“We never had an argument; it was never angry,” Bortner said. “Lenny hugged me when he left. We both were in tears. I knew he was making a mistake, but it was more like when you have to let your own child go to find out for himself what the world is like. Unfortunately people misinterpreted it as Lenny being disloyal, and that he wasn’t a good person.”
Vaccaro said the perception only worsened when Cooke arrived in Chicago soon after to play in an all-star game, the Roundball Classic, firmly in the clutches of people pushing him in the direction of the draft.
“There was already a mystery about him when he left Debbie, people starting to wonder about his character,” Vaccaro said. “That’s not to say he was a bad guy – because he wasn’t. Just one of those kids who listens to the last person who tells him something. And there were people all around him – agents, runners – glorifying him, giving him things. He took everything.” Vaccaro recalled a conversation with Cooke – a lecture, really – in which he warned him about making a good impression in Chicago, not doing anything to fuel the already burning speculation.