"Sometimes, people say fate has a lot to do with what happens to somebody. I don't buy that."
_John Brisker to the Courier-Journal in 1972
John Brisker gritted his teeth and glared menacingly at his coach, Bill Russell. After one of the most dramatic wins in the Sonics' young history, the tension in the locker room was so charged, Slick Watts remembers, the walls could have cracked.
"I thought he was gonna kill him," Watts says. "That (expletive), you could see water in his eyes. Intimidation. That (expletive) was ready to attack."
It was not unusual for Brisker, a talented but volatile forward, to clash with Russell, the single-minded coach. By 1975, Brisker was firmly in Russell's doghouse and played sparingly. In fact, the previous day, Brisker had grumbled to reporters, "They've done everything possible to demean me." But the scene in the locker room was visceral.
On Jan. 31, 1975 Brisker scored 28 points, by far the most on the team, to rally the Sonics from a huge fourth-quarter hole against the Blazers. After the game, years of tension nearly exploded. Brisker sat inside the locker room at the old Coliseum and glared at Russell with the look teammates and opponents learned to fear.
"All of us were scared," Watts says, shaking his famously shiny head. "He wasn't coming at us. He wanted Coach."
Brisker played eight more games that season. On Feb. 14, 1975, he scored seven points in 14 minutes during a lethargic loss in Portland. It was the last game he ever played.
By 1978, he had been out of the NBA for three years and faced new responsibilities. Brisker and his girlfriend had a daughter in February, and he sought stability after a string of failed ventures. In March, according to King County court documents, he traveled to Africa and intended to launch an "import-export business." On April 11, he called his girlfriend in Seattle. That was the last anyone heard from John Brisker.
In the years since his disappearance, the lack of clarity has created a void for sensational, dramatic and downright crazy stories, all of which only generate more uncertainty.
"I always wondered what happened," says former teammate Spencer Haywood, "and then people put the rumors out that he was caught up in that coup in Uganda."
"He went to Uganda and it was as a mercenary and he was fighting over there," says former teammate Tom Burleson. "His wife went with him, and he was captured by Idi Amin's men. And Idi Amin had him prepared and they served him and his wife banquet style."
"They said he was sitting at a table with one of those kings over there, and they had an argument, and Brisker wouldn't relate to the argument or agree with it," Watts says. "In that country, you don't dishonor the king. And Brisker had one of those grrrrr moments, and they said the guy had his gun covered up like a turkey was in it. He moved it and pew. Shot him. That's the legend anyway."
In truth no one knows what happened. The King County Medical Examiner officially declared Brisker dead in May 1985 for the purpose of settling his estate, but the State Department could not confirm that Brisker had even gone to Africa. James Callahan, a spokesman for the State Department in the '80s, was quoted at the time as saying, "Essentially, we don't consider him dead." A spokesperson for the FBI's Seattle office wrote in a recent email, "We cannot conclusively say if the FBI was involved or not."
Brisker exists today as a memory, a lost talent who could've been a star, and as Seattle's most puzzling sports mystery.
"Often, in the quiet moments of my life, when I think about my teammates, I think about him," Watts says. "I wonder, 'Is John really dead?' "
