THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Sunday, April 10, 2016

For a moment, I thought my Utah Stars were coming back.

I followed with interest the rumblings early last week that the Utah Jazz were moving their NBA D-League affiliate from Boise to Salt Lake City — continuing a trend among NBA teams to have their D-League teams as close as possible.

Early reports speculated the team would be renamed the Utah Stars, a homage to the old ABA team that played in Salt Lake City for five seasons, and part of a sixth, in the 1970s.

But, I’m guessing for trademark reasons, the Jazz instead decided to name their D-League affiliate the Salt Lake City Stars, and announced the team would play its home games at Salt Lake Community College’s Bruin Arena (maybe in 40 years, we’ll write a column about the good ol’ days when North Idaho College’s basketball teams used to play in Bruin Arena, against SLCC).

In any event, the Stars news — along with the announcement that former Utah Stars, uh, star, Zelmo Beaty was being inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, brought back a flood of memories.

OUR FAMILY (cat included, but that’s another column) moved to Salt Lake City from Salem, Ore., in June of 1970, months before the Stars began play in Salt Lake City after three seasons in southern California.

The Utah Stars were fun to watch — and inexpensive. Ticket prices at the Salt Palace were $2, $3, $4 and $5. The Stars jacked up the prices for the playoffs — to $3, $4, $5 and $6.

A couple of kids I went to school with, their parents had season tickets on the baseline, near the visitors’ bench, and I was fortunate to be invited to join them a couple of times. A few other times, I went to a Friday night game with a friend of mine, and to save our parents some money, we opted for the $2 seats.

ABA games were high-scoring games — none of this 82-80, Eastern Conference crap. I remember critics calling the ABA the “beach ball league” because they used a red, white and blue ball. Of course, the ABA referred to the NBA as the “brown ball league.”

Beaty, who came to the Stars in 1970, was somewhat of a known quantity, having played previously for the Atlanta Hawks of the “brown ball league.”

Others, you may or may not have heard of — Austin “Red” Robbins, a slender forward whose nickname was “the walking 1-iron.” Willie Wise, a forward from Drake. Ron Boone, a guard from Idaho State, who went on to become a broadcaster for the Jazz.

One of the kids I played basketball with in seventh and eighth grade apparently knew Glen Combs, who was a shooting guard with the Stars at the time. Anyway, for one of our Catholic School-league games at Judge Memorial, Glen Combs came to the game. Now, that might not impress you as much as if, say, Gary Payton showed up at your game, but for me, a shooting guard on my team who spent hours and hours practicing long-range shots in our driveway, having the shooting guard from the Utah Stars show up at your game was a big deal.

Some of the visiting players who came to town included Dr. J, George Gervin, Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel. I once attended a Stars game with one of the priests from our church. Talk about being on your best behavior — and I think that applied more to him than to me. Me, I watched with amazement as the 7-foot Gilmore seemingly shot free throws DOWN at the rim.

Few games — especially home games — were televised in those days, so many a night was spent with the clock/radio tuned to a fairly weak AM station, listening to the play-by-play from Bill Howard, one of the best announcers you’ve probably never heard of.

“Beaty shoots ... Beaty scorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrres,” I would remember hearing as I tried — sort of — to drift off to sleep.

The Stars went all the way, that first season in Salt Lake. Their big rivals were the Indiana Pacers, one of the bullies of the ABA at the time, led by Mel Daniels and Roger Brown, and later joined by George McGinnis. The Stars were the upstart team, and played the Pacers for the chance to advance to the championship series.

As an ode to the rivalry, a Salt Lake radio station trotted out the R. Dean Taylor classic, “Indiana Wants Me,” which included the line, “Lord I can’t go back there ... ” during the series.

As it turned out, Utah did go back there to Indianapolis and won Game 7, then went on to beat Issel and the Kentucky Colonels in seven games for the 1971 ABA title.

Maybe every season could be like that one, I thought, and of course, it doesn’t work that way. The next two seasons, the Stars made the playoffs, but fell one round short of the ABA finals each year.

WE MOVED up to Spokane in early 1974 (cat not included), and I tried to keep track of the Stars from afar. But the Stars franchise folded early in the 1975-76 season, a year before the ABA merged with the NBA.

Oh well. I still have a red, white and blue basketball, a tribute to those days, and I put some air in it and shot some baskets in the driveway recently. Glen Combs would be proud.

Howard is long gone, so is Robbins, and Beaty passed away a couple of years ago. There’s not a lot of video from those days, so mostly what remains is a few old game programs I saved from those days, plus whatever memories I have from the “beach ball league.”

And, of course, a couple of “Utah Stars, ABA Champions” bumper stickers I still have around the house, somewhere.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.