Omit, overlook or dismiss one monstrous reality, and you can’t hope to understand the professional or personal life of basketball Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens.
The reality of racism.
If that word makes you want to turn away, don’t. Because however uncomfortable that word makes you feel, it’s infinitely easier reading about it than the reality Lenny Wilkens had to live through.
Racism is a topic Wilkens is forced to return to often in his 2001 autobiography, Unguarded: My Forty Years Surviving in the NBA, co-written by Terry Pluto. (Quotes below are taken from the book.) As if the early death of his father and poverty weren’t sufficient obstacles to overcome – the Wilkens family lived one winter in a Brooklyn apartment without heat – Wilkens also was repeatedly subjected to bigotry.
Dad Leonard Wilkens, an African-American, died of a bleeding ulcer when Lenny was five. Mom Henrietta Wilkens, suddenly a single parent, was White. “There was some initial resistance to an Irish-Catholic woman marrying a Black man. I just knew some of the relatives weren’t thrilled with our ‘mixed’ family.” Wilkens also writes, “Two of my mother’s sisters were terrific. It wouldn’t have matter to them if we were purple.”
Wilkens Didn’t Accept Second-Class Status
Lenny, the eldest of four siblings, purposely identified as Black to push back against discrimination. “There is a racist theory that has always existed in this country, that if you have a drop of Black blood in you, then you’re African-American. This was done primarily to deprive people of opportunity.”
When Wilkens accepted a basketball scholarship to Providence, he didn’t realize he’d be one of just seven Black students at the entire college. “Some of my professors were shocked when I did well in certain courses. A Black athlete just wasn’t expected to achieve in the classroom.” This clearly didn’t shake Lenny’s confidence – he majored in economics. “When you’re a minority, you can either spend your time with your guard up, ready to be insulted, or you can be determined to show that you’re as good as anyone else. I was not about to fail.”
“I had very few racial problems at Providence,” Wilkens writes. Although… for the audacity of dancing with White girls at a party, “Some of the other White guys at the party started giving me looks and whispering things.” A White friend, Jack Bagshaw, stood up for his Black friend, and the two stayed close for decades afterward.
Another time, for the audacity of dating a White girl, Wilkens got called into the office of one of the Dominican Fathers – a friend of the girl’s intolerant dad. Lenny was advised not to pursue the relationship, due to “her being Italian and me being… you know what I was.” Though stunned, Lenny stood up for himself. “Father, does God see the color of a person’s skin? You teach God’s word, right?” Nevertheless, to avoid trouble for the girl, Wilkens ended the relationship.
‘Something Radically Wrong’
“The first time I saw the South was in my sophomore year at Providence. We played in a tournament in Virginia, and I saw bathrooms with signs reading ‘Colored’ on the doors. I had this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was radically wrong with us as a people when you saw that.” On a later trip to Virginia, Wilkens was served in a diner only because the Black cook convinced the White waitress that their customer was also White.
“You never get used to this. Never.”
Despite earning co-MVP honors with Jerry West at the prestigious East-West game, Wilkens wasn’t invited to tryouts for the 1960 USA Olympic basketball team – and several less-talented White players were. Even support from Olympic coach Pete Newell couldn’t sway the organizing committee. “It was hard for me not to believe race played a part in (the decision). Several Blacks were selected, but I think they were worried about the Black/White ratio on the team.” Wilkens writes that the enforced quota felt like “a dagger to my heart.”
1960s St. Louis A Gateway To Racism
As Wilkens prepared for a post-college career teaching economics, he was drafted by the NBA St. Louis Hawks. He would soon find life in St. Louis in the 1960s much less welcoming than Providence College or his childhood New York City neighborhoods. “We walked into a greasy spoon for lunch. The place was nearly empty, yet no one was paying any attention to us. There were places in St. Louis where a Black person would not be served, period.”
“It’s hard to explain how degraded it makes you feel, how you just seethe inside. This was America, land of the free. I believed it, and I tried to live it.” An economics degree from Providence, a 1st round pick of an NBA team, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army reserves, working multiple jobs to support his mom and siblings. “None of that mattered. That really opened my eyes to a world that was very new to me.
“Just as I couldn’t eat at some places, there were neighborhoods and landlords who made no secret of the fact that I wasn’t welcome.” A Black grocery store owner educated Wilkens about parts of town it would be better for his health to avoid. “Jim Crow, alive and well in St. Louis.” A welcome exception was when White Hawks teammate Cliff Hagan, a native of Kentucky, issued a dinner invitation at his home.
After his marriage to Marilyn, the newlyweds faced a series of indignities at their St. Louis home. Many of the White families moved out; a next-door neighbor refused to make eye contact; Lenny and Marilyn’s pet dog was poisoned. When the couple decided to move three years later, the house they settled on was pulled off the market. “Neighbors had pressured the owner not to sell to us. We later found a nicer place, and the neighbors were very open and several became good friends.”
Racism wasn’t limited to Missouri. “I was in a church in Ohio. The man next to me – a White man – refused to shake my hand. He was a hypocrite, and I told him so when we walked out the door. I try to keep race out of things, but it’s hard when you’ve experienced your share of prejudice.”
1996 Dream Team Fulfills An Additional Dream
Wilkens addressed the issue in his book one final time, in reference to being named head coach of the USA Olympic basketball team in 1996. “There was a time in this country when many people thought a Black man couldn’t coach a professional sports team. He could play the game… but some people had an ugly explanation for that, too.
“They talked about the Black star being ‘a wonderful athlete.’ The White star was ‘savvy, a smart player.’ Blacks didn’t think, they just did what came naturally. Whites could only play the game by thinking. This was not only insulting, it was racist. That’s why being named head coach of the 1996 Olympic team meant so much to me.”
The Wilkens-led squad won the gold medal. “One of my hopes for sports is that people can learn to judge each other as people, not by race or stereotypes.”
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