Mark Twain, that river boat captain and printer extra ordinaire, once wrote “ Early reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated”
II
A spoof indeed but one yours truly committed some 24 hours ago on hearing Don Barksdale, the 6"6" center for the post WW2 Ucla Bruins had been selected for the 2012 Hall of Fame at Springfield, Massachusetts come September.
Such a mental lapse is unforgiven, whether on or off line in our age of the information highway, digesting and coughing up data at an Einsteinian epoch managing clip.
If ever our stallion of a weary civilization could be brought back to its stable, the moment is now.
Pressured web sites. com notwithstanding.
III
In this instance of an on line wrath gone ballistic .......how many of us are touched by immortality in our lives. For sure greatness can become mesmerizing tossing off “search engines” of vicarious hero worshiping in our isolation booths of abandonment and loneliness.
Don Barksdale’s recognition half a century plus later, renews all of the undergraduates who at that time may have been unaware of being touched by his modest greatness. On&off the pines.
Dave Minor, a post WW2 basketball “great” in his own right, played for Toledo in the Garden’s NIT, with a cast on his busted left or right arm ..
Subsequently, encountering him on Ucla’s Kherckoff Hall steps, he was aghast we remembered cast and all . He introduced Don Barksdale, the center on coach Wilbur Johns’ post WW2 quintet.
Even with our astigmatism, relatively speaking, we were touched by greatness.
Our 17 year old blue eyes realized Barksdale was a Picasso in motion. He had a quiet stancce
about his persona, and although Dave Minor was more gregarious, playing out his needs on an
d off campus, the older WW2 vet, was less extraverted, masking his aggressiveness and search for realization among the luminary pics like Jackie Robinson, Ralph Bunche, Woody Strode, Kenny Washington, and Tom Bradley that graced Kherckoff’s second floor walls.
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Whether our exculpatory confession in any way mitigates our denial of Barkdale’s
immortality that moment on Kherckoff’s steps, we were touched by his “greatness”.
under fire”
Playing out own role on the Daily Bruin as a sports reporter, supported by Bill Ackerman, the graduate manager and tennis coach, and the director of publications, Harry Morris, of Riverside, little did we know how Barksdale towered over Ucla’s Pac 8 rivals.
Sam Balder, the radio “voice”in those prehistoric eras: the men’s gym, vet housing and no medical or law school or for that matter no Pauley Pavilion or John Wooden.
V
What did we know of George Mikan of DePaul? Or Bob Kurland of the Oklahoma Phillip Oilers at 7 feet. Sure there was no Harvard Alumni Gazette or Brooklyn public library telephone “ask the librarian”; your stream of stats coming from the Hollywood Citizen News or radio stations. KMPC or Warner Brothers Hollywood Boulevard microphones. Needless to say the aura of Barksdale became contagious, the ‘48 Olympic team with Adolph Rupp, as an assistant coach, went a mile as they say, for the six foot six Oakland native from Berkley High where he never played hoops.
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But for us to enhance his gold, Rupp beating the drums for his Marc Antony in shorts and sneakers, pre Michael Jordan Nike’s..
Drafted by the Baltimore Bullets before Wes Unseld and Earl “the Pearl” Monroe and the Lakers managing director, Barksdale was drafted by Red Auerbach of the Celttcs, until he was injured, his NBA career.... to a screeching halt.
He played AAU ball, returning to his roots in Oakland, playing out his “game” in music and owning several night spots. Starting up a Foundation for supporting high school kids searching for a way out of the inner city and ghetto environs.
VII
The basketball Gods a half century plus later, have seen to it that justice prevailed and that the scholar athlete we met thru Dave Minor at Ucla, the image and his larger than life soul morphing as 14 carat gold into posterity.
It gives his legacy a credibility he could not address during his lifetime.
VIII
A renaissance man‘s fate on basketball’s magic carpet gets his due, by the Hall of Fame’s moral authority a half a century plus later.
It redeems our own imaginary flair of hero worship&wish fulfillment way back in the schoolyards and hard tops of Wingate Field, our feinting and faking out defenders as we were imitating Bob Ripley’s “Believe it or not” larger than life Don Barksdales who share our dreams in guest for our own Golden Fleece.
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Posthumous recognition may come late at 89. But his genes and DNA, his lifeline lives on .His
two sons and his sister.
Didn’t Jackie Robinson who shared his South Western music store space in Los Angeles. An explosive chemistry bursts on the scene again.. Both their dreams given its acclaim. Hand eye coronation in Robinson “setting the tone” in his impact Hitting, running the bases,
Barksdale running the floor, crashing the boards, doubled up by “bigs”, *finding the open
man* in basketball’s Hall of Fame.
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Needless to say those skin pigment editorialized in the Daily Bruin of yesteryear, have finally come home to rest. Again it was Kherckoff Hall where skin color offended some humans.
Bias and prejudice were used to discredit the merits of another’s odyssey and journey from cradle to the Hall of Fame.
Brainwashing hate envy and jealousy into the psyche of Don Barksdale’s opponents on and off the court for over half a century plus.
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Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation rings true at Springfield, Massachusetts in September.
******
Don Batrksdale teammates: Ucla 1945 46:. Chuck Clustka, the Stanich brothers, Davage
“Dave” Minor, Bill Rankin, Bill Lee,Alan Sawyer, Eddie Sheldrake, Ray Alba, George Englund and Kenny Saltzman coming off the bench...
W J, Wilbur Johns, coach and athletic director, pre J W, John Wooden’s arrival..
The city that never sleeps, April 4, 2012
