The first St. John’s Black player and a fateful trip to Kentucky

Four years after Jackie Robinson put on a Dodgers uniform in 1947, an act of courage that shames today’s culture of clichés and rhetoric, a 6-foot-4, lean, dark-skinned, handsome 18-year-old named Solly Walker from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn made a decision that, among many other things, coined him a “first.”

He was a basketball star from Boys High, whose parents moved north from a tiny town in South Carolina. Solly signed to play at St. John’s University, “the first” Black hoopster to take the plunge. Like so many other All-City kids, he was seduced by the school’s charismatic coach, the late-30s, dapper, Hell’s Kitchen-raised, profanity-laced son of a NYC cop, Frank McGuire.

One year after Walker dominated freshman ball, leading the Johnnies to a 17-2 record, all hell was to break loose as the then-Redmen, the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, was scheduled to travel south to battle Kentucky, the country’s No. 2 squad and NCAA defending champion, on a December evening in 1951. Other than a practice session for the 1948 Olympic team, no Black player had ever stepped onto the floor of Lexington’s Memorial Coliseum. There was good reason.

Kentucky was coached by a bigger — albeit different — personality than McGuire: the rumpled-suit, oddly superstitious taskmaster and innovative Adolph Rupp, “the Baron,” the son of German immigrants who settled in the Midwest. Rupp attended Kansas University, learned the game from Phog Allen and James Naismith himself, mastered the nascent concept of the fast break and began to revolutionize the sport below the Mason-Dixon line. The White south was alien to basketball. Southerners loved the militaristic pageantry of football and the twangs of baseball’s sounds and fields.

Both coaches would end up in the Hall of Fame. On the eve of this Saturday’s battle in Atlanta between St. John’s and Kentucky, more than seven decades after Solly Walker, a tall child’s circumstance, his challenges, the mores of regionalism, culture, segregation, religion, media and isolationism are worth remembering.

Would McGuire’s “first” be allowed to join his teammates on the court, in their motel, for meals?

The “negotiation” between the coaches and their surrogates, four telephone conversations, according to which cornermen you believe in, threats, give-and-take feints and jabs produced a green light. Kentucky would welcome Solly Walker into its purity.

Solly Walker is pictured during a game for St. John’s. St. John's Athletics

The Wildcats had won their last 99 games at home. Yet, what of the fans, rival players, race-baiters? If “sports,” as the Swedish novelist Frederik Backman writes, “is a fairy tale,” then here we have all the earmarks of a nightmare.

Let’s face it, apologists beware. Rupp was “a man of his times.” He had no issues spewing epithets at “coons” and “nigras.” He had a belief system: Blacks were “inferior.” They were “less than.” He didn’t much care one bit if he was well-liked. His big center, Bill Spivey, said, “He wanted everyone to hate him.”

McGuire was a gifted politician. He surrounded himself with his streetwise friends, armed robbers and longshoremen who “kept the peace” on the docks by beating to death intruders, priests, high school coaches, sportswriters, cops, bartenders. He was a young man, a true tough guy. His players feared his temper and his mouth, but because he would forever be preaching “us versus them,” they would step on a competitor’s throat to please him. Frank needed enemies, real or imagined. He had to be loved. He was the youngest of 13.

Rupp and McGuire would have despised each other for the mere act of breathing. Rupp would carry a “ladies hairpin” for good luck to each game. McGuire wore French cuff links on his starched shirts. He had lifelong memories of slights and injustices. He detested his Johnnies predecessor, Joe Lapchick. He would later say that Duke’s athletic director, Eddie Cameron, “made him feel as if he were in a rat race and the rats were winning.” As a St John’s captain in the mid-1930s, he’d knock out players from rival Catholic colleges for their antisemitic smears toward the dynamic starting small guards, Hy Gotkin and Rip Kipplensky. He had no problem behind closed doors using slurs of his own. “A man of his times.”

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Rupp was infinitely less gregarious. But he was opinionated, and success opened his mouth wide enough for his size 9 shoe to fit. In 1952, during the government’s investigation into college players shaving points, he said, “They can’t touch my boys with a 10-foot pole.” Soon after, when his stars were arrested, his 1953 season was canceled. If Frank and his beautiful wife, Pat, were Tracy and Hepburn, the Baron was Broderick Crawford as Huey Long.

Walker was a sophomore starter on the nation’s best team. Bob Zawoluk, the 6-9 St. John’s big man, was on his way to becoming the all-time NCAA scoring leader. But what does a “first” feel knowing he’s the focus? Nervous? Of course.

Kentucky was ready. They were led by two dazzling All-Americans, 6-4, take-zero-prisoners Cliff Hagan and 6-3 Frank Ramsey, the logo of the “sixth man.” The visitors rode the train south following Rupp’s capitulation to McGuire’s threats to cancel the game, reported by The New York Times’ Dave Anderson and The Post’s young star pup, Milton Gross.

The visitors would be treated to the region’s finest: grits, sausage patties, biscuits and gravy. Twelve thousand fans jammed the arena on a Monday night. “Dixie” and the Confederate flag were serving to fuel emotion. Chants of “Hey Leroy” greeted Solly.

Kentucky demolished St. John’s, 81-40. Walker scored six of his team’s first seven points. Hagan destroyed Zawoluk, held him to seven, nailed 25 with soft jumpers and putbacks. The Lexington media reported on how polite the crowds were. It’s easier, after all, not to howl when you humiliate the opposition. The headlines read, “Kentucky Crowd Scarcely Notices St. John’s Negro.” What nonsense.

Solly Walker is pictured. New York City Council

Solly kept quiet. He was good at keeping his feelings intact. McGuire fumed. He not only lost the contest, but the mind games. Rupp? He had no reason to think he was “a man of the times.” His recruits were mostly local. He didn’t need to emulate McGuire’s house calls in the boroughs, a bottle of whiskey for the father, a box of rainbow cookies for the mother. In the late ’50s, Brooklyn all-everything Billy Cunningham was set to sign with St. Johns. McGuire, by then at UNC, visited. Two hours later, the Erasmus stud and future Hall of Famer was told by his father, “You’re going south with Uncle Frank.”

Years later, the region and therefore “the Baron” had its own rules, devices, tricks, cons, dos and don’ts to sign the future rising stars of Black America. None was without permanent blemishes. Perry Wallace, “the first” in the SEC from Nashville, led his all-Black team to the 1964 state title. He was ignored by Rupp, signed with Vanderbilt. A sensational player, he was told after attending church services “he was no longer welcome by the deacons.” He was drafted in the second round by the Warriors. Later, he served as the Dean of the American University School of Law.

Two sensational future Hall of Famers in the mid-1960s were finally approached by Rupp’s staff to be “the first.” Wes Unseld, the ingenious, 6-6, 250-pound master rebounder, turned Kentucky down: “Rupp sent his assistants. He wouldn’t come see me play himself.” Spencer Haywood, raised dirt-poor in a Mississippi town of 300, did visit. “He was straight with me,” said the 6-9 future MVP. “I could be the first, but two rules: I can’t start ‘a nigra,’ and you can’t date the white girls.”

But Rupp, in a sense, would pay for his sins of being “a man of his times.” After all, his 1966 Kentucky team, stocked with one All-American after another — Issel, Dampier, Pat Riley — lost to Texas Western, the first team in history with five “firsts,” five “less-thans,” three from New York.

Three months after the blowout loss in Lexington, there was a second chance for Solly and St. John’s. Sports as that fairy tale.

In 1952, only 16 teams were selected to go after each other in the NCAA Tournament. It was “March Madness on radio” without a slick, made-for-TV marketing term. Kentucky, with a 26-1 regular-season record, would face St. Johns at the Eastern Regionals in Raleigh, N.C.

Yeah, sure, “Dixie” blared as Walker hit the layup line. McGuire slowed the pace in his 2-1-2 zone. Zawoluk got hot, scored 32 of the Johnnies’ 64 points. Jack McMahon canned 18. Six of the 10 starters fouled out. Solly didn’t score, but he won, 64-57. It was a less pronounced victory than the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling rematch or Jackie stealing home in the World Series or Jesse Owens winning four gold medals, but as poised and dignified as those in the record books.

St. John’s went to the final, losing to Kansas. Five years later, helming North Carolina, McGuire’s revenge motif struck gold again as his Tar Heels went undefeated 32-0, beat Kansas with Wilt in triple overtime to win it all.

Rupp’s teams would win two more titles. By the time he was forced into retirement at 70, he won 876 games, more than anyone in history at the time. He made his mark, and as such was succeeded by winners: Joe B. Hall, Pitino, Tubby Smith, Calipari. Each won their own crown in the Bluegrass State. Rupp finally signed his first Black recruit in 1969, 7-1 Tom Payne. After one varsity season, he was arrested, convicted of rape, sentenced to life.

Walker finished his senior year at St. John’s averaging 14 points and 12 rebounds per game. He was drafted by his hometown Knicks. Whether it was the NBA’s quota system limiting the few teams that would even dare to have a single Black player on their rosters or the residue of frost of being “the first,” he preferred to walk away from the game.

He became a special ed teacher in Brooklyn, eventually becoming a school principal. Solly Walker spent 40 years offering his wisdom, calm and experience to younger kids. He was a member of a small club, “the firsts.” Only the charter fellows know the truth.

Dan Klores is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and playwright. He is the founder of the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball School in The Bronx.