Tom Meschery: Looking Back on One of the Original Sonics

Even at the age of 82,

when I should know better,

the thought of dying still pisses me off.

I feel as if I’ve just been called for a foul I didn’t commit.

I was reading the sports page. Years of fouls

I didn’t deserve came back. The unfairness.

Refs missing the elbow that hit me, 

But seeing the one I threw to even the score.

~ a portion of Tom Meschery’s poem 2,841 Personal Fouls

SEATTLE – Scroll through former Sonic Tom Meschery’s blog – mescherysmusings.blogspot.com – and there is a post from early December titled: NBA 2020-2021 Season.

At the bottom of that post, like many of the entries on the site, there is a poem. And that poem, the one at the top of this post, seems to be a fitting place to start when taking a look back at one of the original Sonics. 

Let’s start with the 2,841 personal fouls. When it comes to all-time personal fouls, Meschery ranks No. 104 on the NBA’s all-time list, just a few behind Dennis Rodman. In 1962, Meschery led the league in personal fouls. 

The poem gives us an interesting glimpse of the way Meschery views those fouls - many years after his playing career came to an end.

Meschery was the No. 7 overall pick in the NBA draft by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1961. He not only played with Wilt Chamberlain, he was a starting forward on the team the year Chamberlain scored 100 points (it should come as little surprise that Meschery wrote a poem about playing with Chamberlain).

After that season, the Warriors moved from Philadelphia to the Bay Area - Meschery’s adopted home. He had gone to high school in San Francisco and attended Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California. 

Tom Meschery was born Tomislav Nikolayevich Meshcheryakov to Russian parents in Harbin, Manchukuo (now part of Northeastern China) in 1932. The family had fled Russia in 1917, relocating to China and (later) to California. In 1963, he became the first foreign-born player to compete in the NBA All-Star Game.

Selected by the Sonics in the 1967 expansion draft, Meschery was a key part of those early Sonics teams. During that first season, he led Seattle in rebounds (10.2 per game) and, you probably guessed it, personal fouls. Meschery played four seasons with the Sonics, ending his career after the 1970-71 season. Over those four full seasons, he averaged a solid 12.5 points and 8.7 rebounds per game. 

While he was playing for Seattle, he published his first collection of poetry “Over The Rim.” The cover of that book features Meschery in a Sonics uniform.

Meschery spent time as a coach after his playing career, but found his calling helping teenagers, working as a high school English teacher in Reno, Nevada before retiring in 2005.

It’s not often someone can say they are honored in four different Halls of Fame, but Meschery has been inducted into the San Francisco High School Hall of Fame, the Saint Mary’s Hall of Fame, the Bay Area Hall of Fame and the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. 

A basketball star. An inaugural Sonic. A poet. A teacher. 

Meschery has accomplished a lot, and he’s still sharing his gift with the world. Like the ending to his poem 2,841 Personal Fouls:

This morning didn’t I wake up to sunlight

and a warm breeze? Didn’t my wife 

poke her head into the office

To tell me she loved me? I flavor 

my coffee with honey that is sweet as life.

I should live a little longer.