Well Bob Pettit just dropped several pegs.

[Schwahalala]

The St. Louis Hawks traded two Black players, eventually fired a coach and ran a third off the team.

Pettit while not the instagator was one of the big beneficiaries. Lovett and Hagen were instigators in running the player off and in freezing him out when he was on the court.

The owner than blackballed the player so he couldn't play in the NBA.

Ah - St. Louis - you got to love it.

[kjoe]

Something about the story did not ring right for me. There are two things regarding race that I have always thought about Ben Kerner. When he and the Hawks left town, there was a lot of racial tension, and the team he left with was predominantly black. (the same year the Blues, who were not predominantly black, arrived.) So I never thought much about any racism on Kerner's part for trying to find a place which would be more accepting of the NBA.

The other thing I have never seen anyone write about, not even Maracek, was that Kerner hired the Duke Ellington orchestra to perform at halftime and after the games a couple of times, (people were allowed to dance on the court) around 1959 or 1960---they were considered to be one of the greatest musical organizations in the world. He brought us Lenny Wilkens and Sihugo Green---I thought of him as slightly more accepting of black players than the Cardinals---that might be wrong.

I wonder how Pettit remembers that year.

[Schwahalala]

Something about the story did not ring right for me. There are two things regarding race that I have always thought about Ben Kerner. When he and the Hawks left town, there was a lot of racial tension, and the team he left with was predominantly black. (the same year the Blues, who were not predominantly black, arrived.) So I never thought much about any racism on Kerner's part for trying to find a place which would be more accepting of the NBA.

The other thing I have never seen anyone write about, not even Maracek, was that Kerner hired the Duke Ellington orchestra to perform at halftime and after the games a couple of times, (people were allowed to dance on the court) around 1959 or 1960---they were considered to be one of the greatest musical organizations in the world. He brought us Lenny Wilkens and Sihugo Green---I thought of him as slightly more accepting of black players than the Cardinals---that might be wrong.

I wonder how Pettit remembers that year.

Researching now.....

[WinstonSmith]

Yeah, I'd blame Pettit based on what you said.

Bullshit.

[Schwahalala]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/othersports/story/810EBD1D3439B0048625740D0015C847?OpenDocument

[Schwahalala]

Yeah, I'd blame Pettit based on what you said.

Bullshit.

I'm blaming Petitt for not standing up. As the star player on the team - he could have spoke out against what was going on.

[kjoe]

Seymour seems like the ---not a villain---more of an idiot. He had a successful team----he overreached trusting a rookie to lead former world champion players, used to knowing how to win on a consistent basis, to a new level. Sticking with him through a bad shooting streak, instead of telling him to slow down and pass the ball to people who knew how to score did not help him with his confidence.

Hill was not as bad a case as Lawrence Phillips---but you really can't know how a great player from college is going to do at a pro level, or whether they will have the maturity to know how to fit in.

I think Seymour assumed too much.

[Schwahalala]

Um er did you guys watch the ESPN special tonight or are you going off what you read in the post?

[kjoe]

just the pd for me.

[Schwahalala]

just the pd for me.

The NBA had quota system's -


Yet it's hard for you guys to believe that this guy was black balled out of the league?

[kjoe]

The NBA had quota system's -


Yet it's hard for you guys to believe that this guy was black balled out of the league?

I had a friend who tried out with the Hawks at a camp about 1967. No one in the camp understood why the Hawks were placing so much stock in their first round pick---it was a white guy---he never could play. Complete bust. Gueren was the coach, then. I did get the feeling that they had strange ways of choosing players.

edit--I looked it up---Tom Workman---he played 85 minutes, 19 games, averaged. 2.9 ppg. Traded to Baltimore. 8th player taken in 1967. I think the Rams were doing the draft for the Hawks back in those days.

[Schwahalala]

Hopefully Petitt will speak on this soon.

I had always admired him.

[Schwahalala]

More on the version in the movie -

http://njmonthly.com/articles/lifestyle/sports/march-madness.html

In 1961, the St. Louis Hawks made Hill the eighth overall pick—the first CIAA player ever to be selected in the first round. He joined a team that had three stars—Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan, and Clyde Lovellette—and had lost to the mid-dynasty Boston Celtics in the previous year’s finals. Hill thought he’d have a slot since point guard Lenny Wilkens had to take the year off to fulfill his military service.
“I went into camp thinking that I’d be another scoring option,” Hill says. “Our owner, Ben Kerner, ordered our coach, Paul Seymour, to have me pass the ball to the top three guys.” At first, the team didn’t like a rookie taking all the shots. “Early in the preseason, we were playing the Celtics in Lexington, Kentucky, and I was denied entrance to the hotel restaurant,” Hill recalls. So Bill Russell, who had also been turned away, called a meeting and all the black players from both teams sat out. When we got back to St. Louis, the newspaper columnists wrote that I should be suspended and fined for insubordination.
“Over the course of the season, Coach Seymour told me to shoot more. That didn’t go over well. On the court, Kerner kept telling Coach to bench me, and he wouldn’t,” Hill says. “Coach got fired, Pettit took over as player/coach, and I got benched. I went back to school, did my student teaching, and came back to camp ready to go. Three days in, our new coach, Harry Galatin, came over and said, ‘Hey, I hope you’re a good teacher.’”
Hill called his old coach, and Seymour reached out to his NBA contacts. No team would pick him up, so Hill went with the American Basketball league, which quickly folded. He returned to St. Louis but missed Newark, so he called the superintendent of schools, who had been his elementary school principal. “I got a great job in the Newark School District, and I played with a few teams in the Eastern League,” Hill says. “I actually made more money than some NBA players. It was a guard’s league so the competition was good. I couldn’t watch the NBA for awhile, but I am not angry. Those guys didn’t want to play with me. I’ve had a great life, but it’s because I was prepared for a life after basketball that I could go on.”
Hill served as coach and athletic director at Essex County College for 25 years, compiling a 489-128 record. “We had the highest-scoring game ever, when we scored 210 points against Englewood Cliffs, and we have the lowest scoring game, when we beat Ocean County College 8-4.” He and his wife, Ann, live in Orange. Their daughter, Kim, recently graduated from FIT; son, Cleon, is a NJ Transit conductor, and Cleo Jr., coaches at Cheyney University. Hill works for the Newark Public Schools after-school development program. “It gives kids an outlet for recreation, education, personal development, and cultural enrichment,” Hill says.

[kjoe]

This is really interesting to me---I am still wondering about Seymour:

Coaching Record

Glossary / Convert to CSV / Convert to PRE / Click column headers to sort

Season	Age	Lg	Team	G	W	L	W-L%	W > .500	Finish	G Plyf	W Plyf	L Plyf	W-L% Plyf	Notes
1956-57	29	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	60	34	26	.567	4.0	2	5	2	3	.400
1957-58	30	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	72	41	31	.569	5.0	2	3	1	2	.333
1958-59	31	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	72	35	37	.486	-1.0	3	9	5	4	.556
1959-60	32	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	75	45	30	.600	7.5	3	3	1	2	.333
1960-61	33	NBA	St. Louis Hawks	79	51	28	.646	11.5	1	12	5	7	.417
1961-62	34	NBA	St. Louis Hawks	14	5	9	.357	-2.0	4
1965-66	38	NBA	Baltimore Bullets	80	38	42	.475	-2.0	2	3	0	3	.000
1968-69	41	NBA	Detroit Pistons	60	22	38	.367	-8.0	6
Career		NBA		512	271	241	.529

The last three years coaching syracuse---he played in 65, 21 and finally just 4 games.

The successful 60-61 team was his first year of not being a player-coach. After the hawks fired him, after 14 games the Hill season, he did not coach again for almost four years. fired by the bullets after 65-66, he did not coach for 2 more years, and had one more bad season with detroit.

It never seems to be a good deal for an owner to try and tell the coach how to coach---but in spite of the one year which was good for the Hawks---Easy Ed left Seymour a pretty talented team---he did not seem like much of a coach. Hill was being pushed by a guy who did not inspire much confidence.

[Schwahalala]

This is really interesting to me---I am still wondering about Seymour:

Coaching Record

Glossary / Convert to CSV / Convert to PRE / Click column headers to sort

Season	Age	Lg	Team	G	W	L	W-L%	W > .500	Finish	G Plyf	W Plyf	L Plyf	W-L% Plyf	Notes
1956-57	29	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	60	34	26	.567	4.0	2	5	2	3	.400
1957-58	30	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	72	41	31	.569	5.0	2	3	1	2	.333
1958-59	31	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	72	35	37	.486	-1.0	3	9	5	4	.556
1959-60	32	NBA	Syracuse Nationals	75	45	30	.600	7.5	3	3	1	2	.333
1960-61	33	NBA	St. Louis Hawks	79	51	28	.646	11.5	1	12	5	7	.417
1961-62	34	NBA	St. Louis Hawks	14	5	9	.357	-2.0	4
1965-66	38	NBA	Baltimore Bullets	80	38	42	.475	-2.0	2	3	0	3	.000
1968-69	41	NBA	Detroit Pistons	60	22	38	.367	-8.0	6
Career		NBA		512	271	241	.529

The last three years coaching syracuse---he played in 65, 21 and finally just 4 games.

The successful 60-61 team was his first year of not being a player-coach. After the hawks fired him, after 14 games the Hill season, he did not coach again for almost four years. fired by the bullets after 65-66, he did not coach for 2 more years, and had one more bad season with detroit.

It never seems to be a good deal for an owner to try and tell the coach how to coach---but in spite of the one year which was good for the Hawks---Easy Ed left Seymour a pretty talented team---he did not seem like much of a coach. Hill was being pushed by a guy who did not inspire much confidence.

You fire the coach that finished first 14 games into the season?

I don't think so.

Interesting to note that Petitt had his highest scoring season that year although the team sucked.

from NBA.com

St. Louis slipped a bit the following year, but Pettit had his finest season ever. While the Hawks were struggling to a 29-51 record and a fourth-place finish in the Western Division, Pettit was filling up the basket at an incredible rate. He averaged a career-high 31.1 ppg in 1961-62, and he collected rebounds at the astonishing rate of 18.7 rpg. He was also called upon by owner Ben Kerner to act as the team's head coach late in the season and in six games he piloted the squad to a 4-2 record.