Earl Francis Lloyd

Earl Francis Lloyd (April 3, 1928 – February 26, 2015) was an American professional basketball player. He was the first black person to play in the National Basketball Association, in the 1950–51 NBA season. Lloyd, a forward known for his defense, played collegiality at West Virginia State College, was selected in the ninth-round of the 1950 NBA Draft by the Washington Capitols. On October 31, 1950, Lloyd became the first African American to play in an NBA game, against the Rochester Royals. Nicknamed "The Big Cat", Lloyd was one of three African-Americans to enter the NBA at the same time. It was only because of the order in which the teams' season openers fell that Lloyd was the first to actually play in a game in the NBA. Lloyd retired ranked 43rd in career scoring with 4,682 points. In the 1953-54 season, Lloyd led the NBA in both personal fouls and disqualifications.According to Detroit News sportswriter Jerry Green, in 1965 Detroit Pistons General Manager Don Wattrick wanted to hire Lloyd as the team's head coach. It would have made Lloyd the first African-American head coach in American pro sports. Lloyd and his wife, Charlita, have three sons, and four grandchildren. Lloyd was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1993. In 2003, Lloyd was inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor. On December 1, 2007, the newly constructed basketball court at T. C. Williams High School in Lloyd's home town of Alexandria, Virginia, was named in his honor. Lloyd actually attended Parker-Gray High School, as Alexandria's schools wereracially-segregated at the time. T.C. Williams—the subject of the motion picture Remember the Titans—was created as a combined, desegregated school two decades later.