BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Don Barksdale
Barksdale with the Boston Celtics in 1953.
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| Forward / Center | |||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||
| Born | March 31, 1923 Oakland, California | ||||||||||||||||||
| Died | March 8, 1993 (aged 69) Oakland, California | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | American | ||||||||||||||||||
| Listed height | 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Listed weight | 200 lb (91 kg) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||||||||||
| High school | Berkeley (Berkeley, California) | ||||||||||||||||||
| College | UCLA (1946–1947) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Pro career | 1948–1955 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||||||||
| 1948–1949 | Oakland Bittners | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1950–1951 | Oakland Blue n' Gold Atlas | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1951–1953 | Baltimore Bullets | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1953–1955 | Boston Celtics | ||||||||||||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Career NBA statistics | |||||||||||||||||||
| Points | 2,895 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Rebounds | 2,088 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Assists | 549 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stats at Basketball-Reference.com | |||||||||||||||||||
| Basketball Hall of Fame | |||||||||||||||||||
Medals[hide]
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Donald Argee "Don" Barksdale (March 31, 1923 – March 8, 1993) was an American professional basketball player. He was a pioneer as an African-American basketball player, becoming the first to be named NCAA All-American, the first to play on a United States men's Olympic basketball team, and the first to play in an National Basketball Association All-Star Game. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Early life
Born in Oakland, California to Argee Barksdale, a Pullman porter,[1] and Desoree (née Rowe) Barksdale, Don attended nearby Berkeley High School, where the basketball coach cut him from the team for three straight years because he wanted no more than one black player.
College
Barksdale honed his basketball playing skills in parks, and then played for two years at Marin Junior College, across San Francisco Bay, before earning a scholarship to UCLA. A 6'6" center for the Bruins, in 1947 he became the first African American to be named consensus All-American. Barksdale was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.[2]
Olympics
In 1948, he was the first African-American on the U.S. Olympic basketball team. He joined the team in Basketball at the 1948 Summer Olympics, and became the first African-American to win an Olympic gold medal in basketball.[3]
Barksdale, who had been playing with the Amateur Athletic Union's Oakland Bittners, was given an at-large berth from the independent bracket, but not without heavy lobbying by Fred Maggiora, a member of the Olympic Basketball Committee and a politician in Oakland, which was adjacent to Barksdale's hometown. About eight years later, Maggiora told Barksdale that some committee members' responses to the idea of having a black Olympian was "Hell no, that will never happen." But Maggiora wouldn't let the committee bypass Barksdale.[4]
The 1948 Olympic team had five Kentucky Wildcats basketball players who had just won that school's first national championship in the 1948 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The rest of the Olympic team, consisting of AAU Champion Phillips 66ers and Kentucky team members, later scrimmaged on Stoll Field, then the home of the Kentucky football team, in front of 14,000 spectators, the largest crowd to watch basketball in Kentucky at that time. Barksdale became the first African-American to play against Kentucky in Lexington. He could not stay at the hotel with the rest of the team, but instead stayed with a black host family.[5]
Adolph Rupp, the legendary Kentucky coach, was assistant coach on the 1948 team under Omar Browning.[6]
Professional career
After college, he played for the Oakland AAU team until the NBA began to integrate. While playing professional basketball, he started a career in radio broadcasting. In 1948, he became the first black radio disc jockey in the San Francisco Bay area. He also worked in television and owned a beer distributorship. He became the first African-American beer distributor and the first African-American television host in the Bay area with a show called Sepia Review on KRON-TV.[4]
NBA
In 1951, he signed a lucrative contract with the Baltimore Bullets and entered the NBA as a 28-year-old rookie. He would be one of the first African-Americans to play in the NBAafter Nathaniel Clifton, Chuck Cooper, Earl Lloyd and Hank DeZonie had joined the league in 1950. While with the Bullets, he became the first African-American to appear in an NBA All-Star Game, in 1953.[3] Shortly afterward, he was traded to the Boston Celtics. Two years later, his playing career was cut short by ankle injuries.[4]
Later years
After his basketball career ended he returned to radio, started his own recording label and opened two nightclubs in Oakland.
In 1983 he launched the Save High School Sports Foundation, which is credited with helping to save Oakland school athletic programs from collapse.[3]
Death
He succumbed to throat cancer at the age of 69 on March 8, 1993 in Oakland, California. He was survived by his sons Donald and Derek.[7]
Legacy
A documentary on Barksdale's life, Bounce: The Don Barksdale Story, was released in 2007. The documentary was produced by Doug Harris for Athletes United for Peace, a Berkeley-based youth sports and media organization.
On February 24, 2012, Barksdale was announced as a member of the 2012 induction class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He was directly elected by the Hall's Early African-American Pioneers committee, and formally entered the Hall as a contributor on September 7.[3]
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