Streetball legend ‘Fly’ Williams brought his immense talent
– and his large problems – to the ABA Spirits of St. Louis

By David Higgins

James “Fly” Williams Jr. was the biggest crowd-dazzling show-off on a pro basketball team described as “the craziest of all time.” Fly is the main character in a sportswriter’s masterpiece, Heaven is a Playground. Coming of age on the rough streets of Brooklyn in the 1970s, he became a hoops legend at Manhattan’s Rucker Park and Brownsville and at Brooklyn’s The Hole. At one point, Fly was ranked the number two street baller of all time. Fly lit up the courts while on the pro ball St. Louis Spirits, but he also brought a suitcase of problems with him.

James Williams Jr. was born into poverty in Brownsville, the youngest of six, in 1953. It didn’t help that his father bailed when he was a toddler and that his mother had to work long hours for low pay. From an early age, Jimmie’s babysitter was the street. He grew up in the same neighborhood where Mike Tyson was raised — and bullied. Young Jimmie was gangly and mischievous, a natural entertainer and class clown, but he also possessed freakish basketball talent. That counted for a lot, because Brownsville was the breeding ground for some of the best basketball players on Earth. All you needed was a ball and a basket – and a broom to sweep the broken glass and used syringes off the court.

Over the years Fly gave many different origin stories for his nickname. Here’s one: “I got my name from the way I dress, the ladies that travel with me, and then my game got fly… Clyde (Walt Frazier) had Clyde, and I was Fly. I was Fly before Curtis Mayfield was Super Fly.”

The jocular king

“Even in childhood, we knew he’d be good,” said Ronald Jones, a boyhood friend. Fly was tall, he could shoot, he could slash to the hoop and he had the hyper-competitive instinct requisite for greatness. He was especially suited for rugged, freewheeling “streetball” – losers sit, fouls are never called and dunking is not only permitted but celebrated. From age 13 onward, Fly’s rep grew because of his whirlybird slams, fancy dribbling, quicksilver fakes and hilarious trash-talking. “Fly” graffiti started to appear in B’ville and spread across the borough.

Fly honed his skills on blacktop and cement all over the city, often playing against playground legends like Earl “the Goat” Manigault, future NBA all-star World B. Free, and even Hall of Famer Julius “Dr. J” Erving. On a Street Basketball Association list, Williams was ranked as the second best street baller of all time, just one slot behind Manigault. Fly is still in the top ten on many of best street- baller lists.

Yet even as his cockiness ripened into overconfidence, he was floundering. Fly starred on the basketball team at James Madison High School but was notorious for childish antics and sudden rages. Eventually, he flunked out and found himself pulled into life on the street. Fly was shaping up to be a sad yet familiar story in the projects: a superior talent heading nowhere.

Fly grabs a lifeline

Then, in autumn 1971, a freelance talent scout arranged a way out: a small boarding school, Glen Springs Academy, in upstate New York was recruiting basketball prospects, mostly from New York City, who would be good enough to compete with – and maybe beat – any Eastern prep school team. In return, the players would receive an education, a shot at a college scholarship and a more promising future. Fly proved to be a decent enough student – and he even learned a little Chaucer.

Fly’s team exceeded expectations, winning a championship game and becoming one of the top prep school b-ball teams in the nation. Later that Spring, Fly graduated – just barely – and returned to the rubble-strewn Brooklyn playgrounds to play hoops, party and see what came next.

Sometimes things go right

In a fortunate twist of fate, a young Sports Illustrated photojournalist named Rick Telander showed up in the Brownsville projects that summer to document the street game, and Fly emerged as the main character in Heaven is a Playground, published in 1976. Described by many readers as one of the best sports books, it definitely lives up to the hype. President Obama called it “the best basketball book I’ve ever read.”

“(Fly Williams) was out on the edge,” Telander now says. “He was missing a bunch of teeth, had a gigantic Afro with a pick in it, and he was so skinny. He was manic, hilarious and over the top. At the same time, you could tell there was a lot of pain there.” The Fly was generous and funny one moment and an obnoxious jerk the next. Yet the younger kids followed him around like puppies, imitating his swagger and style.

Fly is the guy to the left of the ref waiting to grab the rebound.

Fly’s future materialized a few months later in the form of a basketball scholarship to Austin Peay University (yup, pronounce it as “pee”) in small-town Clarksville, Tenn. Fly was a sensation at APU. Fans lined up for hours to get tickets. He lit up the Ohio Valley Conference for two seasons but often frustrated his coaches and teammates alike with his antics, which ranged from harmless to borderline destructive. Once, Fly stopped dribbling in the middle of game, went into the stands, grabbed a fan’s soda and chugged it before returning to the court. (Even the mischievous Harlem Globetrotters have never done that!) He also sat out part of an important game, pouting on the bench, due to a beef with a teammate. Still, he averaged a freshman national record 29.4 points and led unheralded little Peay to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. He also inspired the nuttiest crowd chant in basketball history: “the Fly is open, let’s go Peay!”

After another excellent year in which he made third team all-American – he averaged 28.5 points per game over his two-year career – the headstrong Williams skipped summer school in favor of pickup basketball on the familiar Brooklyn courts. Meanwhile, APU began building a state-of-the art new gym to showcase their wunderkind. Unfortunately, in a spiral of rash decisions, poor advice and sheer bad luck, Fly lost his college eligibility. One reason was that he had taken the SAT when the Ohio Valley Conference insisted on the ACT, and the NCCA harshly enforced that rule. Fly was ruled ineligible to participate in the National Basketball Association hardship draft and the riches it portended because he had been paid to play in a few semi-pro games. It didn’t help that he had also gained a reputation as a “head case” – a selfish, moody player who was a coach’s worst nightmare.

The Reincarnation of Fly

Still, he was too good a player to be ignored. In 1974 he was signed by the Spirits of St. Louis of the American Basketball Association, a rival league of the NBA known for its Wild West atmosphere, three-point shots and distinctive red, white and blue ball. And unlike the then-plodding and regimented NBA, dunking was legal! He was promised big-time money, but through management tactics he effectively earned a fraction of that. But for a kid who grew up so poor that he lost half his teeth due to malnutrition, $35,000 was a fortune. (Inflation calculators show $35,000 in 1974 dollars is worth about $225,000 in 2025.) Alas, that cash eventually funded some very bad habits.

The Spirits were the third incarnation of an ABA franchise that had earlier been the Houston Mavericks and then the Carolina Cougars. Ozzie and Dan Silna were young brothers in the New York City rag-trade who made a fortune in polyester fabrics (think leisure suits and lemon-yellow bell-bottoms). They bought the team with an eye towards a future lucrative merger with the NBA. St. Louis had earlier lost a marquee NBA franchise, the Hawks, which had once won the NBA finals for St. Louis. In part, the Hawks had left for Atlanta in 1968 because available venues in St. Louis, the Kiel Auditorium and the St. Louis Arena, were viewed as old and unsuitable.

The Spirits were essentially an expansion franchise, as only a couple of ex-Cougars suited up for the new team. The newbies were a cluster of young misfits and bonus babies with amazing talent yet no concept of teamwork. Fly was touted in St. Louis media as “an extraordinary shooter” and “a real crowd-pleaser.” Fellow rookie Maurice Lucas was an unpolished forward from Marquette who eventually won stardom and a championship in the NBA. Gus Gerard went in the opposite direction from Lucas; he was a rugged rebounder for seven seasons until he developed a crippling addiction to cocaine and was reduced to living in his mother’s house and stealing money from her purse to feed his habit. Gerard eventually righted his ship and became a drug counselor. Most notorious of all was a heralded All-American, the aptly monikered Marvin “Bad News” Barnes, who made headlines in college for smashing a teammate in the face with a tire iron after a practice-squad dust-up. Barnes was a supreme talent and earned a whopping salary, yet had no moral compass, a destructive combination if there ever was one. Naturally, Fly and Bad News bonded immediately. These were the days of funky music, cocaine, and shady ladies, and the two roommates indulged to the fullest.

There were always ladies at Fly’s townhouse, plenty of white powder on the coffee table and radio station WESL blasting at ear-splitting volume. Fly had a Cadillac, Marvin had a Rolls-Royce. They wore long frock coats, pimp hats and platform shoes. When the bars closed in St. Louis, the ballers and their entourage would head across the river to East Boogie and party till dawn. Miserly, Fly was not; he lived for the moment and burned through his paychecks.

From WOW! to What Happened?

On the court, Fly showed flashes of brilliance for the Spirits. “I think the first game, Fly came off the bench and scored 24 points. We didn’t draw huge crowds, but the 5,000 people that were there went nuts,” said legendary sportscaster Bob Costas. He was just beginning his career on KMOX as the Spirits’ play-by-play man. “He was an immediate crowd favorite.” Fly, always up for a laugh, chaffed the 5’7” Costas mercilessly, calling him “Little Bob.” “I teased Bob, but I loved Bob,” Fly said. “I’d love to see him today. He was a riot in those days.”

With “FLY” lettered on the back of his jersey, he buried acrobatic bombs and dunked from the foul line. In his intensity and creativity, he was integrating the ethos of streetball into the pro game. “Fly was a fantastic offensive threat. He was a warrior. He was a gladiator,” recalled Barnes. He was also heralded as a great rebounder.

But there were too many negatives: his indifferent defense, his ball-hogging and his hair-trigger temper. By the end of the season, he was riding the bench and had a disappointing 9.4 points-per-game scoring average. That was his first and only season in the big leagues; when the Spirits brought in a no-nonsense new coach, Rod Thorn, Fly was released. The team owner’s daughter cried when he was cut. It was a demoralizing blow for a 22-year-old with an ego as big as his Afro.

He remained close to the team, but for the worst possible reason. In the ESPN documentary “Free Spirits,” Fly said, “I was cut by the team but I still stayed in the city. Flew back and forth from New York to St. Louis. Sometimes Marvin used to put me on the plane. You know, ‘cause they needed their candy. I was their drug guy – I knew the dealers in every city. They put their orders through me.”

Fly’s waning hopes to return to the big leagues were crushed when the Spirits, who played for only two seasons, were left out of a merger agreement with the NBA and the team folded permanently. He had several NBA tryouts with the likes of the Buffalo Braves, but his bad reputation made him too big a risk.

Fly found himself back in Brooklyn, still a local legend, but now playing sporadically for a handful of semi-pro teams, including stops in Anchorage, Alaska, and even a brief interlude in Israel (he demanded a quick flight home after bombs exploded near his hotel). With the Jersey Shore Bullets, at perhaps his lowest point, he wrestled Victor the (actual) Bear at halftime to pick up $250. “Victor was 8-feet, 11-inches,” Williams recalled. “I lost.” Thankfully, Victor was heavily drugged, wore a muzzle, and had been declawed.

But Fly was incorrigibly Fly, and after he lost his temper one too many times and socked a referee, even the minor leagues didn’t want him anymore. Suddenly, his career was over. And there was worse to come.

Said childhood friend Ronald Jones: “I think (Fly) never made it for the simple reason that he was undisciplined. He always had problems with authority on teams – coaches and things. And he got involved in the street life at the same time. Once he wasn’t playing anymore, the street life just took over.” Washed up, not yet 30, “wandering the neighborhood and getting high,” as Ronald recalled, Fly sank into despondency. He crossed the point of no return when he segued from drug-using to drug-dealing.

Taken from Fly’s drug-conviction mugshot.

“I got a taste of that money and I didn’t know how to live no more unless I had that type of money,” Fly said. “So what was left for me was the streets.” Old friends like World B. Free and Dr. J tried but could not help him. Mike Tyson came by to meet his boyhood idol, but Fly was too high and too paranoid to receive him. In 1987, he almost died after being blasted with a shotgun after a deal gone wrong. The explosion set his leather jacket on fire, and he lost a lung, a kidney and half his stomach. He still carries hundreds of lead pellets in his body. After a miraculous but painful recovery, he served two brief stints in Attica for attempted robbery and drug possession. In prison, Fly was relieved to learn that due to his streetball fame, even the meanest convicts treated him with deference and respect.

Saved by the book (sort of)

In yet another twist of fate, the book “Heaven is a Playground” grew greatly in stature over the years and helped to refurbish Fly’s reputation. A film by the same name was made in 1991, with a main character loosely based on Williams. The producers courted Michael Jordan for the role, but by the start of filming he had ascended to worldwide fame and became unaffordable, so the role went to Bo Kimble, a relative unknown who also played in the NBA. An even more popular book, “Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association” by Terry Pluto, devoted significant ink to the zany escapades of Fly and the Spirits, with one chapter titled “A Brief Excursion into Fly-land.”

In his 50s, Fly received a bit of redemption when he was hired as a part-time motivational speaker, telling Brooklyn kids not to repeat his mistakes. “I’ve had a hell of an experience,” said Fly at the time. “I’m putting the negatives behind me now. I’m trying to give something positive to kids, maybe tell them my story. Maybe they can learn from it.”

Austin Peay University retired his number with a moving halftime ceremony. He made a cameo appearance in LeBron James’s first Nike commercial. The Brooklyn Nets recognized Williams for his charity work with an “Ordinary People doing Extraordinary Things Award” during a game. And he even made the cover of Sports Illustrated in October 2012 in a roundabout way – as part of a background mural honoring him and three other Brooklyn legends: Jay-Z, Dr. J and Jackie Robinson – rarefied company indeed.

But, once again Fly threw the whole thing away. In 2017 he was arrested as the kingpin in a $20 million-drug bust called “Operation Flying High.” James “Fly” Williams had been peddling drugs (in false-bottomed Pringles cans, of all things) to the some of the same kids that he had been mentoring just a few years earlier. His mugshot looks like a dog chewed him up and spit him out. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten more years in the Attica, N.Y., correctional facility. A district attorney said, “That someone with his stature, his influence on young people, would run such a substantial narcotics operation is truly sad and reprehensible.”

Bad News Barnes had a similar arc. He washed out of the NBA, even snorting coke under a towel during a game, and hit rock bottom in 1983 as a homeless person in San Diego. He died in 2014. The biggest winners of all were the Silna brothers. After the Spirits were left out of the NBA merger, they cannily settled for a 2 percent share of NBA TV rights in perpetuity, which brought them boatloads of money when Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan elevated pro hoops to the best show on the planet.

And Fly? He was paroled in January 2023 and is now living with his daughter in Brooklyn. He is 71 years old.

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David Higgins hails from the flyspeck town of Deposit in upstate New York and is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton (1984) and Louisiana State University (1988). He retired in 2021 from Corning Community College, where he taught art for thirty years. David is now a full-time oil painter, who specializes in realistic landscapes that often feature tumbledown and decaying homes and factories. This is Dave’s second article for Supplement St. Louis (check out the first one, https://supplementstlouis.com/2024/11/27/the-twain-throwdown/).