As I was scrolling through my work Twitter account last week, I became aware of the passing of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband. It’s very sad, of course, for their family and for many who closely follow the royal family. I wouldn’t say that I do, though I did watch the Crown series on Netflix. I’m not sure how accurate Philip’s portrayal was but all indication is that he was an interesting man and the actor did a pretty good job of portraying him. It mustn’t be easy being married to the Queen, not because of her necessarily but because of the role. I likely won’t have to worry about it.
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Another recent death was Elgin Baylor. I would guess that most of the world has no idea who he was. Granted, he was in his heyday as a professional basketball player many decades ago before entering the NBA Hall of Fame. Back then the sport didn’t make superstars of people as they do now and there’s obviously a limited amount of footage floating around showing him at his craft. But Baylor was a legend and many believe he was one of the key players to transform the game into the modern era. His style laid the foundation for players Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Lebron James.
Growing up a huge basketball fan, I couldn’t get enough of the sport. I tried to imitate all the great players of the time. Though Baylor was passed his prime when I was a kid, I nonetheless was familiar with his contributions to the sport. What stunned me as a child was to find out that he had actually, and briefly, went to the same college as my dad.
I’ve been fascinated by history since I was a child. The intersection of sports AND history was even sweeter. Add to that a family connection and you have the trifecta. I would crack open my dad’s yearbook time and time again to study the old photos. There was Baylor in black and white.
And speaking of black and white, a person having even a cursory understanding of history will know what things were like well before the civil rights movement. Baylor grew up in Washington DC and was already a legend thanks to his high school career. However DC, which was segregated at the time, offered him few playgrounds where he could hone his skills growing up. But he excelled nonetheless and finished high school as one of the top players in the country. The problem was, of course, that few schools were recruiting, or even allowing, black players and his options to get a scholarship were limited.
It’s a long-ish story but a friend of his, who was also black, had a connection to a small college in Idaho (a neighbor had a brother who played for the Harlem Globetrotters who told Williams that, during the traveling troupe’s recent visit to Idaho, he heard about a college in a small town that was looking for athletes of any color). For Baylor, having rarely left Washington DC, the idea of going to school out West would be a huge change. But Baylor recounted the phone conversation in 1954, his friend said, “Come to Idaho!” He replied, “Where’s Idaho?”
You couldn’t get much whiter than Caldwell, Idaho, at the time. It’s hard for me to imagine what it was like for him to adjust to life in the West. Same country. Different world. But he wasn’t alone. The coach knew he was tapping into a fountain of talent and opened the door to more of their friends. The team ended up with six Black players altogether – something that was unheard of back then. One of the players, upon seeing Idaho for the first time, said, “I’d never seen anything so beautiful.”
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| courtesy of C of I |
The team ended up with a record of 23-4 for that season. They went undefeated in league play for the first time in the school’s history and maintained an 18-game win streak. Baylor broke every major scoring record, averaging 33 points a game, including 53 points in a single game. But the magic was more in the way he scored that left impressions. The quickness, the dunks, the passing, etc. were something the region had never seen before, and would not see again for some time. The 1,000-seat arena was packed the entire season.
All that is interesting in and of itself, but what I find even more interesting was the overall experience that Baylor and his friends had during their time in Idaho. The son of Baylor’s friend (that initiated the whole thing) said that his father never expressed anything but joy about their time so far from home. “To hear Dad or Elgin or Gary (the guys from DC), they talked about Idaho like it was the time of their lifetime.” The only racial profiling Baylor noticed in Idaho was of a sort that amused him. Lots of white classmates asked him for music recommendations or dance lessons. He always complied. “It feels as if W.W. and I have wandered into a private and exclusive members-only club,” Baylor wrote about the experience, “but rather than feel intimidated or excluded like I do in D.C., I feel invited.”
While it warms my heart to learn that the experience Elgin Baylor and his friends had in Idaho was positive, I realize that the state has had, and continues to have, its share of racist behavior. Since I left Idaho, I’ve lived for 26 years as a cultural minority, including 16 years as a minority in Africa. I’m fully aware that my experience cannot compare to that of a Black minority in the US. The evidence of institutional racism in America continues with no end in sight. In fact my experience has probably been more similar to that of Baylor’s in that my ethnicity has generally been seen as a novelty (reactions have varied depending on where I’ve lived). But it’s almost always a thing (less so in Nairobi). It gets old but I’m much less in fear of being unfairly arrested and/or killed by bigots.
Speaking of standing out, I recently heard a story about Jackie Robinson, the first Black person to play in Major League Baseball. On that momentous first day (April 15, 1947), he woke up early at the McAlpin Hotel in NYC. On the subway to Ebbets Field he told his wife Rachel, “Just in case you have trouble picking me out, I’ll be wearing #42.”
I’d like to think that all of this exposure to the ugliness in the US and elsewhere (thanks in part to phone cameras) is slowly nudging things in the right direction, thanks to some accountability. It’s hard to tell but it’s probably mixed. I suppose some things are getting better and in other areas people seem to be doubling down in their bigotry, and not only towards African Americans.
The story of Elgin Baylor’s time in Idaho (he would only stay for a year) is a positive one and one worth celebrating for a lot of reasons. He was a pioneer in many ways and this was a small, albeit meaningful, chapter in the life of an amazing talent.
