DALY CITY, Calif. — As if returning to a perfectly preserved childhood bedroom, Rick Barry stepped into the Cow Palace locker room to find it exactly as he’d left it.
“My God,” the 80-year-old former San Francisco/Golden State Warriors star gasped upon stepping through the door. “It was old when I was here. And it doesn’t look much different.”
Built in 1941, the Cow Palace originally was envisioned as a showcase for livestock. A bale of hay or two wouldn’t feel out of place even now. The active venue will host the Grand National Rodeo this October.
The off-white walls of this bygone home for the Warriors remain listless and barren. Barry settled his 6-foot-7 frame onto a bench and leaned into the row of vintage lockers. He then kept lobbing up memories as if they were his trademark underhand free throws. Barry recalled how players had to do their own laundry back in the day, so sometimes they’d shower in their uniforms and hang their jerseys to dry on a hook in the locker room.
Nowhere in these Spartan accommodations is a trace of the luxury awaiting players arriving for the NBA All-Star Game a few miles up the road this weekend at Chase Center, a corporate darling built for $1.4 billion.
But once upon a time, this glorified barn just below San Francisco’s southern border hosted basketball royalty. On Jan. 10, 1967, a small forward named Richard Francis Dennis Barry III soared above them all. Barry scored 38 points that day to capture MVP honors in the last NBA All-Star Game played on this side of the San Francisco Bay. (The Warriors last hosted in 2000, but in Oakland.)
A 22-year-old Barry did his damage against the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson during an era when — and this might be the hardest thing for modern fans to comprehend — players exerted at least an iota of effort on defense in All-Star Games.
Shocking, but true.
“We played a serious, highly contested game,” Barry said. “It was serious basketball to prove who could win. I mean, that was basketball. It was the best players in the world playing seriously.”
A herd of cattle is led into the parking lot of the Cow Palace during the cattle drive to the 53rd Grand National Rodeo. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press)
The Hall of Famer lives in Colorado these days but returned to this time capsule over the summer for the sole purpose of reminiscing about the good ol’ days — two great ol’ days, in particular. Barry toured the locker room, wandered through the halls adorned with photos from his glory days and roamed the floor where he cemented his stardom, first as an All-Star MVP in 1967 and as NBA Finals MVP in ’75.
While he cringed a bit at the locker room, it was clear Barry savored reimagining the basketball court. He said the soft, forgiving rims at the Cow Palace allowed even some bad bounces to flow through.
“I called them sewer pipes,” he said. “They weren’t collapsible rims. You hit one of these non-collapsible rims, and it’s like a trampoline sending the ball into outer space.”
Barry’s home-palace advantage came in handy during his landmark All-Star Game, played before an adoring crowd of 13,972 there to root on Barry and Nate Thurmond from the team then known as the San Francisco Warriors.
They got what they came for. In a game featuring 18 All-Stars who made it to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as either players or coaches, Barry made 16 of 27 shots from the field and added six rebounds and three assists to lead the Western Conference to a breezy 135-120 victory over the East.
“Yeah, it was pretty damn good — 38 points against all those guys,” Barry said.
Looking at the rosters, they could have called this the GOAT Palace. The last 2,000 tickets for the 1967 All-Star Game went on sale for $2 and $3, and for that price, the paying fans got to see greatness.
1967 NBA All-Star Game
(* Hall of Fame)
West starters
Coach: Fred Schaus
Nate Thurmond*
Rick Barry*
Jerry West*
Guy Rodgers*
Elgin Baylor*
West reserves
Dave deBusschere*
Jerry Sloan*
Bill Bridges
Lenny Wilkens*
Darrall Imhoff
East starters
Coach: Red Auerbach*
Wilt Chamberlain*
Oscar Robertson*
Hal Greer*
Willis Reed*
Bailey Howell*
East reserves
Don Ohl
Chet Walker*
Jerry Lucas*
Bill Russell*
John Havlicek*
In all, 13 of the players from that game were among the 50 greatest players in NBA history, chosen in 1996 for the league’s 50th anniversary.
Though in just his second year in the league, Barry hardly cowered at the Cow Palace in the face of such famous competition. He was audacious enough to pull into the parking lot that day in a red Porsche 911, then kept up that brash energy on the court. His 27 field goal attempts were an All-Star record at the time and still rank sixth in the game’s history. (It should be noted Anthony Davis blew away that mark with the current record, 39 attempts(!) and that Stephen Curry took 27 3-point attempts in 2022.)
With his barrage in ’67, Barry was making up for lost time. A year earlier as a rookie, he fouled out after playing just 17 minutes and scoring 10 points.
“When has anybody fouled out of an All-Star Game now, right?” Barry said, still incredulous. “There’s no defense now! It’s not even a game. It’s just throwing the alley-oops and the dunks.
“It’s fine if you want to be entertained, and it is entertaining. But it’s not a game. They’re trying to find ways to make it more competitive. It’s just never gonna happen.”
In the 2024 game, the East beat the West in a 211-186 eyesore, prompting radical changes to this year’s format. There was no such need for gimmicks in 1967 because players were motivated by a payday, even if it looks quaint in retrospect.
“Back when we played, I think it might have been $3,000 for the winners … maybe that much,” Barry said. “I only made about a $15,000 salary, so if I got $3,000, I just made one-fifth of my salary playing in the All-Star Game.
“I sure as hell wanted to win. Different world.”
Rick Barry visited the Cow Palace today and signed his photo on the wall. The Warriors legend thinks it was his first time here since 1975. pic.twitter.com/lJbLP5afd6
— Daniel Brown (@BrownieAthletic) July 11, 2024
The San Francisco Warriors had reached the All-Star break in first place in the Western Division standings that season, eight games ahead of the St. Louis Hawks, with Barry on his way to leading the NBA in scoring with 35.6 points per game.
And which of the legendary foes from the East did he match up against in the All-Star Game? Barry pondered the question for a few seconds and fell silent — a rarity. He finally shrugged.
“Didn’t matter,” he said. “I always say, ‘Take enough shots, you can score,’ right?”
Barry ventured that he was pitted most often against Havlicek because that happened a lot during the regular season. “We became friends,” he said.
Barry also had help from Thurmond, who made a more subtle case for MVP honors. Thurmond, who was 25 at the time, went hightops-to-hightops against Chamberlain (age 30) and Russell (nearly 33).
Thurmond had 16 points and 18 rebounds and tied an All-Star Game record by playing 42 minutes. Chamberlain finished with 14 points in 39 minutes, while Russell had two points in 14 minutes.
“I was a good rebounder, and I got jacked up going against those two guys on national television,” Thurmond told Ron Kroichick of the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000. “You don’t want to be embarrassed in your own backyard. Your body can do magnificent things when you’re excited, motivated and young.”
In the end, this was Barry’s show. It usually was. But he said he did not step on court that day planning to take over.
“I never thought about that. We just played,” he said. “When I got the ball, I tried to find a way to score. I wasn’t a selfish player. If I had a teammate in a better position, he’s getting the basketball. That’s just the way that I always played the game.
“It’s pretty remarkable to get 38 points in a game like that with all those great players. So, it was just an honor to be there.”
The Warriors played at the Cow Palace from 1962 to 1964 and again from 1966 to 1971. When Golden State shocked the universe by reaching the NBA Finals in 1975, the team had to play Game 3 there because the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum already had scheduled an Ice Follies performance.
In that Game 3 against the heavily favored Washington Bullets, Barry scored 38 points as the Warriors were en route to a stunning series sweep. Barry remembers that part fondly. He is less enthusiastic when recalling that he did not get to drive home in a new Corvette, as previous NBA Finals MVPs did.
“That year, they switched sponsors. It was AMC,” Barry said, “and I got a freaking Pacer.”
Rick Barry held court in the same no-frills locker room where fellow greats like Jerry West and Elgin Baylor prepped for the 1967 All-Star Game. (Courtesy: Golden State Warriors)
It was yet another chapter of quirky, eye-popping history for the Cow Palace. The Beatles kicked off their U.S. tour there in 1964. The Who played there in 1973, although during the concert, drummer Keith Moon passed out after reportedly taking horse tranquilizers. When KISS played there on Aug. 16, 1977, they dedicated “Rock and Roll All Nite” to Elvis Presley, who died earlier that day.
The Cow Palace twice hosted the Republican National Convention, nominating Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 and Barry Goldwater in 1964. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the latter event.
Evel Knievel jumped over cars there in 1972. This was the first NHL home for the San Jose Sharks, from 1991 to 1993, until the completion of the San Jose Arena, now the SAP Center at San Jose.
By around 2010, the Cow Palace aged and fell into a state of financial disarray and physical disuse. As budget woes paralyzed California lawmakers every summer, the landmark faced threats that it would be shuttered and sold. But the arena kept plowing ahead, albeit with a much lower profile. The upcoming concert calendar includes the ToxicWinter musical fest, featuring bands such as Emorfik, Chibs and Infekt.
Rick Barry, wearing No. 24 in the background, was the star among stars in this 1967 gathering of NBA greats at the Cow Palace. (Robert W. Klein / Associated Press)
To Barry, it will always be the home of the day he was the star among stars. It might not be as glamorous as the Chase Center, but he has no beef with the Cow Palace.
“It was great. The arena was packed,” he said. “We always had great fans. It just got bigger and better.”
(Top photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors)
