With the Buffalo Braves coming off their bleakest season since 1972-73, job number one was to improve the morale of the franchise. Toward that goal, the Braves made a couple of hires that added people who could only be considered raging optimists.
Norm Sonju came out of absolutely nowhere. He had been working for ServiceMaster Industries – a contract cleaning service -- when he was named president and general manager of the Braves. It could be argued that the team needed some cleaning up, but that didn’t make his appointment at all expected. Sonju’s only connection with sports was through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Baseball Chapel. Sonju was a whirlwind upon arriving, talking to everyone and anyone about the future of the team.
“Let’s face it, the Braves’ organization has made some mistakes in the past, but we intend to right all the wrongs,” Sonju said at the time.
Reporter Milt Northrop of the Buffalo Evening News thought Sonju tried to do too much when he came to Buffalo.
“He used to sit in his office until 10 or 11 at night, personally answering letters,” he said. “You know the number of crank letters you get. Some people write and make a valid point, while others say something that’s out in left field. Well, he answered every one of them personally. He could have written some kind of form letter.”
Cotton Fitzsimmons wasn’t quite as talkative as Sonju, but he knew his way around the NBA. He had been a coach in Phoenix and Atlanta, and was well regarded around the league. Fitzsimmons had been the director of player personnel for the Golden State Warriors in 1976-77, and he was happy for the chance to coach again. He signed a four-year deal on Aug. 5. Fitzsimmons, too, was known being upbeat. His personal motto was "You're not going to make me have a bad day."
Some optimism was needed, because there certainly wasn’t much in the community at the time. In his book “Ice to the Eskimos,” Jon Spoelstra writes about how he was named vice president of marketing for the Braves in the summer of 1977. He was told that the Braves had about 5,000 season tickets for the upcoming season. Spoelstra writes that, in fact, the Braves lied. The actual number of season tickets in August was 50. Five-oh. “We sold about 3,000 season tickets (actually, closer to 2,500) in an impossible situation using the embryonic principles of jump-start marketing,” Spoelstra writes.
The team obviously was in need of a complete makeover for the upcoming season. Brown started on draft day, when he was in possession of the third pick in the draft. He called the Milwaukee Bucks and talked to owner Jim Fitzgerald and general manager Wayne Embry. According to Embry’s book, “The Inside Game,” Brown told them that he wanted to change the, um, complexion of the team.
“I need a white center,” Brown said.
