The Associated Press reported on Sunday that during the height of the "Bay Boys" Detroit Pistons teams of the 1980's, coach Chuck Daly received numerous death threats and that the FBI had undergone an investigation to determine who sent them.
AP reveals Daly death threats from “Bad Boy” era
From the Washington Post:
One letter, mailed from Cleveland and postmarked April 24, 1989, arrived about two months after Cavaliers guard Mark Price suffered a concussion following a Rick Mahorn elbow and three months after Cleveland’s Brad Daugherty and Detroit’s Bill Laimbeer had an on-court fistfight.
“God made me realize that YOU, not Laimbeer, Mahorn or any of the others are the one possessed by (Satan),” the author wrote in the one-page handwritten letter addressed to “Mr. Chuck Daly.”
While the FBI determined that none of the threats were serious, hence why Daly was never attacked, it is interesting that the Bad Boys’ style of play wound up biting the team a little bit, or at least Daly. For all the emphasis we put into athletes’ and coaches’ bad behavior, we seldom consider what they may have to go through because of it. And really, playing a rough style of basketball isn’t even that much of an offense. Who knows what sort of mail other athletes have received for more serious offenses?
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