Spencer Haywood was as formidable in the courtroom as he was on the basketball court. After prevailing in his antitrust suit against the NBA in 1971, Haywood won a $55,000 judgment after suffering a season-derailing injury when he slipped on a rain puddle on the Coliseum floor.

When building an arena in a city that averages 200 cloudy days a year and has accrued a world-wide reputation for its rainy countenance, you'd think a watertight roof would be somewhere near the top of the priority list.

You'd think.

This apparently was not the case for the Seattle Center Coliseum, which came to life in the World's Fair year of 1962 as the Washington State Pavilion.

Pity the poor Coliseum, which soon became as notorious for its leaky roof as its city was for its brooding climate. The Coliseum, which hosted the Beatles in August of 1964, went from the sublime to the ridiculous in just eight years.

On March 5, 1972, 37 years ago today, the Coliseum endured its first memorable water-related pratfall.

[More:]

It was another rainy, rheumy Sunday night in Seattle, where the surging SuperSonics were playing the Atlanta Hawks.

Seattle came in with 12 wins in its last 14 games. Sitting pretty with a 45-27 record, the franchise's first playoff berth seemed within the Sonics' grasp.

And then it started raining.

And the Coliseum roof was leaking again.

Before long, conditions were turning from ridiculous to perilous out on the basketball court.

The Sonics won, 112-110, but lost star Spencer Haywood and shooting guard Dick Snyder as rain casualties. Both slipped on wet spots on the floor, and both were lost as key contributors for the balance of the season.

Without their best player and one of their top scoring options (Haywood averaged 26.2 points and 12.7 rebounds a game that season; Snyder averaged 16.6 points),the Sonics went belly-up, losing eight of their last nine games and falling out of the playoff picture.

Haywood, who was as dangerous in the courtroom as he was on the basketball court, sued Seattle and the NBA for the rain-related injury. He collected a $55,000 judgment.

But the plague of indoor rain would continue to cause problems for the Sonics and provoke laughter elsewhere.

The rain returns: Seattle players gaze up at the inclement weather coming through the sieve-like Coliseum roof on Jan. 5, 1986.

Fourteen years later, on Jan. 5, 1986, the NBA suffered its first rainout as a game between the Sonics and the Phoenix Suns was postponed early in the second quarter when the precipitation continued to render the Coliseum floor treacherous.

The game was called with the Suns leading 35-24. The teams returned to play on a dry floor the next night, and Phoenix emerged with a 117-114 victory.