When former Point Loma Nazarene men’s head basketball coach, and once-upon-a-time San Diego Rockets big-man John Block was 3, he toddled up to the family lawn mower, got on his hands and knees, and reached under the blades.

Three fingers were completely severed, but as Block tells it, it looked worse than it felt.

“I went around to my mom and yelled ‘Hey look what I did,’” Block remembered. “I held up my hand and she freaked out. That was a precursor; I have had to endure pain and I have a high threshold. That was the beginning of seeing that happen”

That first lesson in pain management served Block well. In the years since he has had 33 surgeries and multiple stays in the hospital.

“I’ve had open heart surgery – pacemakers put in,” Block said. “I’ve had back surgeries; I have a new left ankle; a fused right ankle; a new hip on my right side; a new shoulder on my right side.”

Now, 79, Block is often found at the San Diego Racquet Club, putting his new body parts to use on the pickleball court.

“I can’t take more than two steps, but I still have some good reach and hands that can hit a ball,” said Block, who is 6 feet 9 inches tall.

For 10 years, Block ground down his original ankles, hips, and shoulders, on the NBA hardwood, matched up with and against the premier big men of the league during the 1960s and ’70s.

“It was thrilling,” Block said. “My first year with the Rockets we were playing a doubleheader in Philadelphia and [Bill Russell] was guarding me out in the corner. I made a fake and stepped through and drove to the middle. He went up and I went up and I dunked two-handed on him. I said to myself as I went down the court ‘Oh my gosh I can’t believe it, I just dunked on Bill Russell.’ Never again did I dunk on Russell.”

And then there was Wilt Chamberlain.

“He’s the best big-man athlete who ever lived,” Block said. “He was stronger than anybody; he could run as fast as any point guard; he could jump high; his physical presence was overwhelming.”

In the San Diego Rockets’ inaugural season [1967-68], Block came over in the expansion draft, after spending his rookie year with the Lakers, playing sparingly. With the opportunity for big minutes at Sports Arena, he averaged over 20 points per game, leading the Rockets in scoring.

“For the whole season with the Lakers, I only played 118 minutes,” Block remembered. “I do not recall how I found out [about the expansion draft], but my response to that was elation. I was going to go to a team and have a chance to play.”

The team struggled, losing 32 of their final 33 games.

“The stress of the travel was a killer,” Block said. “We played 13 or 14 games in 17 days once, all over the country.”

In his second season, the Rockets drafted a future Hall of Fame, volume scorer, with a shoot-first, pass-last reputation: Elvin Hayes.

“I always knew Elvin was going to get his shot off and I was going to get his offensive rebound; I lived on that,” Block said. “He had a turnaround bank shot and you knew where he was going to shoot it. Yea, he was a blackhole but that was okay, he was a Hall of Famer.”

With Hayes, the Rockets improved from 15 wins to 37, making the playoffs for the only time in their four-season stay in San Diego.

“There were no bad egos in the group,” Block remembered. “I liked Elvin a lot – he was a little strange. I got him into horses. We rode in the Coronado Easter parade together.”

The Rockets’ fourth and final season in San Diego culminated with 40 wins and growing attendance numbers. The city even hosted the NBA All-Star game, but owner Bob Breitbard, beset by financial difficulties from the beginning and stuck with a bad tax-assessment issue at Sports Arena, abruptly sold to an ownership group in Houston.

“[Ownership] was doing it on a shoestring,” Block said. “Back in those days it was hard; when you traveled you had to take care of your own uniform for instance. I don’t think Breitbard knew what to do or how to do it.”

Could professional basketball have succeeded in San Diego?

“I don’t think they could have a team here,” Block said. “This city is an outdoor city; basketball isn’t big here. Toward the end we were averaging 9,000 [fans a game] – not bad, but [ownership] didn’t build a fanbase. When I was with the Lakers, they spent six weeks going around the county to high schools doing basketball clinics; investing in the community. Well, the Rockets didn’t do any of that. We weren’t engaging the community to bring the community together around basketball.”

In 1971, the Rockets moved to Houston but didn’t take Block with them. He spent the following season playing alongside basketball royalty, Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in Milwaukee. Then it was on to Philadelphia, Kansas City, New Orleans, and Chicago, where he ended his career.

“I got to play with 14 or 15 Hall of Famers,” Block said. “I injured my back severely in an exhibition game my last year and never really recovered from that. I was talking to the Lakers but my rehab wasn’t really coming along and one day my wife and I just looked at each other and said ‘I think my career is over.’”

Block moved on to coaching, with stints at UC San Diego, Gordon College, Bethany College, and Point Loma Nazarene, retiring following the 2002 season.

“I was a journeymen basketball player and a journeymen coach,” Block said. “I went into programs and turned them around and then moved on.”

Twenty years later, Block’s legacy at PLNU lives on as the team continues ascending new heights.

“I knew how to recruit and brought in decent players,” he said. “We were the cupcake; the guaranteed win on other teams’ schedules. I had to turn that around and start scheduling cupcakes to help build a winning culture. We created an environment of games that were entertaining, I started cheerleading squads and put together things for halftime. I would go to the student body and ask how can we make this thing fun.”

Block still lives in Point Loma, but said he doesn’t follow much basketball these days.

“There are teams that have movement in the offense, but for the most part it’s become a really individual sport,” Block said.

In December, Block published a book titled “Building Block” about his career and life.