As a Div. I college basketball player and an 11-year ABA/NBA pro, Swen Nater was never too far from greatness.
In college, the 6-foot-11 Nater played behind Hall of Fame center Bill Walton at UCLA, under legendary basketball coach John Wooden. In the pros, Nater played against Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then played alongside him for one season with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1983.
To date, Nater is the only basketball player to never start a college game and yet be an NBA first round draft choice. He is the only player to lead both the ABA and NBA in rebounding, is one of six NBA players to score 30 points and grab 30 rebounds in the same game, is the single-game record holder for most defensive rebounds in one half (18) and remains the single-game rebounding record holder for Milwaukee Bucks (33).
Yet success was anything but preordained for the Dutch big man.
Nater, 65, told his story about beating the odds and finding his niche as a professional basketball player to the Sammamish Chamber of Commerce Dec. 15 at the Sahalee Country Club. A former Klahanie resident, Nater now works as a buyer for Costco.
“There are things that happened in my life that brought me down to earth,” Nater said. “Every time I think I’m somebody special, something will happen that will bring me back to earth.”
Born in Holland, Nater’s parents divorced when he was 3. His mother received custody of her three children, which included Nater’s older sister and younger brother, but couldn’t afford to take care of all three. So Nater and his older sister went from living with a friend of their mother’s to foster care to living in an orphanage. His mother remarried and moved to America with his younger brother, with Nater’s stepfather saying they would send for Nater and his sister after they made enough money.
It wasn’t until a sponsor family, which was hosting Nater’s parents, arranged for him and his sister to come to the United States four years later, by way of a surprise reunion on the television show “It Could Be You,” a forerunner to “This Is Your Life,” in 1959.
“In 22 hours, we went from an orphanage in Amsterdam to a Beverly Hills hotel,” he said.
Speaking little English, the two Nater children traveled to Hollywood for the show, hiding inside a staged windmill before a live audience. The show host, Bill Leyden, called Nater’s mother and stepfather to the stage, with his mother opening the windmill door to find her children.
“My sister ran into my stepdad’s arms, and me into my mom’s,” he said. “I could not explain to you the feeling of when that woman held me. It had been four years. The feeling of being with my mom, I never wanted to let her go. And I never let her go.”
The excitement of reuniting with his family, though, was short-lived.
“We got in the car and were heading back down to Long Beach, California. And my stepdad said in Dutch, so I could understand it clearly, with disgust, ‘Now, we’ve got another two mouths to feed,’” Nater said. “And for the next 10 years, I lived in a home that was hell on earth.”
Nater detailed an abusive childhood filled with beatings, developing welts from whippings, getting his teeth chipped and being forced to take cold showers. Using warm water wasn’t allowed and would lead to more beatings.
But basketball proved to be a saving grace, even if Nater wasn’t any good at the time and wasn’t allowed to play.
“I loved basketball and I loved the Lakers. The Lakers had a lot of stars and my favorite, my hero Wilt Chamberlain,” Nater said, adding that he hid a transistor radio under his pillow to listen to Laker games. “Wilt Chamberlain was the greatest athlete that the world has ever seen.”
Nater was cut from his high school basketball tryouts, but continued practicing. As a 6-foot-9 junior college student at Cypress College, Nater was recruited to play basketball by an assistant coach at the school, who worked with him every day. Nater developed a hook shot that he attributed to his work with the coach, shooting 500 hook shots a day.
Nater got good. He became an All-American at the junior college level and went on to play at UCLA.
“John Wooden told me, ‘You’re gonna sit on the bench. But I think you can make the pros if you play against Bill Walton every day and you get coached by me,’” Nater recalled. “He was right.”
Nater found his niche on the hardwood, specializing as a rebounder, for which he developed a passion.
“The act of rebounding, getting up in the air, high in the air above the rim and grabbing that basketball when everybody else wants it and you bring it down. It’s yours, that feeling that you did that for your team, and you’re the one that did it, is unbelievable,” he said.
Nater shared his three secrets for rebounding that Wooden taught him. And, like many other lessons the legendary coach taught his players, Nater said the three secrets were not limited to the basketball court.
“First, I assume that every shot is missed. Second, I get in position where I think that ball is going to bounce, and third, I go get the basketball. That’s it,” he said. “It just so happens those three steps can be applied to anything in life, in particular change, because a missed shot is nothing but change.”
Modifying his rules, Nater said the first step is assuming change will happen, the second step is putting yourself into a position to succeed and third is to “go get that ball.”
“The harder you work, the luckier you get. That’s true,” Nater said. “The hard workers know that good luck is right around the corner. It may take awhile but it’s gonna be there. You gotta keep on working, that’s when the opportunity comes.”
Since retiring from basketball, Nater built a basketball program at Christian Heritage College and authored five books on teaching and basketball. He is one of the directors for the annual Cascade Classic international girls basketball tournament, which will take place Dec. 27-30 at Eastlake and Skyline High Schools.
As a grandfather of three grandchildren, Nater said his life is all about children. He encouraged those in attendance to share his “rebounding in life” message with the children in their lives.
“It’s just a wonderful thing to teach them, to work with them and to be an example,” he said.
