INDIANAPOLIS — The lawyer is Scott Tarter and he was 10 years old when he got hooked on the ABA inside the old Indiana State Fairgrounds coliseum. It was 1971 and his dad, a factory worker, had splurged for seats in the nose bleed section.
He remembers the game being cloudy. People could smoke inside the arena and the fog rose to the top. But through the haze shined Tarter’s hero, Darnell Hillman, playing for the Indiana Pacers.
“I remember thinking that was the biggest stadium, the biggest thing you could ever possibly be a part of,” Tarter said. “As a kid, it was incredible. I fell in love.”
More: NBA will pay former ABA players $25 million: ‘This will be life changing for them’
The eye doctor is John Abrams and he used to skip Hebrew classes after school to sneak into the Jewish Community Center where the ABA Pacers practiced. He would pick up towels, wipe up sweat and marvel at those giants.
His last two years of high school, Abrams landed a spot as a ballboy for the Pacers. He got to rub elbows with Billy Knight, Don Buse and Charlie Jordan. The players made him feel as if he were one of them.
“It was the greatest job in the world,” Abrams said. “I loved the ABA.”
The filmmaker is Ted Green, a sports history fanatic. One of his first projects when he started working for WFYI was a segment on the ABA Pacers for a film called “Indy in the 60s.”
That led to more films from Green on ABA star Roger Brown and the late ABA Pacers coach Slick Leonard.
More: Inside Bobby ‘Slick’ Leonard’s private funeral: ‘He was truly a man of the people’
“I became tight with the ABA Pacers family,” said Green, who is the husband of IndyStar Sports Director Jenny Green. “It’s an incredible brotherhood.”
But nearly 10 years ago, these three men learned this brotherhood of the ABA was suffering. Many former players were living in subsidized housing, some homeless under bridges. Others couldn’t afford to pay medical bills or buy a pair of dentures. Others couldn’t pay for funerals for their family members.
These were their ABA heroes, many of whom never made it to the NBA when the league merged with the ABA in 1976. Just four teams in the ABA — which had 11 teams most seasons — joined the NBA. Many players were left with nothing. Some who made it to the NBA didn’t play long enough to get a pension.
Tarter and Abrams each chipped in $2,500 to form a not-for-profit called the Dropping Dimes Foundation in 2014. Their mission was to help struggling former ABA players and their families. They brought in Green, they joked, to be the third vote to break any ties if there was a disagreement.
But things quickly turned serious. They realized Dropping Dimes wouldn’t be able to do this on its own. There were so many former players reaching out for help. The foundation’s funds were limited.
More: Another ABA player dies waiting on pension from NBA. He left a chilling photo behind
So Tarter, Abrams and Green made it their No. 1 goal to get the NBA to pay these players pensions.
On Tuesday night, eight years after their fight began, the three men sat inside a warehouse with ABA memorabilia all around, drank beer and waited.
When the NBA board of governors voted to pay 115 former ABA players $24.5 million in recognition payments, they breathed a sigh of relief, celebrated and cried.
“My mind shot back to our beginnings,” said Green.
The beginnings of a far-fetched idea to get a multi-billion league to “do the right thing.”
Tarter is a lifelong Indianapolis native who went to John Marshall High and got cut from his sophomore basketball team. It didn’t dampen his love of the sport.
After earning his law degree at Indiana University in Bloomington, he rose to the ranks of partner at Bose McKinney & Evans, where he is an attorney working on half-a-billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions.
But in his spare time on weekends and weeknights, Tarter poured his heart and soul into Dropping Dimes, a foundation that came to be by pure chance and a love of the ABA.
It was 2011 and Steve DeVoe was a partner of Tarter’s at Bose McKinney. DeVoe’s two brothers, Chuck and John, were original owners of the ABA Pacers in 1967.
More: The night 34-year-old Pacers president John DeVoe died courtside during a game
DeVoe knew of Tarter’s love of the ABA, so he introduced him to Green, who was working on a film on Pacers Hall-of-Famer Roger Brown. Green introduced him to Abrams.
Abrams, it turned out, wasn’t just a former ballboy for the Pacers, he was the team eye doctor. He knew the players. He had connections.
One of the first players Abrams introduced Tarter to was Mel Daniels, who was adamant that something needed to be done to help his former ABA league- and teammates.
“Mel impressed upon me very, very directly that the NBA was not respecting the ABA players as they should,” Tarter said. “A lot of ABA guys were suffering because they got paid so little back in those days.”
When the ABA disbanded in 1976, merging with the NBA, four of its seven remaining teams were absorbed by the NBA — the Pacers, Nuggets, New York Nets and San Antonio Spurs. Many players were left with no pension, salaries shut off and health insurance gone.
As the idea emerged to start a non profit to fight for these players, Tarter went to Daniels with an idea for a name: “Fans Giving Back Foundation.”
“And Mel, 6-foot-10, Mel with his super deep voice looked at me and said, ‘Scott, I don’t like the name,'” Tarter said. “He said, ‘The fans don’t owe us anything. We played for the fans. We played for the love of the game and I don’t want any name that implies that fans owe us anything.”
Not long after, Tarter and Abrams were in a rental car driving in Springfield, Mass., after attending Slick Leonard’s Naismith Hall of Fame induction.
“And I said, ‘I got it. Dropping Dimes Foundation,'” Tarter said. “Because when you’re playing basketball and you give an assist, it’s ‘you dropped a dime.'”
Abrams started Googling the term as Tarter drove and realized it fit perfectly.
“We’re going to give financial support,” Abrams said. “We’re going to make an assist to these struggling basketball players.”
Dropping Dimes has done just that. Through its eight years, as players have called, the foundation has helped with little things — gas money, a new suit for church, a rehab session.
And it has helped with big things — funeral expenses, major medical bills, rent.
And now, Dropping Dimes has helped get these players what they needed most.
“This, these pensions, has been our big mission from Day 1,” Tarter said. “This, what is happening now, getting these guys what they deserve.”
None of it was easy. All three men had busy, full-time jobs. But they also had a passion.
“Sometimes, I didn’t balance it. Sometimes, I had to put the law practice on the back burner just a little bit and focus on the pensions and Dropping Dimes,” said Tarter. Neither he, nor Abrams, nor Green have made any money from their work at Dropping Dimes.
They had plenty of help. Dropping Dimes has an advisory board backed by big names in sports, media and basketball. Among them are Bob Costas, Reggie Miller, George McGinnis, Julius Erving, Myles Turner, Peter Vecsey and Bob Netolicky.
“They all came together,” Tarter said. “It was kind of a labor of love.”
And Tuesday night, the big weight was lifted, getting the money from the NBA.
“To us, it meant everything,” Tarter said. “From the beginning, when you look at the contributions these ABA players made to today’s NBA, fast up-tempo games, 3-pointers, the slam dunk contest. When you watch all these guys today getting recognized, finally, for their contributions, it’s overwhelming.”
Green said Herb Simon and the Pacers have been fierce advocates. But Tarter deserves much of the credit.
“The NBA needed some persuading, like 18 months of persuading, and in the meantime a lot of guys died,” Green said. “Negotiations on our side fell to Scott as an attorney and I’m just so proud of Scott for bird-dogging it to the end. We’re talking one attorney on our side, a dozen with the NBA. Took heart and guts and savvy.”
And in a sense, what the NBA is doing, is an assist to Dropping Dimes.
“This will take a big burden off of us,” said Abrams. “But it won’t end the fight.”
The NBA agreement pays players an average $3,828 annually for each year they were in the league. For example, a player with the minimum three seasons will receive $11,484 a year. A player with the most years of service, such as Freddie Lewis who has nine, will get $35,452 a year.
“This is a lot of money. It’s going to change a lot of guys’ lives,” Abrams said. “There are still a lot of guys who will need help.”
Break it down in monthly installments and a 3-year player will get $957 a month. “That is not going to pay the rent, pay the utility bills, pay the health bills for some of these guys,” Tarter said.
So, Dropping Dimes will continue to help former ABA players as it always has.
“I remember so many days spent at Roger’s (Brown) wife Jeannie’s house with Mel Daniels, George McGinnis, Slick and Nancy (Leonard), Neto (Bob Netolicky), and how passionate they all were — especially Mel — about helping their former ABA brothers in need,” Green said. “That inspired us to no end.”
And that inspiration prompted three guys who loved the ABA to help their heroes.
“When you think about the fact that a busy eye surgeon, a busy mergers and acquisitions lawyer and a busy documentary guy did this on their own,” said Abrams. “It’s pretty humbling.”
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
