You could call Harry “Bucky” Lew the Jackie Robinson of basketball. Just like the baseball pioneer and UCC member, Lew broke the color barrier and became the first African-American man to play in a professional basketball game. The Lowell, Massachusetts native was an extraordinary basketball player and a brilliant defensive player. He was always chosen to guard the best player on any opposing team. In 1902, Lew became the first African-American professional basketball player when the Pautucketville Athletic Club of the New England Basketball League signed him to their team. He was supposed to be the extra man, basically to sit on the bench, but when one of the starting players was injured, Lew made history. At first, the manager refused to put him in. “He let them play us five on four,” Lew remembered, “but the fans got real mad and almost started a riot, screaming to let me play. That did it. I went in there and you know all those things you read about Jackie Robinson, the physical abuse and the extra effort to put him down, they’re all true. I got the same treatment and even worse. But I gave it right back. It was rough but worth it.” In the face of unimaginable conditions, Lew spent the next three years playing in the New England Basketball League. When the league disbanded, Lew stayed in the game for the next 20 years, working as a player and general manager for his own teams. By the time the NBA was formed in 1949, Lew had paved the way for the Boston Celtics to draft the NBA’s first black player, Chuck Cooper in 1950. The Celtics also had the league’s first all-black starting five in 1963 and the first black head coach in 1966. Surprisingly, although Lew is a true basketball pioneer, he has never been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, which is located just a few miles from where he spent the last 35 years of his life.

For more info: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1025952/index.htm