The following story appeared in Sports Illustrated October 11, 1976 in the article "Nobody Loves the Ruling Class" by Frank Deford. It was paraphrased in Steve Riach's book Amazing But True Sports Stories (2004).

Alex George of Kansas City is a retired official who worked 10 bowl games and six NCAA basketball tournaments. About 20 years ago, he officiated a game between Detroit and Wichita. Detroit, down one point with four seconds to go, had the ball out of bounds. Wichita's arena was then in a tough part of the town, and a lot of the fans had been drinking. George watched one Detroit player throw the ball in to another, who shot. At that moment George looked up and saw that a Wichita fan had thrown an overcoat over the basket. The ball hit the coat and the gun went off. "I was working with Cliff Ogden, but the call was mine." George says. "'What are you going to call it, Alex?' he asked me. I told him, 'It's 120 feet to our dressing room, and I'm not going to call it anything until we both get to the door.' When we got there I called it a basket. "A friend of mine named Joe Peters waited for me outside. We didn't come out for a long time and when we did, Joe said he'd carry my bag to the car. We started off and a woman walked up and looked at Joe and said, 'You worked a beautiful game all right,' and then she began beating him with her umbrella. Joe started to point at me, but before he could say anything, I said, 'That's right, you did work a beautiful game.' After all, he'd already been hit. There was no sense for me to get beaten, too."

A great story. But did it actually happen?

• On February 20, 1956, Detroit and Wichita played a one-point game. But several facts don't mesh with George's account.
  • The game was played at Detroit, not Wichita.
  • Wichita won the game 85-84.
• So George could be recalling that game, but have the teams reversed. After all, there were and are many parts of Detroit that are "tough." But here's the report on the game from United Press as carried in the Holland (MI) Evening Sentinel.

  Wichita spoiled Detroit's last Missouri Valley Conference game of the season by nicking the Titans, 85-84, at Detroit. Neither team ever was more than four points apart from the other in the tightly-played contest. The lead changed hands 11 times and the score was knotted 23 times. Both clubs fouled repeatedly in the final minutes and Wichita's accuracy from the line made the difference. Bill Ebben sank 30 points for Detroit for high point honors while Joe Stevens and Bob Hodgson each scored 24 for Wichita. The defeat gave the Titans a 3-9 record for the season. It was Wichita's fifth win in nine games.

• No mention of a last-second shot or an overcoat over the rim. And you'd think that a Michigan paper would include such details for a game played within that state. Even the Hutchinson Herald in Wichita's home state makes no mention of any weird ending to the game during the following days.

Conclusion: Referee George may well have officiated a game in which an overcoat was thrown over the rim. Something so weird would certainly stick in your memory. But the incident didn't happen in a Wichita-Detroit game or, if it did, it wasn't at the end of the game on the deciding shot. It's possible the overcoat basket occurred earlier in the game, and the hometown fans were upset when it turned out to make the difference in the contest.

• 1939 New York Rens 34 Oshkosh All-Stars 25
• 1940 Harlem Globetrotters 31 Chicago Bruins 29
• 1941 Detroit Eagles 39 Oshkosh All-Stars 37
• 1942 Oshkosh All-Stars 43 Detroit Eagles 41
• 1943 Washington Bears 43 Oshkosh All-Stars 31
• 1944 Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons 50 Brooklyn Eagles 33
• 1945 Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons 78 Dayton Acmes 52
• 1946 Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons 73 Oshkosh All-Stars 57
• 1947 Indianapolis Kautskys 62 Toledo Jeeps 47
• 1948 Minneapolis Lakers 75 New York Rens 71

• 1939 Puggy Bell, New York Rens
• 1940 Sonny Boswell, Harlem Globetrotters
• 1941 Buddy Jeannette, Detroit Eagles
• 1942 Ed Riska, Oshkosh All-Stars
• 1943 Curly Armstrong, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons
• 1944 Bobby McDermott, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons
• 1945 Buddy Jeannette, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons
• 1946 George Mikan, Chicago American Gears
• 1947 Julie Rivlin, Toledo Jeeps
• 1948 George Mikan, Minneapolis Lakers

Shipley Integrates USL - I

The first all-white university in the South to accept undergraduate African-American students was Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now Louisiana-Lafayette) in 1954. Three years later, Beryl Shipley took over as head basketball coach for the Bulldogs (the school's nickname at the time). He thus embarked on a roller coaster ride that would bring the school success on the court but bring him into conflict with the school administration, state agencies, and the NCAA.

• In Shipley's first year, attendance ranged from 500 to 750. The status of basketball was such that the team had to vacate Blackham Coliseum multiple times during the season to make way for a flower show, a rodeo, or a dog show.
• Still, Beryl's first squad finished with a 16-11 record to end five straight losing seasons at SLI.
• As a result, Shipley earned Coach of the Year honors in the Gulf States Conference.
• He won the honor again in 1958-9 with a 15-9 record.
• Shipley succeeded because he drove his players relentlessly. They responded because he was honest and consistent in his dealings with his all-white squad. Like any good coach, he meticulously prepared his team for each game. They might lose to teams with superior talent, but it wouldn't be because of weak fundamentals or lack of conditioning.

Shipley got a foretaste of future problems at the university when he inaugurated the Bayou Classic, a Christmas holiday tournament.

• The first tournament was scheduled for December 1959. The coaching staff had lined up three teams: Mississippi Southern (now USM), North Texas State, and Stetson.
• Shipley guaranteed each team's travel and accomodations as well as a banquet for the teams and gifts for the coaches. The cost to USL (as the school was now called) would be $800, an amount expected to be covered by the gate receipts with room to spare.
• In mid-November, the university president, Dr. Joel Fletcher, ordered Shipley to cancel the tournament because it was too expensive.
• Beryl responded by turning to the supporters he had developed in the Lafayette area. They underwrote the tournament because it brought visitors to the city and made it a success throughout its 14-year life span.
• Still, Fletcher would not forget Shipley's end run around his order. The president would bide his time before striking back.
• The resentment Fletcher's administration felt toward the coach simmered even more when the major of Lafayette proclaimed Saturday, February 18, 1961 as Coach Beryl Shipley Day. He read the official proclamation in ceremonies before the USL-McNeese State game at the Coliseum. Among the points cited were the #11 ranking in the latest small-college poll, 19 straight home wins, and Shipley's building USL basketball into "a booming business."

Shipley built the program until the 1964-5 team achieved another milestone.

• Led by All-American G Dean Church, the Bulldogs compiled a 17-9 record to qualify for a regional berth in the NAIA national tournament.
• Shipley's joy was tempered by anxiety. If USL won the regional, the administration might not allow them to participate in the tournament in Kansas City because opponents would include black athletes. State Board of Education policy barred state schools from competing against integrated teams.
• AD "Whitey" Urban assured Shipley that, if USL won the regional, the team would be allowed to participate. "You coach the basketball team; I'll handle the politics," Whitey told him.
• So Shipley entered a successful bid to host the four-team tournament, which included three more all-white teams from Alabama.
• Spurred by raucous crowds, USL defeated Troy State 92-86 and Huntingdon College 78-69 to earn District 27's spot in KC.

The next day, Fletcher struck.

• Shipley and his assistant were in the basketball office planning practices and the trip to KC when a reporter phoned to ask if they had heard the news.
• The president had informed the media without telling his coach first that the school would not participate in the NAIA Tournament. Fletcher didn't explain the reason, but everyone assumed it was pressure from the state board to maintain its anti-integration policy.
• In shock, Beryl drove to Urban's home after he couldn't get him on the phone. He found Whitey leaving town. The AD told the coach to accept the situation and say nothing to the press or anyone else. Don't make waves.
• Shipley hurried to the dorm where the upset players had gathered, some crying. The coach explained that he had learned of the decision as they had - from reporters. He suggested they form a group of students and go to the president's house to demand an explanation.
• When hundreds of students gathered in front his house, Fletcher refused to come out but finally agreed to meet with them at 8 am at the administration building.

The University of Southwestern Louisiana Bulldogs had defied the State Board of Education and played in the 1965 NAIA National Tournament against teams with black players.

• Seeds of discord were sown that would be reaped many years later.
• Dr. Joel Fletcher, USL president for 25 years, unexpectedly retired shortly after he defied the state board and approved the team's participation in the NAIA tournament.
• Dr. Clyde Rougeau succeeded Fletcher.

Coach Beryl Shipley's 1965-6 team repeated as Gulf State Conference champions to again qualify for the NAIA regional tournament. However, they lost in the first round to end any discussion about whether they would be allowed to participate in the national tourney.

A little later that spring, an historic event forever changed college basketball.

• Don Haskins' Texas Western Miners (now UTEP) won the national championship with an all-black starting lineup.
• To add to the impact of the milestone, the Finals victory came over the Kentucky Wildcats of Adolph Rupp. Although coaching at the northermost SEC school, Rupp steadfastly maintained an all-white team, believing that black players didn't have the intelligence and work ethic to succeed in major college basketball.

With USL having had hundreds of black students since the mid-50s, Shipley, a native of Kingsport TN, decided that the time was right to recruit black players.

• Shipley related his plans to the new president, Dr. Rougeau, and received his approval.
• Accordingly, three black basketball players enrolled at USL for the fall semester of 1966.
  • Elvin Ivory, 6'7" leaper from Birmingham AL
  • Marvin Winkler, shooting G from Indianapolis IN who had broken the high school scoring records of the legendary Oscar Robertson
  • Leslie Scott, another quick G from McKinley High School in Baton Rouge

When word spread, the leadership of the other state colleges and the State Board of Education reacted with resentment.

• The Board hastily arranged a meeting with Rougeau and Shipley.
• When asked how the black players got to USL, Shipley decided to protect Rougeau and instead told the board that the NAACP had sent the players. This white lie undoubtedly hurt the coach's cause because, in the climate of the times, the political leadership of states in the Deep South, led by Governor George Wallace of Alabama, were particularly enraged by "outside agitators" stirring up trouble.
• The board's new Commissioner of Athletics, Stanley Galloway, recently retired from a successful tenure as football coach at Southeastern Louisiana, told Rougeau: "You're the president; flunk the black students on entrance requirements."
• Rougeau replied that he couldn't do that because the students had satisfied the rules for admission to the university.
• Galloway then suggested Shipley start practice a week early and make sure the black players didn't make the team. The commissioner thus ordered the basketball coach to violate the NCAA rule that forbade organized practices before October 15.
• Shipley obeyed the order to start practice early, doing so on October 7 with the gym doors closed. However, he had no intention of running off the black players, two of whom had been high school All-Americans.

The state board also attacked Shipley's integration plan on another front.

• The board informed USL that no scholarship funds would be available for the black athletes.
• When no arguments could dissuade the board from its blatantly racist policy, Shipley sought help elsewhere.
• He formed the Lafayette Business League to raise money from the Lafayette community, black and white.
• Beryl had the treasurer of the League deposit the funds directly with the business office of the university. The money was donated to pay for tuition, books, and other expenses that normally would be covered by a student's athletic scholarship.
• By ignoring Galloway's order to run off the black players and by circumventing the board to pay for scholarships, Shipley had widened his circle of enemies. They would exact their revenge in spades down the road.

Shipley crafted a challenging schedule to showcase his 1966-7 team, which was not only the first integrated college team in Louisiana history but the first in the entire Deep South.

• Beryl recalled: "We started the season with eight games, all played away from home, and we played them in fifteen days: North Texas State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Louisville, Houston, Auburn, Northeast Louisiana State [now Louisiana-Monroe], and Baylor. We played the first game on December 1, played the last on December 15, and lost every game except one, Northeast Louisiana. We arrived back in Lafayette and played Lamar on the 17th."
• "Before we made that trip, our guys had begun to feel that we were pretty good. I had some reservations about how good we were, and I had scheduled those eight games for two reasons. First, I wanted to play some well-known, successful schools that we had never played before, and in order to do so, we had to go to their place; they had no reason or desire to come to ours. Second, I wanted to determine how good we really were. Well, we found out. After we got back, I told the guys, along with a few other choice things, that we had a lot of work to do. And there wasn't any argument."

The team also made some history and faced extra adversity on the road throughout the season.

• Ivory, Winkler, and Scott were the first African-Americans to play at Auburn.
• When the team played at Louisiana schools, they arrived by bus the day of the game and left immediately afterwards, not even staying to shower. A police escort ushered them into and out of the gym to avoid any trouble.
• On January 7 at Nicholls State in Thibodaux, the team heard some racial taunting from the crowd.

The next trip, to Louisiana College at Pineville in north central LA, proved to be scarier.

• Students four and five deep lined both sides of the sidewalk as the team moved from the bus to the arena. "Gator bait, Gator bait!" was the chant even though the Baptist school's nickname was not Gators. In the dressing room, Shipley told his players not to react to anything the crowd did or said. "Just play your game. Show 'em what you can do with a basketball."
• When the Bulldogs came out for warmups, the pep band played "Dixie" while the crowd chanted "Gator bait!" That combination continued throughout the contest.
• After Ivory put on a slam-dunk exhibition to spark the 89-80 victory, ULL got out of town as fast as possible.

The Pineville scene was repeated a short time later a little further north, at Louisiana Tech in Ruston.

• Police cars with flashing lights met the team bus on the outskirts of town and escorted it to the campus.
• Armed officers lined the walkway into the field house to protect the team from the students.
• The black USL players were the object of constant hissing, booing, and taunting as well as very physical play. Officiating was "controversial," at best.
• Tech won 80-78 to sweep the home-and-home series. It would be the last time any team would defeat a Shipley-coached team twice in the same season.

The Bulldogs finished 20-11 to earn another invitation to the NAIA post-season tournament. They made it to the third round of the National Tournament in Kansas City before Oklahoma Baptist, the same team that had eliminated them two years earlier, knocked them out again, this time by only one point.