Sherman White: An Unknown Basketball star dies at 82 – NBA Update
A congestive heart failure resulted in the sad demise of Sherman White. He was 82 years old. Because of the lifetime ban from NBA, White was known as one of the best players in the history of College basketball who never played
professionally.
He was grown up in Englewood and studied at Dwight Morrow High School. He started playing basketball on the play ground court in Mackay Park. He thought of coaching the kids in the park informally. But his wish to teach and coach
was not fulfilled because of the sudden end of his student days at Long Island University.
After being contacted by the head coach at LIU, Clair Bee, he started playing in the varsity team of basketball which made a 20-4 record. In 1949-50, he was noticed on the national level. He was named a Consensus Second Team All-American
and won a coveted Haggerty Award after he averaged 22 points per game (ppg). He led his team to the 1950 National Invitation Tournament. Those blackbirds were at No.3 in the nation. He made a record of 63 ppg and 27 field goal percentage. His career, after
touching this height, ended the night he got arrested for the point shaving scandal.
Police detectives arrested White on Feb. 19, 1951. Just a day before his arrest, White was named as the Player of the Year by ‘The Sporting News;. The only reason that he received the honour was because The Sporting News had already
mailed out their newest issue.
Only New York City colleges were involved initially but later with thorough investigations it was found that more than thirty players from seven college teams were involved in the gambling scandal. Out of those, twenty eight were
found guilty which included White along with seven other players who played at LIU. Two weeks before the arrest, Clair Bee had told him that the New York Knicks were ready to make him their first-round draft choice by paying a handsome $12,000- 13,000. “Isn’t
it wonderful? Everything is happening better than we hoped,” Bee said.
Later White admitted that peer pressure was the main reason he got involved in that illegal act. He fell prey to his team mates’ sales tactics about which White later said, “I must have been crazy, but I let him sell me a bill
of goods.”
After serving about nine months in prison, he played for nine years in Eastern Professional Basketball League on the weekends for the Wilkes-Barre Barons and Hazleton Mountaineers.
In 2007, he was named as first "Honourable Draftee,” acclaimed him to be "the best basketball player you never knew" and "perhaps the best (college) player in New York history." “I have seen only two ballplayers equal to White
– Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant,” said the late Hal Uplinger, teammate of White and a guard of the 1950-51 Long Island University team.
If his career was not ruined because of that scandal, nothing would have stopped him from being a Hall of Famer.
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