Ben Bluitt (1924 – December 26, 2000) was an American college basketball player for Loyola University Chicago, and a coach for the University of Detroit and Cornell University. [1] A 6'5" forward, Bluitt played a pivotal role as a star African American player for Loyola from 1947 to 1950. Bluitt and Jack Kerris were two of the top players on the 1948–49 Loyola University team that reached the 1949 NIT Championship game. Loyola lost in the final, 48–47, to the University of San Francisco.
Bluitt was a star player at Chicago's Englewood High School, and attended Loyola after leaving the Air Force. Bluitt was the first African American on Loyola's basketball team, [2] and the Chicago Defender followed his college basketball career closely. [3] After graduating from Loyola, Bluitt became a teacher and coach at DuSable and Farragut high schools in Chicago.
Bluitt joined the college coaching ranks in 1970 as an assistant coach at the University of Detroit. In 1974, Bluitt was hired as the head coach at Cornell, where he compiled a 45–108 record over six seasons. [4]
Loyola Academy is a private, co-educational college preparatory high school run by the USA Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, and in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. It is a member of the Jesuit Secondary Education Association and the largest Jesuit high school in America, with over 2,000 students from more than 80 different zip codes throughout the Chicago area. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1909.
Raymond Joseph Meyer was an American men's collegiate basketball coach from Chicago, Illinois. He was well known for coaching at DePaul University from 1942 to 1984, compiling a 724–354 record.
Wilmeth Sidat-Singh was a U.S. Army Air Corps officer with the Tuskegee Airmen, and an American basketball and football player who was subject to segregation in college and professional sports in the 1930s.
LaRue Martin is an American former professional basketball player. Martin was drafted first overall out of Loyola University Chicago by the Portland Trail Blazers in the National Basketball Association's (NBA) controversy riddled 1972 NBA draft. He was drafted ahead of future Hall of Famers Bob McAdoo and Julius Erving. Martin has been discussed as one of the worst first overall draft picks in NBA history, but he moved on to forge a successful corporate career.
Leslie Henry Hunter was an American professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the American Basketball Association (ABA). Hunter played college basketball for the Loyola Ramblers and was the starting center on their NCAA championship team in 1963. He was a two-time ABA All-Star.
Larry Farmer is an American basketball coach and former player. Farmer served as the head basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1981 to 1984, Weber State University from 1985 to 1988, and Loyola University Chicago from 1998 to 2004. He played college basketball at UCLA, where he was a member of three national championships-winning teams for the UCLA Bruins under head coach John Wooden in the early 1970s. In 2018, Farmer was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame.
Jerald B. Harkness was an American professional basketball player. He played for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Indiana Pacers of the American Basketball Association (ABA). Harkness played college basketball for the Loyola Ramblers, where he was captain of the 1962–63 team that won the 1963 NCAA national championship. A consensus first-team All-American, Harkness was selected by the Knicks in the second round of the 1963 NBA draft. He was also a civil rights activist.
Keith Eugene Booth is an American basketball coach and former National Basketball Association (NBA) player. Booth played college basketball at the University of Maryland from 1993 to 1997. He was an assistant coach at his alma mater under Gary Williams from 2004 to 2011. He was also an assistant coach for G. G. Smith with the Loyola University Maryland men's basketball team.
William Leon Garrett was a basketball player, coach, educator, and a college administrator who is best known as the first African American to regularly play on a Big Ten Conference varsity basketball team. Prior to becoming a college player for Indiana University (1947–51), the Shelbyville, Indiana, native led his Shelbyville High School basketball team to its first state high school basketball championship in 1947 and he was named Indiana Mr. Basketball. In 1959 Garrett coached Indianapolis's Crispus Attucks High School boys' basketball team to the state high school basketball championship title, making him the only Indiana Mr. Basketball to win a state championship as a player and as a coach.
Neal F. Simeon Career Academy, locally known simply as Simeon, is a public four-year vocational high school located in the Chatham area on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Simeon is a part of the Chicago Public Schools district. Opened in 1949, The school is named for African-American Chicago Public Schools educator and administrator Neal Ferdinand Simeon.
The Chicago Catholic League (CCL) is a high school athletic conference based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. All of the schools are part of the Illinois High School Association, the governing body for Illinois scholastic sports. While some of the schools are coeducational institutions, the conference only supports athletics for male teams.
George Ireland was an American basketball coach who led the Loyola Ramblers to the 1963 NCAA championship.
Black people have been participating in American college basketball for over a century.
The 1962–63 Loyola Ramblers men's basketball team represented Loyola University Chicago. Champions of the 1963 NCAA tournament, the Ramblers were coached by George Ireland. They defeated top-ranked and two-time defending champion Cincinnati Bearcats in a 60–58 overtime contest. The 1962–63 Ramblers were one of the first NCAA men's basketball teams to have broken the so-called "gentlemen's agreement" among coaches in which no more than two black players would be on the floor at one time : the Ramblers would regularly have three or four black starters, paving the way for the 1965–66 Texas Western Miners men's basketball team who would finally put the "agreement" to rest and have an all-black starting five. They played in the Game of Change, in which a Mississippi State team defied segregationists to play against Loyola, breaking the unwritten law that Mississippi teams would not play against black players.
The Loyola Ramblers men's basketball team represents Loyola University Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The Ramblers participate as members of the Atlantic 10 Conference. The Ramblers had joined the Missouri Valley Conference in 2013, and stayed until 2022. Prior to 2013, the team had spent 34 seasons as a charter member of the Horizon League.
Edward Tilden Career Community Academy High School is a public 4–year high school bordered between the Canaryville and Fuller Park neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in Chicago as Lake High School in 1889, Tilden is operated by the Chicago Public Schools district.
Porter Andrew Moser is a college basketball coach who is the current head coach of the University of Oklahoma men's basketball team. Moser spent 10 years (2011–2021) at Loyola University Chicago, helping lead the Ramblers to the Final Four in 2018.
Clayton Custer is an American former basketball player and current assistant coach for the Oklahoma Sooners. A 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) point guard, he played college basketball for Loyola University Chicago, and was the 2018 Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year. Custer briefly played professional basketball for Śląsk Wroclaw of the Polish Basketball League.
Ben Richardson is an American former professional basketball player. He spent four seasons with the Loyola Ramblers at the college level, winning Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Defensive Player of the Year as a senior. In his final season at Loyola, he also helped his team reach the Final Four round of the 2018 NCAA Division I tournament. Richardson played professionally for four teams in Europe.
John "Jack" Egan is an American retired basketball player. His playing career is best remembered for his role on the 1962–63 Loyola Ramblers men's basketball team, which won the 1963 NCAA Championship. Egan was the lone white starting player on a team that broke racial barriers by starting four black players in an era when two or three was considered the maximum.