Posts Tagged ‘Earl Lloyd’

They Came before Crossover

Saturday, March 1st, 2014

Author and Morehouse College journalism professor Ron Thomas spoke at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications last Thursday.

Morehouse College Sports and Journalism Program Director Ron Thomas spoke about the genesis of the NBA and how it was integrated during a visit to the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications on Thursday.



Ron Thomas shared stories from his book They Cleared the Lane with SU students and faculty this week. His exhaustive research highlights ballers such as Chuck Cooper, Bucky Lew and Cleo Hill.   Thomas, who grew up in Buffalo and went to college in Rochester,  is a former NBA beat-writer, turned author and educator. His talk was part of an event produced by Syracuse University’s Sports Media Center.

Thomas also posed one of the most clever sports trivia questions out there: Who was the NBA’s first player? (there’s more than one answer, so read the book)

On Friday, Thomas continued his labor of love by attending a ceremony in West Virginia that featured a tribute to Earl Lloyd.

Local NBA History

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
“The best way to judge the importance of Lloyd’s role may be to look at it through the prism of Syracuse, a then prosperous Upstate New York industrial city…that had a wild erratic history involving blacks and elite athletics.”
Sean Kirst, Moonfixer: The Basketball Journey of Earl Lloyd
NBA Hall of Famer Earl Lloyd visits with Aaron Allen at the War Memorial in 2000.

NBA Hall of Famer Earl Lloyd visits with Aaron Allen at the War Memorial in 2000.