There is always at least one person in every family that is different. Not different in terms of food, movie, or book preferences. Different in terms of sanity. They aren’t certifiably insane, but they don’t fall anywhere near the target of “normal.” Everybody can tell fun stories about those relatives, but most are likely to pale compared to Jaquan Brisker. The Chicago Bears’ new 2nd round pick has one that is hard to top.
Brisker comes from an athletic family. Easily the most famous of the bunch is John Brisker. At first glance, the man had a brief but productive career in professional basketball. He joined the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1969 with the Pittsburgh Pipers. He blossomed into a top forward in the league, averaging 29.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 3.4 assists in 1970-71 and 1971-72. Brisker was an All-Star both seasons.
Finally, that next season, he joined the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics.
While he was still a decent player for the next two seasons, he wasn’t quite as dominant as he was in Pittsburgh. One thing was clear, though, few players had a larger reputation than Brisker. For all his success playing basketball, other players soon learned the man was one of the biggest loose cannons in the sport. Nobody got into more fights. He once got ejected two minutes into a game against the Denver Rockets for elbowing Art Becker. He grew so enraged that he tried to storm the court three more times before officers threatened to arrest him. Eventually, he earned the nickname “Heavyweight Champion of the ABA.”
One of his own teammates, fellow All-Star Charlie Williams, once said, “He was an excellent player. But say something wrong to the guy and you had this feeling he would reach into his bag, take out his gun, and shoot you.”
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Following the 1974-75 season, Brisker was out of Seattle and basketball entirely. He was only 28-years old. Needing to find a new profession, he explored business opportunities outside the U.S. In 1978, he traveled to Uganda to establish an import-export business. Then he vanished. Nobody could contact him, and he was never heard from again.
There are many theories as to what happened.
One of the most popular is he became a mercenary for infamous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin who was known to be a fan of basketball. Amin was notorious for his ruthlessness and cruelty during his reign, said to have killed anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 people in ethnic purges and other crackdowns to maintain his power. If this legend is true, the timing couldn’t have been worse for Brisker. Amin was overthrown a year later, in 1979. Many of his followers were executed during the chaos.
No confirmation was ever received. In 1985, Brisker was declared dead to settle his estate. Jaquan Brisker was born in 1999. So he never got the opportunity to meet his grandfather. One can only imagine the stories he might’ve heard.
