Sherman White (basketball)
Personal information | |
---|---|
Born | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | December 16, 1928
Died | August 4, 2011 Piscataway, New Jersey, U.S. | (aged 82)
Listed height | 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) |
Listed weight | 210 lb (95 kg) |
Career information | |
High school | |
College | Forward |
Career history | |
1953–1959 | Hazleton Pros / Hawks |
1959–1961 | Baltimore Bullets |
1962–1963 | Wilkes-Barre Barons |
Career highlights and awards | |
| |
Sherman White (December 16, 1928 – August 4, 2011)[1] was an American basketball player at Long Island University (LIU) who is best remembered for being indicted in a point shaving scandal that resulted in him being stripped of numerous honors and awards, having to serve an 8-month jail sentence, and being prohibited from ever playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA).[2] As a college senior in 1950–51, White was the nation's leading scorer at 27.7 points per game and was only 77 total points shy of becoming the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) all-time single season leading scorer when he was caught,[3] thus forcing him to prematurely quit and never getting to finish his college basketball career.
Early life
White was born in
White was a rather poor student; he graduated 230th in a class of 263 students.[4] However, he had an innate ability to recall the names and statistics of the leading college basketball players in the country.[4] Although athletic scholarships were being offered, some of the schools that showed initial interest, such as Duquesne University, rescinded their offers out of concern about his lackluster grades.[4]
College career
White sought advice from Morgan while deciding on which college to attend. Morgan was an alumnus of Villanova University, and pushed White to enroll there because he felt that the Wildcats were a good fit. Not wanting to displease his coach, a man White both respected and trusted, he agreed.[4]
Villanova
White arrived at Villanova in the fall of 1947. It did not take long for him to rethink his decision to attend. Villanova was a Catholic school, and at the time no other African Americans were in attendance.[4] White did not feel comfortable. Additionally, the physical education major that he had been promised was not even an option. In his six months at the school, White received two Cs, two Ds and one F before dropping out and moving back to Englewood.[4]
Long Island
Shortly after returning home, White was contacted for a second time by
Bee saw to it that White, his future star, was provided the comfort and special assistance he needed. He would tip the local
White's varsity career started inauspiciously, and it was not until the ninth game of his sophomore season that he earned a starting role.[4] His playing time increased and so did his productivity. Although he deferred to teammates more than should have, White still managed to average 9.4 points per game (ppg) for the season. The following year as a junior (1949–50), White exploded onto the national scene. He averaged over 22 ppg, was named a Consensus Second Team All-American, was named the New York Metropolitan Area's top player by receiving the coveted Haggerty Award, and led the Blackbirds to a berth in the 1950 National Invitation Tournament. On February 28, 1950, White set still-standing LIU single game records of 63 points and 27 field goals made against John Marshall College.[6]
Midway through his junior season, White began to notice that several of his teammates, especially Gard, had been having consistently "off" games.[2] On January 17, 1950, in a 55–52 loss to NC State, White had noticed Gard was "giving me some bad passes."[2] At the time, White did not know about, nor was participating in, the point shaving scandal. Only three players—Gard, Adolph Bigos and Dick Fuertado—were purposely trying to lose games.[2]
By the time White's senior season rolled around in 1950–51, he knew about and was participating in the scandal.[2] In a March 22, 1998 interview with The New York Times, White said,
"After that NC State game, Eddie Gard befriends me. We sat down and started talking. He brought in Bigos and Fuertado. He gave me the same old story: 'We control the game. We're good enough to beat these guys anyway and we can make some money. They ain't giving you no money here at L.I.U.' The same old story. We can control the game and nobody will get hurt except the gamblers. Now I'm one of the guys. Peer pressure."[2]
Not wanting to be the odd man out and having succumbed to peer pressure, in addition to wanting to provide money for his poor family, White agreed to either mess up
Point shaving scandal
Eddie Gard had been contacted by Salvatore Sollazzo, the man responsible for operating the point shaving scandals at several New York City schools between the late 1940s and 1951 (City College of New York, Manhattan College, New York University and Long Island University).[2][7] Sollazzo was a 45-year-old jeweler and gambler who had spent five years in prison during the 1930s.[2] Gard's family was poor and he did not want to give up a steady income of cash, which amounted to $1,000 per player per thrown game.[7] The original LIU players involved were Gard, Bigos and Feurtado. Eventually White and LeRoy Smith joined.
Toward the end of White's junior season he had participated in two fixes. The first was an 83–65 loss to Cincinnati, and the other was the first round in the 1950 NIT. Syracuse beat LIU 80–52, although White admitted that they were beaten soundly enough that the fix did little to decide the outcome.[2]
In the early stages of the 1950–51 season, LIU players won several games that were kept close on purpose to avoid winning by more than the point spread (thus allowing bettors who wagered on their opponent to win their bets, while still allowing the team to win the game):[2]
- December 2 – Favored by 7½ points over Kansas State (won by one, 60–59)
- December 7 – Favored by 4 over Denver (won by two, 58–56, in double overtime)
- December 25 – Favored by 11 over Idaho (won by two, 59–57)
- January 4 – Favored by 8 over Bowling Green (won by six, 69–63)
Suspicions slowly began to arise that something awry was going on, not only with the Long Island Blackbirds men's basketball team, but also with the other prominent New York City programs. CCNY were losing games they were supposed to win, as were NYU and Manhattan. The public did not speak outwardly about their suspicions, although police were already conducting an investigation.
Sherman White, along with teammates Bigos and Smith, disregarded Sollazzo's intended fix for a game played on January 16 against Duquesne. The three combined for 64 points as the Blackbirds downed the Dukes, 84–52.[2] Sollazzo supposedly lost a $30,000 bet because of it and threatened White for it to never happen again.[2]
Getting caught
On February 18, several CCNY players that had just gotten off of a train at
Aftermath
As soon as White was arrested, he gave back the $5,500 he had saved in an envelope that he kept in his room. He was forced to miss the last few games of the season, and at that time he was averaging 27.7 points per game and was the nation's leading scorer. He was only 77 total points from setting the new NCAA single season scoring record. When his career came to an abrupt halt, White had scored 1,435 points.
Judge Saul Streit presided over the entire case involving all of the schools.[3] When deciding all of the players' fates, Streit was noticeably hard on White.[2][4] Although Eddie Gard was the primary catalyst for LIU's involvement in the gambling and point shaving, White was the only player from Long Island University to be handed more than a suspended sentence.[3] While five other players indicted from LIU got off relatively easily, White was handed a 12-month sentence to serve in Rikers Island, the main jail in New York City typically used for rehabilitation of hardened criminals (he ended up serving 8 months and 24 days).[2][4][9] Additionally, he and all of the other players involved in the scandal were banned from ever playing in the NBA. White recalled his feelings of the stiff sentence handed down by Judge Streit:
"To this day, I believe there was some kind of collaboration between my lawyer and the prosecution. Riker's [sic] Island was supposed to have been built for rehabilitation, but it was the worst place in the world for a kid to try and straighten out his life. I often wonder why I never came out of there a criminal. With all the characters and perverts I met, it certainly would have been the easy way to go."[4]
Years later, White, along with others, wondered if racism played a role in the harsh punishment. However, White admitted that he did not possess the necessary respect or humility in the courtroom that was probably necessary for the situation.[2][4][9]
The man who started the whole gambling scandal, Salvatore Sollazzo, served 12 years in prison and was handed a $1,128,493 lien for evasion of taxes.[10] One positive thing to come of the scandal, a journalist for Time wrote in the March 5, 1951 issue, was the awareness of how much influence the game had over gambling and illicit money-making ventures, which got the ball rolling to clean not just college basketball, but all college sports across the country.[10]
Professional career
Hazleton Hawks, Baltimore Bullets, and Wilkes-Barre Barons (1953–1963)
After White served his sentence at Rikers Island, he played in the
Career statistics
College
Sherman White played during the era before many of the basketball statistics that are kept today were recorded, such as rebounds, assists, blocks, steals and turnovers.
Sherman White Statistics at LIU[6][9][12] | |||||||||||||||||||
Year | G | FG | FGA | PCT | FT | FTA | PCT | REB | AVG | A | TO | B | S | MIN | PTS | AVG | |||
1947–48 | Freshman stats not available
| ||||||||||||||||||
1948–49 | 30 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 281 | 9.4 | ||||||||||
1949–50 | 25 | 204 | 465 | .438 | .692 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 551 | 22.0 | ||||||
1950–51 | 22 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 603 | 27.7 | ||||||||||
Totals | 77 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 1,435 | 19.8 |
Legacy
Sherman White was viewed as a can't-miss pick in the 1951 NBA draft.[9] The New York Knicks were ready to select him as their territorial pick.[9] They were ready to pay him approximately $12,000 to $13,000, a very large amount in 1951. However, shortly after he was sent to jail, he and all of the other players involved in the scandal were banned from the NBA for life.[2]
Due to his NBA career having ended before it started, White was mostly remembered as one of the best players in college basketball history whom no one ever saw play professionally. In 2007, TheDraftReview named him as its first "Honorable Draftee," acclaiming him as "the best basketball player you never knew" and "perhaps the best (college) player in New York history."
Personal life
White married twice, and with his second wife, Ellen, they raised six children.[2] He also coached basketball at the Newark and East Orange YMCAs in New Jersey.
White died on August 4, 2011, in
See also
- CCNY point shaving scandal
- List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 60 or more points in a game
- List of people banned or suspended by the NBA
References
- ^ The Record. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Anderson, Dave (March 22, 1998). "When Sherman White Threw It All Away". The New York Times. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e Goldstein, Joe (November 19, 2003). "Explosion: 1951 scandals threaten college hoops". ESPN.com. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ ISBN 1-888363-91-6.
- ^ Curley, Mike (June 10, 2010). "Basketball courts named after lifelong resident". NorthJersey.com. Retrieved July 7, 2010.
- ^ a b c d "2009–10 LIU Blackbirds Men's Basketball Media Guide" (Flash). issuu.com. Long Island University. 2009. p. 69. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ a b c Lupica, Mike (March 13, 1997). "LIU Star's Rebound In Life Redemption from '51 Scandal". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ Begley, Ian (January 6, 2009). "Blackbirds fly back to LIU for alumni basketball game". New York Daily News. Retrieved November 6, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f Maurer, Matthew (November 19, 2007). "Honorable Draftee: The Case for Sherman White". TheDraftReview.com. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ a b "Sport: The Big Money". Time. March 5, 1951. Archived from the original on November 23, 2010. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ "Sherman White minor league basketball statistics". Stats Crew. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
- ^ Luchter, P. S. (March 17, 2010). "Long Island University men's basketball records". Holders of Single Season Scoring Record. LuckyShow.org. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ New York Times. Retrieved August 12, 2011.