Becoming inexplicably linked to our recreational activities we sometimes forget that there are things in this world bigger than sport or what happens on the field of play.
Such is this case though and a perfect example is the figures involved in West Virginia’s freshman basketball team of 1965.
Almost 41 years later the first team to integrate play in the Southern Conference on the hardwood has fond memories, but has not lost sight of what took place during the year that broke down many barriers in the league.
Fritz
From the mid-1950’s through early part of the 1960’s, West Virginia was the dominant program in the Southern Conference, taking home seven out of nine regular-season SoCon championships between the 1954-55 season and the 1962-63 season.
The 1962-63 crown would prove to be the final one for three seasons for the Mountaineers as Davidson’s Lefty Driesell was building a power of his own, earning the next three regular-season titles, which was something those with a vested interest in the Morgantown, WV school were not used to at the time.
Things had to change or now legendary West Virginia head coach George King would have problems.
In 1964, King had just underscored the expectations of many with his 1963-64 squad, which already by finishing second ended a string of three-straight SoCon regular-season championships.
Still, there was the league tournament, but that did not pan out the way that King had envisioned it, as the Mountaineers fell short of the NCAA tournament, succumbing to George Washington in the semifinals.
King knew he had to bring in some higher quality players that would awaken the echoes and at the same time have the talent of famous West Virginia players such as Hot Rod Hundley and Jerry West, who were both two of the best players to ever play in the SoCon.
King had a vision of the type of student-athlete that he desired in his mind to bring the college back to prominence and set about doing all he could to acquire these type of athletes.
Still, every once in a while an athlete comes around that can change a whole program around, making coaches slobber as if “Baywatch” was being filmed on the court.
King’s coveted one went by the name of Ron “Fritz” Williams.
Williams would not be easy to commandeer for myriad different reasons, with the main being that his legendary play on the high school courts had reached almost mythical status, as some were already comparing him to West.
In an article on the integration of the SoCon by John Antonik for MSNsportsnet.com (the official West Virginia athletics site), King remarked that Williams was, “as difficult a recruiting project as there was.”
Williams’ legend included having a cult following that traveled to everywhere that he played. In fact, if someone wanted to casually go to a game and watch Williams play it was unlikely that would happen due to the fact that almost everywhere that Williams’ alma mater Weir played the game would be sold out.
Nevertheless, King was going to do everything in his power to sign Williams to play basketball at the Morgantown, WV institution.
Still, one barrier remained that was often unspoken ? Williams was an African-American.
And that was a problem because no institution within the SoCon had ever offered a scholarship to a black player.
The Idea
That was about to change as King and those involved in the basketball program did not see color, but rather good basketball players who had a chance to succeed at West Virginia in the classroom and on the hardwood.
All of this is why King decided that he was not going to just slowly integrate the league by landing Williams, but rather blow the door off on the whole issue and recruit a plethora of African-American athletes to surround Williams and make the whole situation easier for all involved. This thought process was partly due in fact that there were other programs, such as Ohio State and Michigan that had already been integrated on the basketball courts, and Williams was not as interested in being a pioneer as he was to play basketball and get an education.
Former West Virginia sports information director Eddie Barrett in Antonik’s piece articulated Williams’ reasoning best to Antonik, remarking ... “I would use the word humble to describe him ... He did not want to be the only black on the team.”
Still, King was sticking to his guns, undertaking a strenuous game plan that would not only land Williams but a bevy of other talented African-Americans.
One of these athletes was Jim Lewis of Alexandria, VA.
A tremendous athlete himself, Lewis found his way to being a Mountaineer via a friendship that he had undertaken with former NBA player Earl Lloyd.
Lloyd, a 2003 inductee into the Naismith Hall of Fame and the NBA’s equivalent of Jackie Robinson, was a friend of King’s through their time in the NBA together and King had called Lloyd to see if he knew of any good basketball players that would like to suit up in the traditional navy blue and yellow.
The plan started to shape as Lewis and Williams’ high school teammate Ed Harvard, himself an African-American, committed to King’s program at West Virginia, allowing King to do what he had planned to do all along: show Williams that he would not be alone at the institution.
George King finally nabbed his man in Williams in the spring of 1964 and West Virginia as a state felt like the institution had acquired the second coming of West.
Years later King noted to Antonik that, “I recruited Fritz basically to fit a pattern that the University had fallen into, maybe accidentally, of having a great player kind of lead and become the spark for the rest of the people. It started with Hot Rod Hundley and Jerry West and continued with Rod Thorn. All of these guys were in the 6-foot-2, 6-3 range; great players, great shooters and great scorers.”
The integration of the SoCon, at least on paper, continued to advance itself later that summer when King added another African-American player later that summer in ex-marine Norman Holmes, a 23-year-old guard from Washington, DC.
All four players acquiesced to the challenge brought before them and were awarded degrees from the state university of West Virginia.
The Freshman Team
Seems odd to us now with so many players now leaving after their freshman year for the riches of the NBA, but during this time period, freshman were not placed on the varsity squad, meaning that all four of the recruits previously mentioned would have to first play on the freshman team.
The freshman team was more than solid, as the squad went 20-1 behind Williams’ 30 points per game.
None of this went unnoticed. The Basketball News listed the freshman team as one of the nation’s five best in 1965 along with Louisville, Houston, Washington State and Kentucky.
The varsity team at West Virginia the same year had mixed results, going sub .500 on the regular season, which was moot once the SoCon tourney hit, with the club exorcising their recent demons and upsetting their way through the league tournament to earn an NCAA bid.
This is where the ironic part of the whole situation comes into play. King never coached his prize recruit due to the fact that the up and coming coach was offered and took the Purdue job less than a month after the Mountaineers’ season-ending loss to No. 4 seeded Providence in the NCAAs.
The Integration
Enter 29-year-old Bucky Waters, who took the job from his assistant position at Duke.
As is the case with all coaching changes, the style of play changed with the hiring of Waters.
Waters ran more of a strict, disciplined system, a stark contrast from the system that the players were recruited into by King, who ran more of a freelance system, allowing the star player to own the contest by improvising.
Waters knew though that everything was going to revolve around the play of Fritz Williams for the next three years.
Williams averaged over 20 points per game over the three years.
It was not all Fritz Williams all the time though, as the team was on solid footing while he was there as well.
The Mountaineers claimed the 1967 SoCon Championship and played their way into the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) the other two years (1966 and 1968).
In the three years that the first team to integrate the SoCon played, they won an average of 19 games per year, but never found their way to an NCAA tournament victory.
To the players though the relationships they forged at West Virginia were the most important thing that they did over the period.
“Basketball allowed us all to be friends,” said Lewis. “We went into (the situation) as anybody else would (towards college).”
Looking Back
According to King and everyone else involved during the time of the recruitment of the four African-American players there was never a specific integration plan.
“I never sat in on any plan to actively recruit and integrate our program,” King told Antonik. “It was a situation where we were simply looking for the best players that we could recruit.”
Nevertheless, even though Morgantown, VA, was nothing like the true South of Alabama during this time in America’s history, there were still things that the African-American players had to deal with during their time at West Virginia.
The players never encountered racism on their home court, but did go through some experiences on the road, including having racial epitaphs slung at them and having to have a police escort on their way out from one institution.
To get to where they wanted to be in life the players formed a bond that still holds true today in the professional world since all four players took advantage of their situation and earned a degree.
Holmes is an attorney living in the Washington, DC area and Harvard is now an assistant principal in New Jersey.
Lewis has coached at all levels of basketball, including assistant coaching positions at Duke, Tulane and Tennessee State on the men’s side. He has coached the George Mason women and the Washington Mystics of the WBNA.
Williams parlayed his talent into an eight-year NBA career that included stops in Golden State, Milwaukee and Los Angeles. Williams even played in the NBA Finals in 1974 with Milwaukee, falling to Boston.
He stayed in the game up until his death of a sudden heart attack on April 4, 2004, which it turned out was a year to early to celebrate the 1965 freshman team at West Virginia.
The news of Williams’ death shocked everyone, but the other players that helped to shape the SoCon’s integration vowed to never stop telling the story.
Lewis especially does all he can to promote the legend of his friend Fritz Williams and the particular time period of their lives.
“We were a small part of what went on,” said Lewis. “It is still important to talk because ... we all graduated and moved on. We were teammates then; friends today.
“Sports was and is still a unifying factor in all of our lives.”