'85 NBA Draft Revisited: Mr. Irrelevant

(Editor's note: This week, VICE Sports takes a look at some of the quirkier stories from the historic 1985 NBA Draft on its 30th-year anniversary.)

On June 18 1985, hours after David Stern delivered Patrick Ewing to the Knicks, a 6-foot-9, 198-pound New Jersey boy from Rutgers University, Chris Remley, was a completely anonymous non-conspiratorial seventh-round selection of the Boston Celtics. He was the last player taken in a draft—pick No. 162— that featured future Hall-of-Famers Ewing, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Joe Dumars and Arvydas Sabonis, and other notable players like Charles Oakley, Spud Webb, Manute Bol, and Mario Elie, who was selected just two spots ahead of Remley.

The distinction of being the last player taken in this historic draft—which at that time lasted seven rounds—earned Remley some momentary notoriety. But it didn't last. He never played a minute in the NBA, and he went on to live a rather ordinary—by non professional sports standards—life. That he was even drafted at all was rather lucky.

Late in Remley's senior season, the Boston Celtics sent a scout to a Rutgers game to watch Remley's teammate John Battle—who would be selected in the fourth round by the Atlanta Hawks—and they liked what they saw in a rail-thin marksman who shot nearly 56 percent from the floor, mostly on jumpers, and 93 percent from the foul line. "At the end of the season, I was playing really well," says Remley, now 52. "My coach called me in and said the Celtics were impressed and were going to pick me, so I knew I was getting drafted. But they said it could be anywhere between the fourth and seventh rounds. They were the only ones interested. It wasn't like another team was going to grab me."

After making him sweat it out for hours in his off-campus apartment, the Warren, New Jersey native finally got the call from the Celtics, which allowed him to follow in his father's hightops. In 1960, Ken Remley was drafted 28th overall by the Detroit Pistons. But he passed on the NBA to become a chemist. Chris became acutely aware that he too would likely never play in the NBA even before training camp began. He recognized right away that his frame and lack of bulk were going to be an issue. "I got on the bus and I thought we were going to a football training camp. I knew right away that my size was going to limit what I could do." he says. A small forward at Rutgers, Celtics coach K.C. Jones had him playing two-guard in camp. But he was still pushed around.

"Danny Ainge was there and he was throwing me around. He and Rick Carlisle look so small on television, but I was getting manhandled," says Remley. "I shot well with the Celtics. I didn't bomb, but I had a hard time defensively. It was one-on-one isolation stuff. I just wasn't big enough. It's how I was born. I lifted weights all the time, but I never got stronger like I needed to be."

Still, looking back he remembers training camp as one of the more interesting weeks of his life. It was held in conjunction with Red Auerbach's kid's camp, which was held out in the Massachusetts woods. Players bunked down in log cabins with the campers. Just some dudes trying to catch on with the Celtics hanging out with some little fellas. And the biggest stud of all? Len Bias, who was working out at the training camp the year before the Celtics took him with the second pick overall.

"He was the best player on the court by far," says Remley, who packed up and left with little hope of making the mighty Celtics. "Maybe if it had been a lesser NBA team, I could have been that eleventh or twelfth guy on the bench. But of course, back then, the Celtics were in the Finals almost every year. So I had good and bad luck as a draft pick. I had a $70,000 contract, the minimum rookie salary, but I knew after a week, that I wasn't going to make it. I didn't get a hat, a tee shirt, no memorabilia, nothing but an unsigned contract."

A couple of weeks later, Remley got a call from the Bay City Bombardiers, a CBA team in Worcester, Mass. affiliated with the Celtics. They asked, "Where you been? We've been looking for you?"

He played for a week or two, realized he got better treatment and nicer hotels at Rutgers, and decided to continue down the basketball path overseas. Remley landed in Ireland, playing first in Dublin, then Waterford. He enjoyed it, but the team ran out of money. "They said we'll pay you to finish out the season, or we can fly you home now," Remley recalls. "I went back to Jersey, but not before bringing my girlfriend to Ireland for Christmas and proposing to her." Twenty-seven years later, and Remley is still married, with a daughter in college and twin boys heading into their junior year of high school.

After a year off, Remley used a connection to P.J. Carlesimo to get hooked up with an Australian team coached by Lindsay Gaze, father of Seton Hall's Andrew. The team was barnstorming the midwest. Remley joined them for a couple weeks, which led to his spending two years playing in and around Melbourne. "If it was just me, I would have spent the rest of my life there. Living in Australia probably adds ten years to it because everyone is so laid-back and friendly, but my wife was ready to start a family, so we came back to New Jersey for good," he says. "To be honest, at twenty-eight, I'd had enough of basketball."

Back home in the Garden State, Remley embarked upon a long coaching and teaching career that's become a real-life version of Springsteen's "Glory Days," except his stories are warm and congenial, not boring, and he didn't have to recapture the days of his sporting youth. Remley kept on living it. He started working Carlesimo's camp, got his teaching credential together, and became an assistant at Dover High School in 1992. He moved over to Rahway High School, where he's been teaching health and P.E., and coaching ever since. He spent a number of years as an assistant boys' basketball coach, before ultimately taking the girls' team to a state section championship in 2003. He later won a state section championship in 2006 with the boys' team led by Earl Clark. "He kind of put me into retirement," said Remley. "It was like coaching myself except with someone who wasn't receptive to coaching." Headaches aside, leading both the boys and girls teams to titles was significant. Remley was only the second coach in New Jersey state history to do so.

Today, Remley is still coaching, but no more hoops. The girl's tennis team just won a conference championship—first in Rahway's history. In the past, he also coached his twin sons' pay-to-play tournament teams, but now that they've recently finished their junior year at Cranford High, he doesn't want to do anything but sit back and watch. He thinks one of his sons will have the opportunity to play Division 1 basketball. College, isn't cheap, so he says he'll probably put in another five or six years before retiring.

Remley says he only has two basketball regrets. A teammate's elbow knocked him out of his final high school game twenty-four points shy of a thousand for his career. He came up short by the exact same amount at Rutgers. He laughs at the statistical absurdity of it, knowing he's had quite a run. He's happy with his life in sports, but he takes extra pride that nearly all of it took place in a state that has been known, once in awhile, on occasion, sometimes… to be the butt of a joke or two.

"Growing up in New Jersey, playing at Rutgers, then coming home to coach, teach, and raise a family means pretty much everywhere I go, somebody knows me and will come up to say hello," says Remley. "Getting drafted was special, but basketball has been my career, and people love talking about it. It's cool because it brings back a lot of great memories."

Former NFL wide receiver Paul Salata created "Mister Irrelevant" in 1976, but Remley says he never heard the expression back then. If he had heard of it, odds are he would've had fun with it. Even back in 1985, Remley had a good sense of humor about being picked last telling the Associated Press that if he had been the second to last pick, "no one would know about me," which made him a mini-celebrity for a few days at the Shore.

"I had relatives and friends from around the country sending that article to me in the mail. If I had gone 161, that never would've happened because the article never would have been written," says Remley. "I still remember my roommate handing me the phone and hearing 'Welcome to the Boston Celtics.' That was a good day."