Don Barksdale
Encyclopedia
Donald Angelo "Don" Barksdale (March 31, 1923 – March 8, 1993) was a professional basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 player. He was a pioneer with a number of African-American firsts to his credit.

Early life

Born in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

, Don Barksdale 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 playing skills in park basketball and then played for two years for Marin Junior College, across San Francisco Bay, before earning a scholarship to UCLA. A 6'6" center at UCLA, he became the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 to be named consensus All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...

n in 1947. Barksdale was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha is the first Inter-Collegiate Black Greek Letter fraternity. It was founded on December 4, 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Its founders are known as the "Seven Jewels". Alpha Phi Alpha developed a model that was used by the many Black Greek Letter Organizations ...

 fraternity.

Olympics

In 1948, he was the first African American to play with the U.S. Olympic team. He joined the team in Basketball at the 1948 Summer Olympics
Basketball at the 1948 Summer Olympics
Basketball at the 1948 Summer Olympics was the second appearance of the sport as an official medal event. A total number of 23 nations entered the competition....

. He became the first African-American basketball player to win a gold medal in the Summer Olympics.

Barksdale, who had been playing with the Amateur Athletic Union
Amateur Athletic Union
The Amateur Athletic Union is one of the largest non-profit volunteer sports organizations in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs.-History:The AAU was founded in 1888 to...

'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.

"This guy fought, fought, and fought," Barksdale said, "and I think finally the coach of Phillips 66ers Omar Browning
Omar Browning
Omar "Bud" Browning was an American basketball coach. In 1948, he became the United States' second Olympic men's basketball coach. Browning led the team to a final record of 8-0 en route to a gold medal in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London...

 had said, 'That son of a bitch is the best basketball player in the country outside of Bob Kurland, so I don't know how we can turn him down.' So they picked me, but Maggiora said he went through holy hell for it - closed-door meetings and begging."

The 1948 Olympic team had five Kentucky Wildcats basketball players who had just won the very first Wildcat national championship in the 1948 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
1948 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
-External links:* on Shrp Sports * , source for much of the information on this page....

. The rest of the Olympic team, consisting of the AAU Champions Phillips 66ers, and the Kentucky team later scrimmaged on Stoll Field 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.

Adolph Rupp
Adolph Rupp
Adolph Frederick Rupp was one of the most successful coaches in the history of American college basketball. Rupp is fourth in total victories by a men's NCAA Division I college coach, winning 876 games in 41 years of coaching...

, the legendary Kentucky coach, was the assistant coach on the 1948 team under Omar Browning.

"[Rupp] turned out to be my closest friend," Barksdale said. "We went to London and won all 12 games and got the gold medal." But he had to brush off indignities just about every step of the way. . . Later, coach Rupp told Barksdale, "Son, I wish things weren't like that, but there's nothing you or I can do about it." Barksdale agreed. He lived by a very simple philosophy. He wasn't interested in protest; he was interested in playing basketball. He had faced prejudice before, and he knew that he would face it again.

Professional career

After college, he played for the Oakland AAU team until the NBA began to integrate. Through Barksdale's basketball-playing years, he was also starting 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 in the Bay Area. He became the first African American television host in the Bay Area with a show called Sepia Review on KRON-TV
KRON-TV
KRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...

.

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 the third African-American to sign an NBA contract after Chuck Cooper joined Boston and Earl Lloyd
Earl Lloyd
Earl Francis Lloyd is a retired American basketball player. He was the first African-American to play in the National Basketball Association, in the 1950-51 NBA season...

 signed with Washington. While with the Bullets, he became the first African American to appear in an NBA All-Star Game in the 1953 NBA All-Star Game
1953 NBA All-Star Game
-Box score:-External links:**...

. Shortly afterward, he was traded to the Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a National Basketball Association team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which...

. Two years later, his playing career was cut short by ankle injuries.

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 Save High School Sports Foundation, which is credited with helping to save Oakland school athletic programs from collapse.

Legacy

In February, Bounce: The Don Barksdale Story is scheduled to be broadcast on FSN Bay Area. The documentary was produced by Doug Harris for Athletes United for Peace, a Berkeley-based youth sports and media organization.

The Wire
The WIRE
the WIRE is the student-run College radio station at the University of Oklahoma, broadcasting in a freeform format. The WIRE serves the University of Oklahoma and surrounding communities, and is staffed by student DJs. The WIRE broadcasts at 1710 kHz AM in Norman, Oklahoma...

 character D'Angelo Barksdale
D'Angelo Barksdale
D'Angelo "D" Barksdale is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire played by actor Larry Gilliard Jr. D'Angelo is the nephew of Avon Barksdale and a lieutenant in his drug dealing organization which controls most of the trade in West Baltimore...

 is named in honour of him.

See also

  • List of African American firsts
  • Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
    Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
    The Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame honors sports figures who have made a significant impact in the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization is a section 501 non-profit, that was created by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce in 1979.-Inductees:...

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