IT ALL started last spring. I went back to my old junior high school to give a talk on college life, as a favor to my old guidance counselor.

I was introduced as a Central Junior High School graduate who was attending Harvard, and I talked for most of third period about college, studies, activities, et. al. The kids were not enthralled. Most junior highers are not overly concerned about next week, let alone...

It was painless though. The bell rang, the class piled out, and I was about ready to make my exit, when a little blond-haired boy poked my arm.

"Mister..." The kid meant me.

"If you go to Harvard do you know Tom Sanders?"

"Well not exactly...I, ah, know who he is, but..."

"Do you think you could get me his autograph?"

"Well...ah...Ya, I guess I could--when he comes to Harvard next fall."

It sounded like a simple way to make a kid happy. No big deal, right? Wrong.

If you think differently, you didn't grow up around Boston in the sixties, and you don't know who Tom Sanders really is.

Tom Sanders played forward for the Celtics when the New York Knicks used to finish last. Tom Sanders played through ten years of Celtics dynasty. In those days the Herald, the Globe and the Record would take turns once a week writing a story about how Tom Sanders was the most underrated basketball player in the N.B.A., the best defensive forward in basketball, unfairly over-shadowed by high scorers. Tom Sander's Number 16 dangles from atop the Boston Garden right beside the 6 and 14 of immortals Bill Russell and Bob Cousy.

But I had made a promise and I had to follow through.

So one afternoon in mid-October I headed over to Sanders's office at the I.A.B.

Nervously I asked the janitor where I could find Coach Sanders.

"He's upstairs in the gym running a practice. You can go on up if you want."