March 31, 2005

By Jon Wilner
San Jose Mercury News staff writer

Despite having three black players in their starting lineup, the USF Dons encountered very little racism in the early weeks of the 1954-55 season. That changed during a late-December practice in Oklahoma City, where spectators threw coins at the players. Dons center Bill Russell responded by scooping them up.

``Bill said, `Coach, could you hold this for me?' '' guard K.C. Jones recalled.

But the Dons did more than collect change. They fostered it.

Fifty years ago this month, USF won the first of its back-to-back NCAA championships. It had two star players (Russell and Jones, both of whom went on to careers as players and coaches in the NBA), a smothering defense and a future Hall of Fame coach (Phil Woolpert) -- a combination that propelled the Dons to 60 consecutive wins, the second-longest streak in major college history.

But USF's legacy has as much to do with complexion as perfection.

The Dons were the second team to win the NCAA tournament with three black starters and the first to do it outside of racially integrated New York City. In 1950, City College won the title under Coach Nat Holman, but its reputation crumbled 11 months later amid the worst gambling scandal in the game's history.

By contrast, the Dons rolled to the '55 title with Russell, the sport's first black superstar, and a pristine reputation -- and they did it less than a year after Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court's landmark desegregation ruling.

``USF certainly impacted the situation a great deal -- more than anyone,'' said Tay Baker, an assistant coach at Cincinnati when the Bearcats won the '61 and '62 NCAA titles with the help of three black starters. ``Any time you have change like that, there are going to be dissenters. But that team, that coach and those players said, `This is what we're going to do.' And they showed the world the way it should be.''

The integration movement that began with CCNY and was empowered by USF culminated in 1966, when Texas Western, with an all-black starting lineup, defeated Kentucky, with an all-white quintet, for the NCAA crown. By then, Woolpert was the coach and athletic director at the University of San Diego, and he no doubt reveled in the outcome. (Woolpert died in 1987.)

``I think he felt like this was one way he could break down barriers,'' said Mike Farmer, who played on USF's freshman team in '55 and started in '56. ``Coach was a man of strong beliefs, but he did not push them on anyone. He just did what he thought was right.''

A former prison guard, Woolpert coached St. Ignatius High School before replacing Pete Newell on the Hilltop in 1950. During his 11-year tenure, he unleashed a full-court press the likes of which no one had seen. In both '55 and '56, the Dons allowed fewer points than any team in the country.

``We had our guys out harassing the other players, and if they got by, then Russell was waiting,'' Dons assistant Ross Giudice said.

Russell, a backup center during his senior season at McClymonds High School in Oakland, was the most dominating force in the game.

Jones, who considered a career in the postal service before USF offered a scholarship, used his quickness to create defensive havoc on the perimeter.

Guard Hal Perry, the third black starter, was Jones' cohort in chaos and the only player from outside the Bay Area. (He grew up in Ukiah.) The other starters were forward Stan Buchanan, a steadying influence, and forward Jerry Mullen, the captain and top shooter.

The bench included a fourth black player, Warren Baxter.

``We never talked much about blacks and whites,'' reserve Dick Lawless said. ``I was from Oakland and had been playing against blacks since high school. It was nothing new for me, and I think it was that way for all the guys.''

The USF student body wasn't so tolerant.

``Some of the students said stuff that wasn't very nice, but I'm not going to get into it,'' said Jones, 72. ``We never really thought about the significance of what we were doing. We were just playing.''

In the fall of '54, there was no reason to believe the Dons would play at a championship level. They were coming off a 14-7 season in which Jones missed all but one game because of a burst appendix. They didn't get a single vote in the preseason polls or have their own gym. (They played at Kezar Pavilion and the Cow Palace.)

But the Dons' prospects improved dramatically after a seven-point loss at UCLA in the third game of the season. Woolpert removed starting guard Bill Bush and inserted Perry, who helped ratchet up the defensive pressure. When UCLA returned the visit a week later, the Dons pounced. Russell scored 28 points in USF's 12-point victory.

Then USF headed to the prestigious All-College tournament in Oklahoma City, where coin throwing wasn't the only show of racism. The white players were given hotel rooms, but the blacks were forced to stay in dorms at Oklahoma City University. The Dons refused to be divided, so everyone gathered in the dorms.

``That was the kind of team we were,'' Lawless said. ``We wouldn't have had it any other way.''

The Dons beat Wichita, Oklahoma City and George Washington to win the tournament and climb to No. 6 in the United Press International poll. A few weeks later, they hammered Stanford at the Cow Palace in front of 13,824, the largest basketball crowd in the Bay Area at the time. The next day, they scored the first 20 points and beat Cal 84-62.

On Feb. 7, the Dons -- without a home gym, or star recruits or preseason votes -- became the No. 1 team in the land. They roared through league play and finished the regular season with a 23-1 record. So enthralled was the city that Mayor Elmer Robinson led a civic drive to raise $700,000 for an on-campus gym. (War Memorial opened nearly four years later.)

``The Giants and Warriors hadn't moved out here,'' Farmer said, ``so the only other thing in town at that time was the 49ers.''

After NCAA tournament victories over West Texas State (by 23 points) and Utah, the Dons faced Oregon State in the most dramatic game of the season. USF held a two-point lead in the final seconds when Jones was called for a technical foul for banging into an OSU player. The Beavers made a free throw and regained possession with seven seconds left. Ron Robins missed from the corner, and Jones battled for the rebound with OSU's 7-foot-3 center, Swede Halbrook. The referee called a jump ball, which the 6-1 Jones won.

``I got it on the way up,'' Jones said with a chuckle.

The national semifinals and final in Kansas City -- the phrase ``Final Four'' was not coined until the '70s -- were anticlimactic. The Dons beat Colorado by 12 and La Salle by 14, as Jones flummoxed the Explorers' All-American, Tom Gola.

USF returned to San Francisco and was honored in a parade through the city. At a luncheon at the Fairmont Hotel attended by 1,000 people, Mayor Robinson stood on a stool to meet Russell ``on even terms.''

The Dons went 29-0 the following season and became the third team to win back-to-back NCAA titles. They reached the national semifinals without Russell in '57 and went 25-2 in '58. Then came two consecutive losing seasons, and Woolpert departed for San Diego. He eventually retired to a quiet life in Sequim, Wash., driving a school bus, and he died in 1987 at 71. Five years later, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

In October, the surviving members of the '55 team will receive championship rings in a ceremony at USF, according to Lawless.

``We won the championship and were very happy about it,'' he said. ``But as the years have gone by I bump into people who say, `You played for that team?' And I've started realizing it was a great accomplishment.''

In so many ways.