Basketball: E for Everything

Though they tried mightily to mix it up with the big boys in the National Basketball Association last season, the newly franchisee! San Diego Rockets seemed more like Romper Room rejects playing ring-around-a-rosy. They lost 32 of their final 33 games and finished with a 15-67 record. No matter. By virtue of their low standing, the Rockets got first draft choice from the college crop.

And to no one's surprise, they selected the University of Houston's Elvin ("the Big E") Hayes, 6 ft. 9½ in., 235 Ibs.

and the most versatile player to become eligible since Oscar ("the Big O") Robertson eight years ago.

Unlike the Big O, the Big E was assigned by the Rockets to fight it out beneath the backboards, where the Greco-Roman infighting has undone many a rookie. "Elvin, don't go in there and get yourself hurt," cautioned the San Francisco Warriors' Nate Thurmond.

After one turn around the league, only Elvin's opposition was hurting. Elbows slashing like scythes, he was collecting an average of 18 rebounds a game. Trading on his fadeaway jump shot, and a rim-rattling dunker, he recently turned in the top N.B.A. individual performance so far this season: 54 points against the Detroit Pistons. Last week, with a 147-point spree in four games, Elvin became the league's highest scorer.

Some critics say that Hayes is still a trifle ragged on defense. But that fact could not be proved by an established veteran like the New York Knicker bockers' Howard Komives. "I could swear that one time Hayes came out of the stands to block my shot," said Komives. "I never saw him."

For their part, San Diego fans can't see enough of Hayes. Chanting "Stomp 'em E," they turn out at the city's new $6,500,000 Sports Arena to cheer his every move. The Rockets' home attendance, which last season averaged a near-bankrupt 4,000 a game, has increased by 35%. The team's scoring fortunes are also booming. "Elvin has made us competitive," explains Coach Jack McMahon. "Last year we were going into every game knowing that we were heavy underdogs. This year the kids know that at least they have a fighting chance. It makes a difference."

The Big E recalls the days when as a gawky youngster in Rayville, La., he spent long hours in his backyard shooting a small rubber ball through a bottomless wash bucket. He was always dreaming of his idols, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, and today he talks of little but how "great, just great" it is to be playing against them.

It is largely for that reason, Hayes says, that he chose to turn pro right away rather than mark time by playing on the U.S. Olympic basketball team. Besides, as a family man who now lives in fashionable La Jolla, Calif., with his wife Erna (the Middle E) and his year-old son Elvin Jr. (the Little E), the Big E had to think about Green Power—that $400,000 four-year contract he signed with the Rockets.