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In the mid-1960s, a tide of minority students flooded into
predominately white colleges and universities, ultimately
changing the culture of not only higher education but also
American society itself. The presence of these black and
brown “outsiders” (many were the first in their families to
attend), disrupted the “white supremacist status quo,
classism, and monolithic Eurocentrism” (Colon, 2008, 271)
and placed stress and strain on institutions of higher
learning to change.
Former University of Toledo star point guard John Rudley
arrived on the University of Toledo campus from the projects
of Benton Harbor during this era described by scholar Alan
Colon as a period of “widespread internal critique of and
massive confrontation with U.S. institutions, values,
authority, and social conventions.”
Despite a stellar basketball and academic career at UT and
outstanding career in business and higher education,
advocates for Rudley’s induction into the school’s athletic
Hall of Fame have been rebuffed by the “powers that be.”
The reasons? For fighting for equality; for struggling for
students’ rights; for teaching whites about blacks and
blacks about whites and for demanding better treatment of
blacks in higher education. The University’s snub is akin to
keeping out Martin Luther King or other activists from the
Civil Rights period because they helped shape the rights and
liberties which we all enjoy today.
I spoke with Rudley concerning his career, experiences and
thoughts about his ostracism from the UT athletic Hall of
Fame. This is part one of our candid discussion.
Perryman:
So, tell me about your early years, going back to your
youth.
Rudley:
I grew up in Benton Harbor, Michigan, a small, typical
blue-collar town between Detroit and Chicago where most of
the people worked in the factories. My father was working
in a factory, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and we had
nine kids in the family. We grew up in the projects, and I
was fortunate enough to be around a bunch of people who
wanted their kids to do better and go to college.
Perryman:
What about athletics?
Rudley:
Chet Walker, who had an all-star career in the NBA, was one
of my neighbors. Then, Alex McNutt was another one of my
mentors, he went to Bradley University, and so I had these
guys that I looked up to and my community was so small that
we country boys in our free time, we played ball all the
time, almost 24/7. So I was really in a little crucible of a
lot of talented people, and I played basketball, I ran
track, I ran cross country, I had the long jump records for
a freshman at Toledo when I was a freshman, and so people
don’t realize I was a three-sport guy. And I got that
because of the little Benton Harbor town I was living in
where a lot of cats were playing all kinds of sports, and it
helped me become a better athlete. I think that was the
preamble to why we had such good high school teams because
we played together around that little city for so long. In
high school, we averaged 90 points a game without a 3-point
shot, so I was co-captain of the team, so sports was in my
blood, and that was my ticket out of the hood. I was
recruited by 26 universities, including Michigan State,
Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and Western Michigan. I was set
to go to Michigan State but the coach there died, so I
decided to come to Toledo. I also received a scholarship
offer from Virginia Tech, the one that knocked us (UT) out
of the NCAA Tournament.
Perryman:
Right, after you and UT had beat them decisively during the
regular season.
Rudley:
By 20 points! I always tell people that I don’t know if
Coach Nichols went to sleep on that second game because he
didn’t modify our offense and Virginia Tech totally revised
their defense to shut Steve Mix down, so that’s what
happened. I became like a floor general because I could see
what was happening with my teammates in high school. So you
can read what’s going on. If you’ve got the ball all the
time like a point guard, you can kind of read what’s going
on. So that was one of the situations where I wish I had
spoken up and told Nichols we need to change our offense and
defense, but it didn’t happen, but that’s my background.
Perryman:
I noticed, because I watched the Virginia Tech game on
television, is that you were usually a pass-first guy, but
near the end of that game, you took it over and started
scoring. People didn’t realize that you could score like
that, but you aggressively took the game over trying to
bring the team back and nearly did.
Rudley:
Well, I appreciate you saying that because my philosophy the
whole time I played in high school was to depend on your
other team members and try to get the ball to them and make
sure you support them, but if they’re having a bad day then
that’s when I felt it was my responsibility because there
was one time during my junior year in high school where I
didn’t take the responsibility, and we lost the game. Even
though we went on to win the championship, I remember that I
could’ve done more. You were right, I deferred to the
coaches first, and then if I thought that plan wasn’t
working, I’d try to do what I could do. That’s where I was
a little bit upset, and I haven’t been upset about
basketball for 50+ years, but when the athletic director
(O’Brien) had a quote in the paper, and he said I was just
an average player, that really upset me because it let me
know that he really wasn’t watching the game.
Perryman:
Many think that’s a faulty assessment, totally wrong.
Rudley:
And Nichols really never - he and I reconciled when I became
a professional in terms of my career, and I got to see him
at a couple of Final Fours and I didn’t have this
conversation with him, but I had a conversation with Bob
Miller about this and Mix too, recently talked about our
days playing at Toledo. Nichols never really set an
offensive play for me, never. Now when you see that the
real problem with that is if you have four guys like
legendary UCLA coach Johnny Wooden did, he used the talents
that he had, and he made sure everybody was in position. I
think that’s what happens at North Carolina and all these
other schools where the coaches make sure all the players
get involved because you never know what night you’re going
to need somebody. But he never ran a play for me the whole
time I was there, so I had to really take the initiative and
just do my own thing.
Perryman:
So then, you left high school having grown up in a
particular cultural context. Talk about the cultural context
that you walked into when you arrived at the University of
Toledo during the mid 1960s?
Rudley:
I had not had a campus visit to Toledo. I went to Michigan
and Michigan State and Western Michigan for campus visits,
but I was kind of insular. I didn’t want to take trips when
I was supposed to be studying for my exams, so I had never
been to Toledo but had already signed. When I got to the
bus station, nobody from the university was there to pick me
up or anything. I was on my own. That wasn’t the case at
other institutions, but when Bob Miller and I met at the bus
station, and I figured he was going to Toledo too because he
was 6-feet something and he was tall, dark, handsome like
Sidney Poitier, I said: “bro you going to Toledo?” He said,
“yeah!” I said, ‘me too.’
So, we got in a cab and went to the campus and I was shocked
because the campus was so small. I asked Bob ‘where is the
rest of the campus?’ Because when you go to Western
Michigan or you go to Michigan, Michigan State, I thought
all colleges looked like that. So, I get it figured out,
and I said to myself, ‘Oh, God!’ boy, you had one major
decision to make, and you blew it.’ I then said, ‘I’m going
to make the most out of this damn thing, I’m still gonna
play hard.’
So when I got there, and we got registered in the dorms I
realized how tiny it was and then I met Calvin Lawshe who
really helped me out because he was a star, a legend in that
community and we were roommates; I met John Brisker as a
freshman, it’s all of us young guys in Carter Hall East, the
first athlete’s dorm, a new dorm then and Frank Lauterbur
had recruited a host of African Americans. You go to Carter
Hall East, you would see Chuck Ealey, Mel Tucker, Mel Long,
Curtis Johnson, Bob Aston, you would see all of us in the
same place, so that helped keep me at Toledo instead of
transferring. So culturally, it was just a small school. I
was somewhat disappointed, but I had in the back of my mind
that well, if you go to a small school, you get a good
education, so that’s kind of what I was dealing with.
In terms of the social environment, I’ll never forget Lawshe
took me over to Ottawa Hills in a car, and he was explaining
to me that this was the cream of the city, but it seemed
like we were kind of not allowed to be over there. I
started getting the sense that there was a division in terms
of race there, but it was kind of subtle. But it’s like
anywhere you can go from Benton Harbor, and you can go to
Detroit and still, there are certain sides of Detroit you
will see the same thing. The rich people there on one side
of the town or you can go to Chicago, the same thing, so it
was the same. It was still racial and cultural divisions
that I saw there, but they weren’t anything I hadn’t seen
before.
Perryman:
Were you affected by any of the racial justice issues and
discrimination that was always in the media, news reports,
and possibly on campus, back then?
(To Be Continued)
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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