Why DC Basketball? written Dr Sherly Dillard
Edwin Henderson-The father of physical education in Black high schools and the Black YMCA basketball league. Dr. Henderson lived, played, coached and administrated the game in Washington D.C. in the 1910's. Henderson's Twelfth Street YMCA team won a Negro national championship and went on to become Howard University's first varsity basketball team.
On October 31, 1950, Alexandria, Virginia's Earl "Moon Fixer" Lloyd became the first black to play in an NBA game, right here at the old Uilne Arena for the Washington Capitols. Earl led West Virginia State to the only undefeated record in the nation in 1947-48. He won a NBA championship with the Syracuse Nationals, and later became the second Black coach in the NBA.
It was a D.C. Product, Elgin Baylor, who lifted the game of basketball off the floor and into the air, which spawned the likes of Connie Hawkins, Julius Erving and Michael Jordan. Elgin held the NBA single game scoring record at 71 before it was broken by Wilt Chamberlain with 100 points. Elgin also held the record for the most points in a playoff game with 63 until that was broken by Michael Jordan. Elgin ranks third among NBA players with playoff games over 30 points and 15 rebounds and third among NBA scoring averages. It was a D.C. team, DeMatha High School which stopped the 71-game winning streak of the 1965 Power Memorial High School team starring the 7"1 Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). DeMatha coach Morgan Wooten is the only high school coach in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Street and Smith magazine voted on the top 100 greatest college players in the last fifty years and 10 players were from the Washington D.C. area. Danny Ferry, Johnnny Dawkins, Grant Hill, Dave Bing, Adrian Dantley, Len Bias, David Robinson, Austin Carr, Elgin Baylor, and Arnie Ferrin. Archbishop Carroll alumnus John Thompson was one of the first Black coaches in Division 1 college basketball, and the first one to win the NCAA National Basketball Championship at Georgetown University. He was also elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The D.C. Metro area has placed more than 100 players in the NBA and ABA ranks and more than 50 players have been first or second round draft picks. The area has produced several NBA and WNBA general managers (i.e. Billy King, Elgin Baylor, Ed Tapscott, Gene Littles, Penny Toler, and Danny Ferry). Coolidge High School's Kermit Washington was the last NCAA Division one player to average 20 points and 20 rebounds a game. Kermit was the forth pick in the 1973 draft.
The all-time NCAA tournament scoring leader in points per game is held by Mackin High School product Austin Carr, at 41.3 points a game over seven games (including a record 61 vs. Ohio University). St.John's Collis Jones holds the NCAA tandem scoring record with Carr; the tandem scored 86 points in a game while playing together at Notre Dame. Only Washington D.C. has two players from the same public school who were named among the NBA's Fifty Greatest Players-Spingarn High School's Elgin Baylor and Dave Bing.
The great Red Auerbach began his coaching career here at St Albans and Roosevelt High Schools. He then went on to coach the Washington Capitals, before shaping up the Boston Celtics into the one of the greatest sports franchises in sports history. Central High School's Archie Talley is the fourth all-time leading scorer in NCAA history. Archie scored 50 points four times in one week. He is one of only four players that average over 40 points over his college career.
NC State achieved one of the biggest upsets in NCAA history with a championship victory over the University of Houston in 1983. The backcourt consisted of D.C. guards Derek Whittenburg and Sidney Lowe. They also had a forward from Bladensburg High School - Thurl Bailey- who went on to have a great career with the NBA's Utah Jazz. Eastern High School's Jerry Chambers was named Final Four MVP in 1965 without advancing to the Championship game. He averaged 35 points a game with Utah university in the 1966 NCAA tournament Jerry scored 38 points against the tough Texas Western team that won the national championship and was immortalized in the movie "Glory Road".
It was Fred Hetzel of D.C.'s Chevy Chase neighborhood and Landon Prep who, as an All-American forward, played a pivotal role in propelling the Davidson University basketball program into the NCAA Top ten (which helped launch the career of coach "Lefty Driesell"). Hetzel was the first player selected in the 1965 NBA draft (before the likes of Rick Barry and Bill Bradley). Archbishop Carroll High School won a national record 59 straight games from 1958-60 starring High School All-American Tom Hoover and John Thompson, both were First round Draft picks. Playmaker George Leftwich went on to star at Villanova. Monk Molloy was the sharp shooter and the bench consists of Sleepy Austin and Jimmy Jones. Carroll played prominent basketball schools up and down the east coast during the streak.
From "Ducey" Smith and Will Jones, to Harold Fox and Jo Jo Hunter,to Kevin Durant with Curt Smith and Eddie Jordan in between, local players have helped shape the history, administation, management, ownership, and officiating. They have gone on to become leaders in other fields, such as blood plasma pioneer Dr. Charles Drew, baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, author Pat Conroy, NBA official Louis Grillo, Notre Dame President Father Edward "Monk" Molloy, Vice President Al Gore, television's Maury Povich, Tim Brant, James Brown, noted attorney and Davis Cup captain Donald Dell all played schoolboy ball in the Metro area.
Archbishop Carroll's Lawrence Moten attended Syracuse University, where he became the Big East's All-Time leading scorer with 2,384 points. Spingarn's Sherman Douglas also attended Syracuse, where he became the NCAA all-time men's assist leader. Let's not forget playground legend Stacey Robinson, voted by the Washington Post as one of the greatest playground players ever. Stacey was an explosive jumper that would dunk at the blink of the eye, and possessed the trickery of Pete Maravich, a lethal combination. Coach Digger Phelps was quoted as saying Stacey was the best guard in the nation in 1975. McKinley Tech's Ronnie Hogue still holds the single game scoring record of 46 points for the University of Geogia. Ronnie was the first black player to play for the University of Georgia. Jack George- St. John's' three sport legend. Jack was recruited by Norte Dame to play football. He went on to star at LaSalle College as a Hall of Fame baseball Player. Then he went on to win an NBA championship Ring with the Philadelphia Warriors.
We salute two great old school coaches- the late Harold Bates and Sterling "Fluff" Parker they were wonderful mentors. We also must acknowledge new school coach Curtis Malone of the D.C. Assault, who carries the torch for the D.C. area today. Three of his former players made the 2007 USA Today All-American Team. Washington D.C. placed two players on the 1976 U.S. Olympic men's basketball team- DeMatha stars Kenny Carr and Adrian Dantley. That 1976 team was the last all-amateur U.S. team to win an Olympic gold medal on Notre Dame's All-Century Basketball team five of the top 25 players named five hail from the Washington D.C. area- Bob Whitmore, Collis Jones, Adrian Dantley, Austin Carr, Monty Williams.
Dallas Shirley of Eastern High School. Dallas' teams won 33 straight games. Dallas Shirley is in the Basketball Hall of Fame for his officiating, and he chaired several national and international organizations of basketball. Dallas refereed amateur basketball, and he worked games in the ACC NIT, NCAA and the 1960 Rome Olympics. In the Rome games Dallas was the sole American official (all while serving as vice-principal at Georgetown's Gordon Junior High School.
Imagine ACC basketball history without names such as Bobby Lewis, Kenny Carr, "Hawkeye" Whitney, Othell Wilson, Thurl Bailey, Danny Ferry, Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker, Grant Hill, Dennis Scott, Walt Williams, Randolph Childress, Joe Forte, Steve Francis, Jarrett Jack, Lenny Bais, Adrain Branch, Jay Buckley, Billy Langloh, Donald Washington, Jim O'Brien, John Smith, Brad Davis, Nate James, Joe Kennedy, Gary Ward, Lonnie Baxter, Jerod Mustaf, Herbert Davis and the Lewis Brothers. The Mckinley Tech High School Trainers went undefeated for three years (1950-52) in a row, winning 38 straight games breaking the record by Dallas Shirley's Eastern High School teams. That McKinley Tech team was known as "The Fabulous Five". The star player was, Stan Kernan, who hit the winning shot with two seconds on the clock in his last high school game to preserve the streak and seal the city championship. Stan is a member of the Louisiana Basketball Hall of Fame, having been an All-American at McNeese State. He tried out for the U.S. Olympic teams in 1952 and 1956. He then coached Parkdale (Riverdale, Md.) High School to three state championships. The Washington Bears won the 1943 World Tournament in Chicago, with stars such as Pop Gates and Johnny Isaacs and D.C.'s own Bill "Sugar" Cain who attended Armstrong High School in Washington D.C.
The Metro area was able to watch and study a new style of basketball predicated on speed, short crisp passes and relentless defense. Red Auerbach attended a lot of their practices and later incorporated some of their ball movement into the Boston Celtics' offense.
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