Aspiring To Higher Things

Three days later McMillen treats the knee with a light workout and then some stretching at a political brunch in La Jolla and plays that night in San Diego. He gets 19 points and eight rebounds—and delivers a good Slaprock performance—as the Hawks break the losing streak and then start another in the opposite direction, winning four straight on the road, including a four-overtime game at Seattle and one in Portland in which the Hawks overcome a 17-point halftime deficit to win 109-97. McMillen averages almost 17 points a game and says it may be the best stretch of basketball in his life, but he can't explain why. "Maybe I'd been drifting, not working," he says. "The knee got my attention. I don't know, but it feels good—the game. The knee is still sore."

Loughery has been in the league 20 years. He once went into a playoff series recovering from four broken ribs and a punctured lung, wearing a steel jacket. He played some with the protector but took it off because it restricted his movement. "It's a cliché," says Loughery, who became Atlanta's coach this season, "but Tom is a pro. Not everyone who signs a contract and plays is."

In January 1980 McMillen suffered his first and only incapacitating injury in a thousand or so games of basketball—a tear of medial collateral ligaments in his right knee. Two weeks after being operated on, he went to New Hampshire for rehabilitation, meanwhile attempting to persuade the citizens to vote for Jimmy Carter.

"We all like celebrities," says Gene Eidenberg, the Democratic National Committee director and former Carter White House staffer, "but they are mostly adornments. They put in an appearance for the cameras, help draw a crowd and raise money. Tom is different. He's very good out in front but he doesn't have to be there. He'll stay on the phone, sit on committees, write letters, I suppose sweep out the place. He'll wear you out, he's got so much energy. Tom knows it's there, and does the scut work."

Tydings, who was defeated in 1970 and is now a Washington attorney, is McMillen's closest political confidant. He's upbeat on McMillen but recognizes the pitfalls of politics, especially in a savvy state like Maryland.

"There is an obvious problem for celebrities who try to cash in quickly on the name they have made someplace else," Tydings says. "Local people who have worked up through the ranks treat them as carpetbaggers. That's not a problem for Tom. A professional in one of the counties is going to remember Tom was the fellow who came to his crab-and-beer fund raiser, gave a speech, drew a crowd, paid his 25 bucks and has sent him a Christmas card every year since."

"There is nothing about a sports background that creates any intrinsic political handicaps, and there are some advantages," McMillen says. "Bill Bradley, Jack Kemp, Mo Udall may have been elected in part because they had been athletes, but they are respected on Capitol Hill for the quality of their work, not because of what they did in sports. Bill was always a good team person," McMillen says of his 1976-77 Knick teammate. "He conducted himself well in hierarchies, and politics is hierarchical. In the Senate, he does what he did as a player: respects his colleagues."

Because of the similarity of their backgrounds and careers, comparisons between Bradley and McMillen are all but inevitable. They are more or less a match in intelligence and diligence toward homework. Bradley was somewhat more celebrated as an athlete. McMillen is a better public speaker, is thought to project a warmer public image, perhaps to have better political instincts and to be more knowledgeable about the media. The question is whether he'll be as lucky as Bradley in an electoral way.

Though there is no dispute about Bradley's proving to be an effective Senator, his election from New Jersey in 1978 was blessed by good fortune. He received the Democratic nomination in a six-man primary. Republican incumbent Clifford Case was upset by Jeffrey Bell in the Republican primary, and Bradley was able to defeat a divided party and relatively unknown candidate in the general election.

McMillen will have no such easy time of it in Maryland. Though their recent political history has been turbulent, to put it politely, Maryland Democrats are at the moment in good shape. McMillen is in the position of a baseball phenom in the minors who has no place to play because of the excellence of veterans on the big team.