Most Deserving For Hall of Fame Enshrinement, From Black Fives Era


These are some Black Fives Era pioneers who we believe are the most deserving of enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Players:

  1. Clarence “Fats” Jenkins
    Jenkins, a 5′-7″ guard, was the dominant player on championship caliber basketball teams in parts of four different decades, from the mid-1910s through the early-1940s, and was a founding member of the New York Rens in 1923, which he captained for 25 years. With quickness, speed, strength, ball-control, leaping ability, court sense, and leadership, Jenkins was an all-around unstoppable force. During the 1930s, Jenkins, along with New York Celtics players and Basketball Hall of Fame members Nat Holman and Johnny Beckman, were reported to be the highest paid players in basketball. “The colored race looks upon him as their Babe Ruth,” a white reporter for the Hammond (Indiana) Times newspaper wrote in 1938. He led the 1933 Rens team that won 88 straight games as well as the Rens squad that won the inaugural World Championship of Professional Basketball title in 1939.
  2. Hudson J. Oliver, M.D.
    Hudson was a four-time winner of the Colored Basketball World Championship with three different teams, the Smart Set Athletic Club, the Washington 12 Streeters, and Howard University. He was the outstanding African American basketball star of his time and played a key role in popularizing the sport among black fans in its earliest days. “Mr. Hudson Oliver has amazed the public by his wonderful playing and is looked upon as the best player of the six colored teams,” the New York Age newspaper reported in 1909. Hudson won one of his World Championship titles while attending medical school at Howard University, and subsequently became a prominent physician and community leader in Harlem.
  3. William “Wee Willie” Smith
    Cleveland, Ohio native “Wee Willie” Smith played center with the New York Renaissance from 1932 through 1943. As a 6′-5″ player he was powerful, agile, and unstoppable. After his arrival, the “Rens” became truly invincible, winning 88 straight games in 86 days during Smith’s rookie season with the team. He was the key pivot man in helping the Rens with the inaugural 1939 World Championship of Professional Basketball and was inducted into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame in 1977.
  4. Al “Runt” Pullins
    A 5′-8″ native of New Orleans who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, Al “Runt” Pullins honed his exceptional speed, ball handling, and shooting skills at the Wabash YMCA before leading Wendell Phillips High School to win Chicago’s lightweight city basketball championship title in 1928. Pullins then joined up with Abe Saperstein in 1929 to organize the original Harlem Globetrotters. Saperstein needed a star player and an automobile in order to succeed and get bookings; Pullins provided both. He was the team’s most sensational talent and they drove to games in his Ford. Pullins was so essential in the birth and stabilization of the early ‘Trotters that Saperstein put him at the very top of his own 1950 list of all-time greatest Globetrotters, even ahead of current Basketball Hall of Fame members Reece “Goose” Tatum and Marques Haynes. (Photo: Christopher McNeal)
  5. Clarence “Puggy” Bell
    In his first of nine seasons with the New York Renaissance, Bell was named as the Most Valuable Player of the inaugural World Championship of Professional Basketball Tournament, won by the “Rens” in 1939. He could shoot with either hand, and was the anchor for the Renaissance and the team’s captain after “Fats” Jenkins retired. Bell also won a World Championship title with the Washington Bears in 1943. He was inducted into the Bob Douglas Hall of Fame in 1984, joining former Rens teammates Charles “Tarzan” Cooper, William “Pop” Gates, John Isaacs, and Clarence “Fats” Jenkins. Bell was also enshrined in the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.

Contributors:

  1. Will Anthony Madden
    Four-time winner of the Colored Basketball World’s Championship with two different teams (St. Christopher, Incorporators), introduced the coaching of “scientific basketball,” inter-city rivalries, promotional in-arena giveaways of novelty items, ads in major national publications, promotion through widespread editorial coverage, annual All-American list for top black players, annual black All-Star team, and what was in 1917 the longest road trip in history–between New York City and Chicago. (Photo: David Skinner)

A list like this is bound to cause debate, and we hope it does!

SUCCESS:

Meanwhile, below are the individuals who used to be on this list but have since been enshrined.

  1. Edwin B. Henderson ELECTED! (More)
    Introduced basketball to African Americans on a wide scale organized basis, and set up a structure in which the game could spread throughout the Mid-Atlantic, including the first black athletic conference, the Inter-scholastic Athletic Association.
  2. Cumberland W. Posey, Jr. ELECTED! (More)
    Among sportswriters and his contemporaries, Posey was unanimously considered the best African American basketball player from 1910 to 1925, during which time he won five Colored Basketball World Championship titles including four straight with his Loendi Big Five team of Pittsburgh. Posey could have also been enshrined as a Contributor. He was the architect of black basketball in Pittsburgh, created and led the four-time world champion Loendi Big Five, introduced professionalism to the sport among blacks, pioneered barnstorming as a successful business model, engineered the black-white basketball rivalry model, and introduced sponsorship naming rights. He is enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as a Contributor.
  3. John “Boy Wonder” Isaacs ELECTED! (More)
    John Isaacs was a star player and emotional leader of the New York Rens and Washington Bears, which won the 1939 and 1943 World Pro Basketball Tournaments, respectively. Isaacs has been a Naismith Hall of Fame Finalist twice, prior to the creation of its special Early African American Pioneers Committee. He was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
  4. Zachariah “Zack” Clayton ELECTED! (More)
    Zachariah “Zack” Clayton, one of the all-time greatest basketball players of the Black Fives Era, played guard for the New York “Rens” and Washington Bears from 1936 to 1946, winning two World Championship of Professional Basketball titles. Considered one of the ten most talented early African American athletes ever developed in Philadelphia — alongside Wilt Chamberlain, “Tarzan” Cooper, and Roy Campanella — Clayton was enshrined in the Philadelphia Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989.
  5. Ora Mae Washington ELECTED!
    Playing with the Germantown Hornets and Philadelphia Tribune Girls during the 1930s and 40s, Washington won eleven straight Colored Women’s Basketball World Championship titles and twelve altogether. Simultaneously, between 1929 and 1937, she won nine straight women’s singles titles with the American Tennis Association, an all-black governing body formed to counter the racially exclusive United States Lawn Tennis Association (today’s USTA). She also won twelve straight ATA doubles championships, starting in 1925.
  6. Charles “Chuck” Cooper ELECTED!
    Cooper, a 6′-5″ small forward, was a second-team All American at Duquesne University. In 1950, after a brief appearance with the Harlem Globetrotters in the 1950 World Series of Basketball National Tour against the College All-Americans, he became the first African American player ever drafted into the National Basketball Association. The Boston Celtics selected Cooper in the 2nd round of the 1950 NBA Draft as the 14th overall pick. When reminded by an unnamed fellow team owner that Cooper was “a colored boy,” Celtics team owner Walter Brown replied, “I don’t care if he’s striped, plaid or polka dot! Boston takes Chuck Cooper of Duquesne!” Cooper reportedly telegrammed Brown, “THANK YOU FOR HAVING THE COURAGE TO OFFER ME A CHANCE IN PRO BASKETBALL.” He was known as a defensive and rebounding specialist playing in the NBA for seven seasons, with the Celtics, the Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks, and the Fort Wayne Pistons.
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Mark Moore
11 years ago

As a player….HUDSON OLIVER should be elected. He was the best black basketball player in the world while he simultaneously attended medical school!! It would be hard to name any modern player who could be considered the best player in basketball while handling medical school studies.

Could Michael, Lebron, or Kobe do it?? I seriously doubt it.

Mark Moore,

Charles Shabazz
10 years ago
Reply to  Mark Moore

Mark,
The one modern player that came closest to Hudson Oliver is Pau Gasol. When Pau was playing in his early years for FC Barcelona, he was attending the University of Barcelona to study Medicine, but never finished. Did Hudson graduate? This is a sincere question that I’m asking, because I don’t know.

12 years ago

… and Jenkins also coached and managed the Chicago Crusaders after that, starting with the 1939-40 season.

12 years ago

Correction: “Fats” Jenkins retired from pro basketball in 1939 after winning the World Pro Cage Tournament. He did continue to play pro baseball as an outfielder in the Negro Leagues. The period during which he played for the Crusaders was in the 1930s.

16 years ago

Wouldn’t that just add to his credibility?

steve
16 years ago

If Cum Posey were elected, he would become the first member of both the national baseball and basketball halls of fame. I wonder if this would act as a deterrent to his election?

16 years ago

Hey Keith, actually there wasn’t a tournament, it was just a poll-like pronouncement made by the Negro press to honor what they considered the best team. Good question about Saperstein in Cooperstown. I doubt it. What for? Pimping Negro League baseball teams? Anybody else know?

Keith Ellis
16 years ago

How many clubs participated in the Colored Basketball’s World Championship tourney? Where was the tournament held?

Wasn’t Abe Saperstein enshrined at Cooperstown?

Keith Ellis
16 years ago

Indianapolis ABC/Crawford/Clown Oscar Charleston was inducted to Cooperstown. Both Saperstein & Philly’s Eddie Gottlieb (a Naismith HoFer) often are seen rubbing shoulders w/ Posey & Manley in exec photos from those days.

Posey was one of some 17 pioneers of black baseball inducted all at once by the Major Leagues’ HoF. If the NBA or Naismith were to induct 17 barrier-breaking black cagers on a single day, who in addition to the nine Claude listed above should be honored?

The Clarence “Fat” Jenkins nomination above got me to wondering: For whom did Fats play in the Forties, after having quit the Rens?

Black Fives
16 years ago

“Fats” played for the Crusaders of Chicago.