Boston never had the reputation of being a basketball hotbed.
Thanks to a group of local high school hoop stars dubbed the Boston Six, that changed in a span of 48 hours in June 1972.
Playing in front of a partisan crowd at Boston University’s Sargent Gymnasium, the Boston team, coached by former Celtic Tom “Satch” Sanders, knocked off New York (93-91) and Connecticut (72-71) to capture the inaugural Boston Shootout.
“That was big for the city of Boston, it showed there was talent here,” said Roscoe Baker, the former director of the Roxbury Boys & Girls Club. “Until then, it just seemed like the colleges would stop recruiting once they got as far as Connecticut.”
Charlie Titus, Alfreda Harris, Clarence Jones, Rudy Cabral and Baker were organizers of the event, but all point to Kenny Hudson as the ringleader. The first African-American to referee in the NBA, Hudson was an executive with Coca-Cola and used those resources to get the Boston Shootout started.
“We all knew that Boston had a good group of basketball players, but no one really knew how good,” said Titus, who was a longtime coach and athletic director at UMass-Boston. “Kenny had a connection with Coca-Cola and had plenty of basketball contacts and that’s how it got started.”
As it turned out, the hype surrounding the Boston players was justified. Ronnie Lee (Lexington/Oregon) and Bobby Carrington (Archbishop Williams/Boston College) were both drafted in the 1976 NBA Draft. Wilfred Morrison (Boston Tech) and Billy Collins (Don Bosco) both played with Carrington at BC, while King Gaskins (Catholic Memorial/Holy Cross) and Carlton Smith (Boston English/URI) earned Division 1 scholarships.
Carrington proved to be the star, earning tournament MVP honors as he scored 70 points in the two wins. The physically gifted Lee was the heart-and-soul, the proverbial jack-of-all-trades, master-of all. He was a Middlesex League All-Star keeper in soccer and his throw of 234-10 in the old javelin in 1972 remains a New England record.
“For me, I just looked at the Shootout as a challenge,” said Lee, who was selected by the Phoenix Suns with the 10th overall pick and played six seasons in the NBA. “I knew we had a good team and we just went out there and played as a unit. Everyone had a role and they went out and did it.”
In the inaugural Shootout, New York was led by Phil Sellers, who would go on to lead Rutgers to the Final Four (along with former Xaverian star Jammin James Bailey). Washington had the marquee player in the field in Adrian Dantley, a future NBA Hall of Famer. Connecticut’s top player was Walter Luckett, who was five months away from gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated.
In a semifinal win over New York, Carrington had 39 points and Lee added 19 despite playing with a wrist injury. The unsung hero was Lee’s high school teammate Wayne Morrison. Playing in place of the injured Gaskins, the future UNH star scored 14 points.
“That first year coincided with the fact that we had a lot of good senior basketball players in the Boston area,” said Morrison, whose 1,501 points remains fourth on the all-time scoring list at UNH. “It was a really big deal for Boston and it was a great opportunity for us to play against the other cities.”
In the final against Connecticut, Carrington scored 31 points, including a game-winning basket with 1:09 left. Smith, who was huge with 18 points, sealed the deal with a block in the final seconds, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Among those in attendance was a sophomore point guard at Boston Tech named Bill Loughnane, who would go on to star at Northeastern and later become a Hall of Fame high school coach.
“I do know I wasn’t old enough to have a driver’s license, so my buddy and I took a train and trolley to Kenmore Square and walked to BU from there,” said Loughnane, who led BC High to the Div. 1 state title this past year. “(Morrison) was a teammate of mine, so I wanted to go and watch him play.”
The event showed that people could put aside differences for a weekend and support one cause – the Boston team. Fifty years later, it’s one of the lasting memories for longtime BABC coaching icon Leo Papile.
“It was a tough time back then with the racial issues and busing coming to the forefront,” Papile said. “You had to be careful going around the city in those days. If you wound up in the wrong neighborhood, you could be in some trouble.”
The Boston Shootout quickly joined the Dapper Dan Classic as premier high school events. In the first 10 years, Patrick Ewing, Mark Aguirre, Bernard King, Chris Mullin, Terry Cummings and Walter Berry were just a few of the many stars who came to Boston.
“Oh man, those were great times,” said Madison Park coach Dennis Wilson. “You had great players, great music (local radio station WILD was a staple in the early days) and the crowd was into it. You had the rivalries between the cities like Boston and New York.
“I remember when I coached in the game in 1982. We were playing New York, we were behind and started to come back. You know me, I start getting the crowd going and Tiny Archibald, who was coaching the New York team, starts yelling at me. I yell back, telling him to worry about coaching his team and I’ll worry about mine.”
The Shootout began to lose its luster when the NCAA changed the viewing period where coaches could see players. In the early days, you were as likely to sit beside a neighbor as you were a Jim Boeheim or a Rick Pitino. That and the rise of summer AAU tournaments made it tougher to lure top talent
After 27 years, the Roxbury Boys & Girls Club stopped sponsoring the Boston Shootout due in large part to funding concerns. Not wanting to see the tournament go by the wayside, Papile stepped up and took over.
“We bought the copyright to keep the name,” said Papile, whose program is running the 50th annual Shootout this weekend in Quincy. “The tournament has had such a great tradition, I felt it was important for the players who played before to keep it going.”
The legacy of the Boston Shootout is so strong that hardcore basketball fans will still talk about something they saw 40-50 years ago.
“I never expected it to last, but it turned out to be great for the community. There were so many good players who came to Boston to play in the Shootout,” said Harris, the only woman to coach in the Shootout. “I remember going to Chicago for a conference and I noticed Mark Aguirre. We wound up having a nice long conversation about the Shootout.
“I’m proud of the fact that Boston was able to put together a great event like that.”
