Touch the screen or click to continue...
Checking your browser...
emuamber.pages.dev

Tom meschery biography

          Caught in the Pivot: The Diary of a Rookie Coach in the Exploding World of Pro Basketball (The Instant Replay of Pro Basketball).

          He played for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors and the Seattle SuperSonics.!

          Tom Meschery: The Most Interesting Man In The NBA

          Copy the code below to embed the WBUR audio player on your site

          Resume

          This story is part of a collaboration with Sports Illustrated's Where Are They Now?

          special issue.

          Tom Meschery was known as “The Mad Russian” during his 10 NBA seasons from The nickname was accurate in at least one respect. Tom Meschery’s family did hail from Russia.

          "My grandmother was a Tolstoy," Meschery says.

          He is an expert in both English and Russian literature.

        1. He was a NBA All-Star and the first player to have his number retired by the Golden State Warriors.
        2. He played for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors and the Seattle SuperSonics.
        3. Thomas Nicholas Meschery is an American former professional basketball player.
        4. Tom Meschery.

          5. "They were a very large family that included good ol' 'War and Peace,' Leo Tolstoy."

          Meschery was born in Manchuria, after his parents fled the Bolshevik Revolution. He arrived in San Francisco after spending World War II in an internment camp in Tokyo.

          "I hated being a foreigner," Meschery says.

          "My mother sent me off to elementary school the first day in short pants, came home crying because the kids were mean towards me. I had a very thick accent and I didn't speak English very well. There was a lot of, you know, 'Commie' and 'Better d