Tom Nissalke's impact felt far beyond the court

SALT LAKE CITY — Every day of his life, John Lucas, a former No. 1 NBA draft pick, awakens and remembers what he doesn't recall.

He remembers he's a recovering cocaine and alcohol addict who stumbled up from a drug-induced blackout at 7 a.m. in downtown Houston 24 years ago, wearing a disheveled designer suit and soaked in his own urine.

He remembers being released by the Rockets two days later and telling himself he couldn't continue the course he was on.

He just doesn't recall what he did during the blackouts.

So at roughly that same time each morning since, he attends a recovery meeting to remind himself he yet could slip back into the shadows.

"I have to remember," he says. "I have to."

Every year on March 14 — the anniversary of the start of his sobriety — Lucas gets a call from his former coach in Houston, Tom Nissalke, to make sure he is still on course.

"Tom has reached out for me every (sobriety) day for the last 24 years," Lucas said in a telephone interview this week. "He helped save my life."

Nissalke has reached out to a lot of people. The Jazz's first coach in Utah will be honored at the YMCA Sports Night to Benefit Kids on Thursday. He has served as a Salt Lake YMCA board member and chairman of the benefit night for 13 years. He also was the YMCA's CEO for two years.

His work has raised funds for building, camp and after-school programs in Salt Lake and Weber counties.

Nissalke chose Lucas in the 1976 draft. Though he had been replaced by Bill Fitch as coach of the Rockets by the time Lucas bottomed out, the two had remained friends, which is why Lucas will be in town as Nissalke's award presenter.

Lucas' story wasn't that of a disadvantaged kid, lured into crime and drugs by his surroundings. His parents were administrators at secondary schools in Durham, N.C. Lucas, also a pro caliber tennis player, graduated from the University of Maryland, later completing a master's degree in secondary education.

Yet by the time he crashed, he had been in and out of rehab centers several times.

"My addiction came about because I ran out of life goals," he says. "I played at the Forum, Madison Square Garden, and now what was my next goal? I never knew how to enjoy life without competing, so when I got to the pros, there was not another level to go to.