Carr
So a lifetime of playing basketball. You were involved in thousands of plays. I'd like to talk about one. And you wrote about it in the book. It's in St Louis, 1973, in the Final Four. We see it on the video screen at the app. Yeah, every once in a while to that. Unbelievable. Behind the back pass to Kevin's take a best pass I've ever seen.

00;34;52;18 - 00;34;56;14
Joe Carr
I think probably the best pass anybody's ever seen. Tell us about that play.

00;34;56;16 - 00;35;19;10
Ernie DiGregorio
Well, first of all, like I talk about Coach Gavitt where he had no ego. He that was my game. My game was I practiced 10 hours a day, Joe, on the ball. I didn't have to look at the ball so I could see the floor, that one play. And so I threw those behind the back passes all the time in practice for years and never once the coach gave it ever say, you know, don't do any of that stuff.

00;35;19;17 - 00;35;35;25
Ernie DiGregorio
It wasn't I was being fierce. That was part of my game. So in Memphis, we're playing Memphis State in the Final Four and I get a ball thrown to me and as soon as I got out, I want to run and I see Kevin open. But there was a player right in front of me, so I couldn't throw it like this.

00;35;35;28 - 00;35;56;24
Ernie DiGregorio
So I just turned, took a dribble and turned and threw it behind my back like three quarters length of the court. It went through two guys and Kevin fumbled it at first and then he regained possession and laid it in. So what was amazing to me about that play, not that I threw the pass was the reaction of the crowd.

00;35;57;02 - 00;36;13;02
Ernie DiGregorio
There was like all of a sudden the crowd just went quiet, like saying, What the hell is this guy doing? This guy is nuts. And then when they seen a guy catch it and later and they went crazy, so that was probably the greatest pass I ever threw, you know, And I threw some pretty good ones.

00;36;13;05 - 00;36;17;25
Joe Carr
Was whatever happened to the behind the back pass the lost art, isn't it. Don't see the two point.

00;36;17;25 - 00;36;33;14
Ernie DiGregorio
Play has changed the whole game. So people drive in now and instead of shooting a five foot jump shot or a layup, they throw it out to a guy 30 feet away. I'd rather be shooting a two for a 34. I guarantee you it's a lot easier.

00;36;33;16 - 00;36;45;09
Joe Carr
Interesting you should mention that I was interested in your perspective on that. You obviously had some range, so you would have hit some three pointers, but it sounds like you prefer to have played in the era before The three point.

00;36;45;11 - 00;37;04;02
Ernie DiGregorio
One have played with a three point line. I would never past because it's so easy. And then all of a sudden Marvin would say, if he can do it, I want to do it, then he's not shooting threes. I think the beauty of the game was when players run. PC played that game the other night and they had a couple of fast breaks in a row and it looked so pretty.

00;37;04;02 - 00;37;11;00
Ernie DiGregorio
You know, we you get that guy and you lay it off and he dunks it on, lays it in. That's that's the kind of basketball I like to watch.

00;37;11;03 - 00;37;21;20
Joe Carr
It, of course, change the way defenses are set up, too. So the outside shots aren't really there. You had the working the ball inside would create the opportunity outside when you were playing. And that's that's all different now, right?

00;37;21;20 - 00;37;23;20
Ernie DiGregorio
It's a totally different game.

00;37;23;22 - 00;37;37;16
Joe Carr
That's for sure. A couple of more contemporary things before we wrap up. You had a teammate when you played a PC guy by the name of Jim Larranaga. And look at this, he's still coaching the Friars might even be playing him a week or so from now. Did you always see a coach in Jim?

00;37;37;16 - 00;38;02;19
Ernie DiGregorio
Larry I did, because he was a real smart player. He knew how to he didn't over dribble it. He the game simple he move it out the ball and you could tell for some ever play when I knew that I knew how to play you know and he just carried that over and I think the thing that makes him a special coach and I watch him coach, in fact, I've even gone down to Miami to visit him is he simplifies it.

00;38;02;24 - 00;38;22;00
Ernie DiGregorio
He doesn't overcoat you and other words to me, there's no advantage if you throw the ball 15 times around the outside. The key is to get it in the basket. So Larranaga will let one of his players isolate and just go one on one and score or go two on two. And when you do that, there's less chance of making mistakes.

00;38;22;02 - 00;38;41;23
Ernie DiGregorio
I think it's really important when any team plays to recognize what a good shot is. And that was Havlicek used to tell me, if you can't make a 15 foot shot, shouldn't be playing. So sometimes guys will get open for 15 feet and they don't even look to shoot. They pass it out. They want to shoot a 30 foot Larranaga it's not like that.

00;38;41;23 - 00;38;44;24
Ernie DiGregorio
You watch his Miami team, he lets them take the good shot.

00;38;44;26 - 00;38;51;23
Joe Carr
So you knew he'd be a coach, but did you ever think he'd still be coaching 52 years later? Yeah, it's a long time. Yeah.

00;38;52;00 - 00;39;05;11
Ernie DiGregorio
I think he can coach you. He likes it. He loves it. You know what I mean? And he was at George Mason for a long time, but now he's in the SCC and that's a primo job. He's not giving up that job unless they they.

00;39;05;13 - 00;39;08;13
Joe Carr
Them out the final four last year so he's doing okay Right. And he.

00;39;08;13 - 00;39;09;18
Ernie DiGregorio
Must be making big.

00;39;09;18 - 00;39;15;08
Joe Carr
Money it would seem like it the friars in Miami may be on a collision course to play in that tournament in the.

00;39;15;08 - 00;39;16;03
Ernie DiGregorio
Bahamas.

00;39;16;05 - 00;39;42;04
Joe Carr
This weekend. Let's talk just a little bit about your your place in the history of Rhode Island basketball. And this is a little bit of a stretch there. I'm thinking of a lineage that starts with you goes to Tom Garrick. Then you can maybe go to Chris Herren. That's Fall River. But, you know, close enough. His coach was a PC guy, John Missoula, the Celtics coach, and Tyler Kollek, now the Big East player of the year at Marquette.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;52;10
Joe Carr
You take any pride in seeing what's become of Rhode Island basketball and you see anything to that idea that you may be kind of a linchpin to some of what's happened since?

00;39;52;12 - 00;39;57;16
Ernie DiGregorio
I think only you could figure that and figure that out because I would have thought of that.

00;39;57;19 - 00;39;58;16
Joe Carr
It's all yours now.

00;39;58;17 - 00;40;21;06
Ernie DiGregorio
Yeah, I you know, one good thing, when Marquette came and played Providence, I went over to meet that guy Tyler and from Cumberland, and I introduced myself and he said to me, you know, a lot of people compare my game with yours. And I said, Well, that's pretty interesting. Good luck. So I'm happy for him. He loves the game.

00;40;21;06 - 00;40;46;19
Ernie DiGregorio
He works hard, you know? I know. Joe Missoula. I know. Garrick They all played hard. You know, I think a lot of people underestimate, you know, people in Rhode Island that play basketball. But the guy that stands out to me, Joe, he has it was a great high school player and college player and stands out to me. It's the guy in my book, Marvin was he was one hell of a basketball player.

00;40;46;21 - 00;40;52;02
Ernie DiGregorio
And with him, Joe, he could make you the point guard with that guy.

00;40;52;04 - 00;41;13;02
Joe Carr
I'm not so sure about that, but thanks anyway. So. Well, that's. That's all I've got on my mind. Jerry, thanks so much. It's been a lot of fun. Appreciate your time. And once again, folks, the name of the book is Star with a Broken Heart, available from Barnes Noble. Again, book signings coming up at games at the Open, at the Barnes Noble Store here on the Providence College campus.

00;41;13;02 - 00;41;22;23
Joe Carr
Really happy you joined us for this conversation for our producer, Chris Judge, our crew, Ryan Haenow and Bridget Anthony. I'm Joe Carr. Thanks very much. Have a good day.