Name-Droppings: Close Encounters with the Famous and Near-Famous

By Charles Ota Heller

How did Clint Eastwood spend his Thursday evenings? What caused one of Americas greatest basketball coaches to scream the n-word at the author? How did Heller become an early witness to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair? Why did jazz singer Helen OConnell proposition the young, innocent Charlie Heller? What led the author to insult the leader of Americas space program? How did Heller and a TV star/sex therapist develop immediate rapport? How did the author and the leader of a famous rock band become friends?

These are some of the interesting vignettes told by Charles Ota Heller, a former CEO entrepreneur, educator, venture capitalist, athlete, and engineer who came to America as an immigrant from Czechoslovakia at the age of thirteen and who now looks back at a life of chasing the proverbial American Dream, chronicling the famous and near-famous people he met along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Sep 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781458211453

Charles Ota Heller

Charles Ota Heller is the author of award-winning Prague: My Long Journey Home. An entrepreneur who founded several companies, he has been an educator, venture capitalist, and author. Today, he devotes himself to writing and serving on boards of directors. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, Sue.

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Copyright © 2013 Charles Ota Heller.

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Author photo courtesy of Anne Arundel Community College.

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-1146-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-1145-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949722

Abbott Press rev. date: 9/9/2013

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1   Iron Duke

Chapter 2   Blonde Diva

Chapter 3   Rocket Scientist

Chapter 4   Greatest Navigator

Chapter 5   My Number One

Chapter 6   Small Package Of Dynamite

Chapter 7   Sorest Loser

Chapter 8   Moneyball

Chapter 9   Roundball Entrepreneur

Chapter 10   Long-Haired Cowboy

Chapter 11   Rock Star And His Dad

Chapter 12   Generous Exile

Chapter 13   Eavesdropping On History

Chapter 14   Pirate Of Prague

About The Author

In memory of a man whose name I have dropped in this book:

one of history’s greatest basketball coaches,

Mr. Henry P. Iba

Preface

For the past two years, I have been immersed in writing the last two memoirs of a trilogy, following up on the publication of the first, Prague: My Long Journey Home. The upcoming second book can be categorized in the subgenre of coming-to-America books, while the third will consist of my experiences in the lunatic world of entrepreneurship. As I worked on the two manuscripts simultaneously, my memory and the journals I have kept for many years kept unearthing vignettes about famous, and near-famous, people I have been lucky enough to encounter since coming to America from the Czech Republic as a thirteen-year-old.

After I read the earliest of the stories—about Clint Eastwood, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Wernher von Braun—to our critique group, my writer friends jokingly accused me of being a name-dropper. As I added vignettes starring such notables as Bill Clinton, Henry Iba, and Earl Weaver, my colleagues’ quips turned into compliments.

These are great stories, they said. You have to include them in your next book.

I tried. But there was a problem. If I compiled all these anecdotes into a single chapter, that chapter would be much too long. Moreover, because the stories span a period of more than fifty years, placing them into one chapter would destroy the continuity of the book. As a second possibility, I attempted to disperse the tales into various sections of the book, where they might fit chronologically. This attempt, too, failed. Although some of them bore a direct relationship to my overall theme, most did not.

Finally, after a great deal of head-scratching, I concluded that it would be best to keep the stories together, but to separate them from the upcoming memoirs and to publish them as a short book. Yet, I worried that a book like this might be considered an exercise in vanity, something I attempt to avoid in my writing. But my writers’ group friends put me at ease. All of them—Karen Cain, Paul Harrell, and Marilyn Recknor—gave their enthusiastic approval and even suggested a title.

You should call it ‘Name-droppings,’ one of them advised, implying that my grandiloquence resembles the spreading of scat. I liked the image and went to work.

I am indebted to Karen, Paul, and Marilyn for their critiques and their suggestions. I am grateful to my writing guru and editor, Susan Moger, for her insights, observations, and encouragement. And I must say that I feel honored and privileged to have met the men and women about whom I have dropped scat.

Finally, as always, I could not have written this—or any other—book without the support and patience of my wife and partner of more than a half century, Sue. Thank you, Sammy!

CHAPTER ONE

IRON DUKE

I t was October 1954, my freshman year at Oklahoma A&M College—today, Oklahoma State University—and I was preoccupied with thoughts of the first basketball practice.

Finally, my big day arrived.

It was a warm autumn day in Stillwater. For most of the other ten thousand students, it was just another day of classes, followed by conversation with friends over Cokes and coffees at the Student Union or beers at one of the local watering holes. For me, it was one of the most important days of my life. On this day, I would find out how I stacked up against the scholarship guys who had been strutting around campus like Greek gods, and I would discover if I stood a chance of ever wearing a uniform with the big orange and black O, emblematic of one of the richest basketball traditions in the nation. Today, I would discover if I would have an opportunity to play big-time college basketball, something I had dreamed about since my first summer in America and my discovery of the game some five years earlier.

After being issued a plain white practice uniform and a pair of Converse All-Star sneakers, I walked onto the floor of Gallagher Hall, home of the famous Oklahoma Aggies. I nearly blacked out from fear.

From the rafters hung banners from two NCAA championships, NIT championships, and countless conference triumphs. The stands seemed to stretch up from the court to the stratosphere, much grander than the bandboxes in which I had played in New Jersey. Above the court was a scoreboard with a digital clock, unlike the old analog clocks I knew from the gyms at home. And on the floor—oh, my God! The guys shooting baskets were taller, skinnier, and seemingly more coordinated than I. Nonchalantly, they sank long, one-handed jump-shots from all over the floor. I was in trouble.

As I stood on the sideline of one of the most famous courts in the country, listening to the drumbeat of balls hitting the hardwood, I thought back on how and why I had gotten there.

A little more than five years before, I had been a newly-arrived, thirteen-year-old refugee from Czechoslovakia. I spoke two words of English, sank you. I had never heard of the game called basketball. Over the next year, I learned its rudiments in rough