I know that APSU has been playing basketball since they opened the school back in the 30's, but I was flipping through the internet and found a story on famous alumni of all of the schools involved in the NCAA March Madness which just ended last night. It was interesting to see who AOL picked as representative of the graduates of the various schools. It was also interesting to see where certain people matriculated. For instance, who would have thought that the actor "Don Johnson" went to Kansas? I guess he's happy now. Goldie Hawn went to American University.
Anyway, the famous alumnus of APSU was an ag scientist who cloned the first calf in the United States. This caused me to go to the entry for APSU in Wikepedia to see who else was listed as famous alumni of the college.
As I drifted down the page, I saw a lot of athletes, politicians and celebrities. But one name stuck out: James "Fly" Williams.
When I was in high school, still trying to play basketball, Sports Illustrated had a short article one Winter about a basketball player at APSU who was in the top five of national basketball players in scoring. The story told of a young guy from the streets of Brooklyn who was convinced to come down to Clarksville, Tennessee to play college basketball. I'm sure he had no idea where Clarksville was when he agreed to go play basketball there.
Anyway, he averaged over 27 points per game and led the team in his freshman year to the NCAA's for the first time. He even led the team to the second round with a win over Jacksonville State. I remember that year because a local Atlanta station played the next game where Kentucky beat APSU and eliminated them from the competition.
All of a sudden, this little college in Clarksville, Tennessee, which was known to me only because both of my parents had graduated from the school and had lived nearby, was a hot commodity in college basketball. During those years, they even had a tall rebounder from Texas named Percy Howard, who was in the top ten of rebounding before he fell off a roof on a summer job and disappeared from college basketball. Oddly, he reappeared when he caught a touchdown pass for the Dallas Cowboys against the Pittsburgh Steelers in a Super Bowl.
The next year, the Governors again went to the NCAA's, only to get eliminated by Notre Dame. I remember watching that game, with Adrian Dantley leading Notre Dame.
But the following year, Fly Williams left APSU and went to the ABA, where he played briefly for the St. Louis Spirits. The beauty of his short time there was that it led the school and the State of Tennessee to build a large basketball arena for APSU and has kept the basketball program at APSU in the fore of small schools around the country. The governors don't usually get very far, but they do make the dance most years.
And all of that was due to the efforts of a first year assistant basketball coach and a playground phenom from Brooklyn who decided to travel down to Tennessee to play basketball.
1 comment:
Tom,
Enjoyed reading your comments about Fly Williams. There is a book coming out this year by Dave Link that you may find interesting. By the way, Percy Howard wasn't the player who fell through the roof; the player was Howard Jackson who went on to coach the Governors for a few seasons.
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