page_title: Kermit Washington
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Kermit Washington / NBA career / The Rudy Tomjanovich incident / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Bob Ryan on the Celtics playing floor before game 7 of the 2009 ECF versus Orlando.
context_page_description: Kermit Alan Washington is an American former professional basketball player. Washington is best remembered for punching opposing player Rudy Tomjanovich during an on-court fight in 1977. His punch nearly killed Tomjanovich, and resulted in severe medical problems. However, Tomjanovich made a full recovery and ultimately made the All-Star team two years later.
  Washington was not a highly coveted player coming out of high school and barely got into college on an athletic scholarship. He averaged a mere four points per game during his senior season of high school. He improved rapidly once at American University, and became one of only seven players in NCAA history to average 20 points and 20 rebounds throughout the course of their career.
  A big defensive forward, Washington was known for his ability to gather rebounds. He averaged 9.2 points and 8.3 rebounds per game in ten National Basketball Association seasons and played in the All-Star Game once. Washington was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers with the fifth overall pick in the 1973 NBA draft. He played sparingly his first three seasons, and sought the help of retired basketball coach Pete Newell before his fourth season.
context_section_description: Worsening matters for Washington, the only available replay of the incident showed just his punch, not the scuffle that preceded it. This made the attack appear unprovoked, and Saturday Night Live, then watched by an average of 30 to 35 million people, replayed the punch countless times as a gag, having cast member Garrett Morris comically defend the punch. It was also the subject of a New York Times editorial and investigated on CBS News by Walter Cronkite. Washington was fined $10,000, and suspended for 60 days, missing 26 games; then the longest suspension for an on-court incident in NBA history. Tomjanovich missed the rest of the season, and the Rockets felt Washington should have been suspended for the same amount of time.
  On-court fights had been all too common in the 1970s, often including bench-clearing brawls. In the season opener, when Abdul-Jabbar punched Benson, no suspension had been levied. However, Washington's punch resulted in the league enacting strict penalties for on-court fights. Former NBA commissioner David Stern, then the NBA's chief counsel, later said that the incident made NBA officials realize that "you couldn't allow men that big and that strong to go around throwing punches at each other." Currently, any player who throws a punch at another player—even if he misses—is automatically ejected from the game, and suspended for at least his team's next game. The league added a third referee to its game crew after the season; this referee would have trailed the play and could have called a foul when Washington grabbed Kunnert's shorts, thereby potentially stopping the play and preventing the melee that succeeded it.
  Washington received no support from the Lakers front office, aside from a single call the day after the fight from Cooke, and was sent torrents of hate mail filled with racial epithets. He was advised by police not to order room service when he played again, as it was feared he would be poisoned. Larry Fleisher, head of the Players' Association, wanted Washington to appeal his suspension, an idea which he originally considered, but ultimately rejected. Although many players around the league sympathized with Washington and said that he had a good reputation off the court, he and his wife became ostracized. They had a two-year-old daughter, and Washington's wife was eight months pregnant with the couple's first son at the time of the punch. His wife recalls she and her children were treated like pariahs after the incident. Her obstetrician refused her service because she was Washington's wife, and her friends asked her what kind of person Washington was that he could commit such an act. The only person who contacted them was Newell. Later in the year Washington went to Newell's home with a big screen television which he insisted Newell accept.
  On December 27, 1977, just two weeks after the incident, Washington was traded to the Boston Celtics. Red Auerbach, Boston's general manager lived in the Washington, D.C. area, and had been a longtime fan of Washington's. His wife, Pat, stayed behind as the couple had two young children, and Washington would be staying in a hotel. While he waited for his reinstatement, which he thought would not occur until the next season, he became depressed and fell out of shape. He pulled himself together, and began running up and down the flights of stairs of the 29-story hotel.
  Years later, Jerry West, who was the Lakers coach at the time, told John Feinstein he still wanted Washington on the roster. Then-general manager Bill Sharman said he was "on the fence." Cooke, however, decided to move on.
  Washington started alongside Hall of Fame center Dave Cowens, who enjoyed playing with Washington, remarking, "It's great fun, you can always hear him grunt when he's rebounding." Auerbach said, "Kermit was fighting a battle he couldn't win. Nothing he could say or do was going to change the way people perceived him because of that moment. I wanted him to feel at home with us, to feel wanted." Washington won Boston fans over immediately. His acceptance was aided by a
caption: Bob Ryan wrote a column on Washington in 1978. Ryan later said, "You couldn't not like the guy when you sat down and talked with him...He never wanted to hurt Rudy the way he did...I felt bad for him."[87] The article endeared Washington to Celtics fans.[87] The relationship was short-lived, however; he was traded after playing just 32 games for the team.[21]
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