Basketball Pioneer Honored

T.C. Williams Names Court for Earl Lloyd

As he had so many times before, Earl Lloyd stood at the center of a basketball court. The stands were packed with fans, and when Lloyd was called to center court, rapturous applause broke out.

It was the kind of applause NBA players hear at every game, and the kind Lloyd probably didn't get when he suited up as the first African American to play in the league 57 years ago.

Lloyd, 79, came back to his hometown of Alexandria last weekend to be honored for his trailblazing achievements. On Saturday, the court of the new T.C. Williams High School gym was dedicated to him. "Nothing beats to come back to your hometown for this kind of an honor," he said. "It probably stands right up there with the Hall of Fame."

During the dedication, Lloyd was heralded for inspiring generations.

"Today's basketball athletes are heroes to our children, and this was made possible by Earl Lloyd's accomplishments," School Board Chairman Claire M. Eberwein said during the dedication. "Mister Lloyd, welcome to your court."

Lloyd was born April 3, 1928. He started playing pickup ball on playgrounds and got his first taste of organized sports at the city's segregated Parker-Gray High School. He went on to West Virginia State University before being selected in the ninth round of the 1950 NBA draft by the Washington Capitols.

"If somebody said I'd be drafted by Washington, I'd never have believed it," Lloyd said, describing it as the "cradle of segregation."

He wasn't alone among African Americans joining the young league heading into its fifth season, but by fortune of schedule, Lloyd was the first to play in an NBA game, on Oct. 31, 1950.

"The game was so uneventful," he said of the team's 78-70 loss to the Rochester Royals. "If you were going to pick a city to play the first NBA game with a black guy on the floor, Rochester was the place to play."

That's because his Halloween debut was such a non-event, he said. "They probably thought I was a goblin," he joked. But he remains modest about his achievement: "How do you work it into a normal conversation?"

It was three years after Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in baseball but four years before Brown v. the Board of Education and school desegregation. Lloyd was insulted and called names, but only by the people who bought the tickets.

"Fans only," he said. "I can truthfully say I was never called a name by an opposing coach or player." But a big difference between baseball and basketball is proximity to your opponents -- in baseball, a second baseman such as Robinson didn't have to interact with a right-fielder, Lloyd said. "When a guy is standing next to you on the foul line, it's a lot harder to call him names."