It's been 25 years since Kermit Washington's devastating blow crushed the face of Rudy Tomjanovich. Washington's life has never been the same. Maybe Shaquille O'Neal should take a note before he winds up delivering ... A life-altering punch

Kermit Washington sat in his Portland, Ore., home earlier this month, watching the late edition of ESPN's "SportsCenter." He felt that familiar knot in his stomach as they re-ran pictures of an irate Shaquille O'Neal throwing a wild, menacing punch at Chicago Bulls center Brad Miller.

Washington was relieved Shaq missed. Not a day goes by that he doesn't wonder how his life would have been different if he had.

It's been 25 years since Washington nearly destroyed Rudy Tomjanovich's face with a devastating punch that Kings president Geoff Petrie still describes as the "single most serious event of that kind to ever happen in sports." A quarter century later, and the articulate, soft-spoken Washington still can't get a job in basketball.

Twenty-five years ago, and he's still branded.

"It's the way things are in life," Washington said. "I owned a restaurant for a while, and every day I must have been asked that question: 'Aren't you the one?'

"Every time something happens in the NBA, they throw me up there. Everything in life is not fair. You live with the cards you're dealt. And sometimes, you live with the cards you dealt yourself."

Washington was three years into a promising NBA career on Dec. 9, 1977. It was the night his life changed in the flash of a fist.

Washington had been a GTE athletic and academic All-American at American University. Not only did he become one of only five players in collegiate history to average more than 20 points and 20 rebounds, he earned a psychology degree.

At 6-foot-8 and 250 pounds, he defined the power forward position in the 1970s.

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He thought about becoming a head coach when he was through playing. He even considered a career in politics. Now, he'd just be happy if somebody returned his phone calls.

The NBA was a dangerous place in 1977. There were 41 fights that season, and the league was being compared to the NHL. Teams talked of having "enforcers," basketball's version of hockey goons.

Strong and aggressive on the court, Washington was regarded as a gentle, sensitive family man off it. But on a team that featured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Washington was considered the Los Angeles Lakers' enforcer.

And on an icy night in Houston, two weeks before Christmas, Washington earned the label.

In a typically physical game, Washington found himself embroiled in a tussle with Rockets forward Kevin Kunnert when he noticed a blur out of the corner of his eye. It was Rudy T, who had sprinted from the Houston bench to break up the fight.

In a moment of sheer instinct, Washington turned and crushed Tomjanovich with a vicious right hand that Lakers assistant coach Jack McCloskey called "the hardest punch in the history of mankind."

Tomjanovich suffered fractures of the face and skull. His nose was broken, and he suffered a separated upper jaw, a concussion and lacerations around his mouth. He was leaking spinal fluid into his nose.

In an article on the incident, Sports Illustrated reported the "bone structure of his face was knocked loose from his skull." Doctors compared the injury with hitting a windshield at 50 mph.

Tomjanovich spent two weeks in the hospital while nurses and family kept towels over the mirrors to hide his face from himself.

"When I was (in the emergency room), I wondered if I would ever play again," Tomjanovich said. "I thought I was gonna be the Elephant Man and have to be put away and, 'Oh, my God, look at the face on that guy.' "

Tomjanovich recovered, won a $3.2 million lawsuit from the Lakers and went on to coach the Rockets to an NBA title. Washington was fined $10,000 and suspended for 60 days (a loss of about $75,000 in pay), and saw his career start circling the bowl like a deceased goldfish.

He played with four teams over the next five years and retired in 1982 at age 30.

And still, when a violent incident occurs in sports, they go to the videotape -- the "sporting world's Zapruder film," according to HBO's Bryant Gumbel.

"Rudy was just a blur," Washington said after the punch. "Why did he have to run at me? I felt like I was walking out to my car and somebody tried to mug me. I couldn't sleep for the longest time."

Not all of the basketball fraternity condemns Washington. Lakers executive Mitch Kupchak, who played for the then-Washington Bullets, said that if put in the same position, many players would have reacted the same way.

"When you turn, and you see a guy roaring down on you, you have to fight," he said.

Hall of Famer Wes Unseld calls it a "tragic and regrettable incident." But, at the same time, he believes Tomjanovich should have known better.

"You must either break up the fight or you take the fight upon yourself," he said. "You have to be prepared for anything."

Still, even thought it's a new century, that one night in Houston still haunts Kermit Washington.

"I must have applied for 200 jobs from high school to the pros," Washington said. "It's not that they don't want me. It's they realize all the ramifications directed toward me. I'm still viewed as something negative."

Washington settled in Portland after his retirement. He had a radio talk show for a while and nearly went bankrupt opening a sports bar in Vancouver, Wash.

He still works out every day and, at age 50, says there is nobody stronger in the NBA today. He can still bench-press 400 pounds and even won a beer keg-toss at a Scottish Games a couple of years ago.

He'd love to get back into the NBA as a trainer or strength coach. And though he knows the odds are slim, he says he's never been bitter about his plight.

"My life would have turned out so much better," he said. "Then again, I might have stayed in L.A. and got run over by a car. I just kept working hard and believing things are going to come out right.

"It didn't make me bitter, but it did show how others could keep me in my place."

Gumbel reunited Tomjanovich and Washington on his "Real Sports" program last May. Rudy T said the only way he could move on was to "forgive" his assailant.

For most, it was the first time we really got to know the real Kermit Washington, the man who established the "Sixth Man Foundation," offering a "new start in life for deserving people" of Portland. The man who single-handedly founded and financed "Project Contact," which provides medical supplies and care for underdeveloped African nations. He recently completed his 13th trip.

He even auctioned off his Porsche to help finance the organization.

"He's really tried to do some things for the people up there," Petrie said.

"It's just a real unfortunate thing."

The unfortunate thing is that one split-second mistake can alter the course of a person's life.

"It'll be on my grave: 'The guy who hit Rudy Tomjanovich,' " Washington said.

"And that's unfortunate. I don't think Rudy wants to be remembered like that, and I sure don't want to be remembered like that.

"You know what, though? I wouldn't be remembered at all, good or bad, if it hadn't been for that. I guess it's my legacy."

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