Jo Jo White will be inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend, and my first thought is: It’s about damn time.
A native St. Louisan, White led Vashon to the state quarterfinals in 1963. Following that season, Vashon changed its location to Bell Avenue and the former site became part of Harris-Stowe State University.
White transferred to McKinley, which was closer to his home, and finished his high school career by averaging 20 points a game and being named to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch All-Metro team. Interestingly, the conservative Globe-Democrat only placed him on the All-District team.
In moving from Vashon to McKinley, White said on a recent trip to St. Louis, he lost the most influential person in his stellar basketball career – Coach Jodie Bailey.
He recalled his relationship with Bailey and other great moments of his career during a visit to St. Louis when his biography “Make It Count” was published last year.
“He took the time to talk to us up close. You could never say, ‘Well, you didn’t tell me.’ He kept you equipped with what you needed,” White said. “He stressed fundamentals, knowing when to do certain things, knowing when to go to certain players.”
When it was time to go to college, White had 250 scholarship offers – and not one from the University of Missouri.
“I have no idea why,” he said.
He chose to go to Mizzou’s rival, the University of Kansas. He was a three-time All-Big Eight Conference team member and was twice voted All-American. He averaged 15.3 points a game, 4.9 rebounds in three seasons at KU (freshmen were not eligible) and was one of the nation’s top defensive players.
KU was a rare NCAA team that featured more than one black player, and when it played on the road some opposing students would be in ape costumes with the black players’ names on the back.
“It just made us want to spank that behind even more,” White said.
He said players sometimes had to lie down on the bus floor was they were leaving opponents’ gyms because bricks were being hurled at the vehicle.
“It was tough,” he said. “I was still trying to understand what was going on.”
Harry Edwards, a native of East. St. Louis, was calling on black athletes to boycott the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. While Lew Alcindor, Elvin Hayes and other great black college players boycotted, White represented his country.
“It wasn’t a tough decision,” he said. “Not even close. To get the ultimate chance and (then) not display your skills? I would have gone if I had been the only (black player).”
His talent caught the eye of the Boston Celtics’ famed coach Red Auerbach, who had plans to draft him. He was selected ninth. He would have gone higher, but the St. Louis draft board had plans on drafting him too and sending him to Vietnam.
While other young men received deferments for the oddest of reasons, somehow White was near the top of his local draft list.
“I was so hurt,” White said.
As detailed in “Make It Count,” Sens. Tom Eagleton (D-Mo.) and Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.) worked with Auerbach to keep White in the U.S.
They had him first classified as a resident of the Connecticut and then had him voluntarily enlist in the U.S. Marine Corp Reserves.
He took the oath to serve in the front yard of Carl Shear, an NBA vice president. NBA Commissioner Walter Kennedy issued a statement saying something to the effect of “Carl has a big home. He is welcome to stay there.”
By November he was on the Celtics’ bench.
The St. Louis draft board lodged a protest, and some national media members questioned the senators about their involvement.
Two weeks later, the head of the U.S. Selective Service basically came to the decision “you can’t take him out of the service and put him back in the service.”
The St. Louis draft board withdrew its protest, and White could only say, “Red is a powerful man.”
During his 11-year career with the Celtics, he won NBA titles in 1974 and 1976. He was series MVP in the ’76 series against the Phoenix Suns. The fifth game was the famed triple-overtime thriller in which White played an incredible 56 minutes.
He averaged 17.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.0 assists during his career. He was a seven-time NBA All-Star and was on the All-Rookie Team in 1970.
White is not a fan of today’s NBA, even though he works in the Celtics’ front office. If today’s players took on the greats from the 1960s and 70s, “we would have hurt their feelings,” he said. “These athletes today couldn’t guard a parked car.”
He blames the one-and-done rules and lack of player development.
“The game is suffering,” he said. “One year of college. What do you learn? Then, they give you that big contract, and there is nothing to motivate you. I’m not even close to being a fan.”
He said so many players don’t know fundamentals that if he tried to list them “I’d be here all day.”
Joining White as 2015 National Basketball Hall of Fame inductees are former NBA referee Dick Bavetta, Coach John Calipari, Spencer Haywood (who was on the 1968 Olympic team, Dikembe Mutombo, Lisa Leslie, former ABA star Louis Dampier, John Isaacs (from the Early African American Pioneers Committee), Lindsay Gaze (from the International Committee), Tom Heinsohn and George Raveling.
Alvin Reid is a panelist on the news discussion show “Donnybrook” on KETC Channel 9, and is also an author and radio commentator.
