The Sam Jones Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Thursday, October 11th,
2007
In September 1954 you entered the Army, going through the Pole Lineman's
school at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Please tell me about your military career,
and also about the basketball that you played in the service.
I
don’t know why they sent me to Camp Gordon,
and the Army must not have known either,
because I wasn’t there very long. They
soon switched me to the 101st
Airborne Division. I guess they saw me as one of those gung-ho guys
[laughs]. I was surprised when I got drafted – I took my basic training at
Gordon and then they sent me on down to Augusta, Georgia. Some guy came
around looking for volunteers for jump school. He said that you’d make more
money doing that. Well, all he had to say was money – I was a pretty good
athlete and I was in pretty good shape, and he was looking for guys who fit
that mold. I thought it would be interesting so I volunteered, and the next
thing you know I’m at Fort Benning, Georgia, where they prepared you for
jumping. That was really interesting, because you were up early, way before
five o’clock in the morning, and you were out there training with the other
jumpers. You were getting yourself into condition and preparing to jump
from an airplane. The getting up part didn’t bother me at all, because to
this day I still get up very early in the morning. The jumping part was
another story [laughs].
It wasn’t long before we were actually jumping, and reality hit me – I thought I had to be out of my mind [laughs]. Well, they took us to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. At that particular time that’s where you did most of your jumping. Most people don’t realize this, but you don’t pull your own parachute. In the plane, you have what you call a static line. When the jump master ordered you to stand up, you hooked yourself up to that static line, which actually stayed in the plane, and that’s what pulled your chute for you. You didn’t do it yourself. You also had an emergency chute, just in case, which you would pulled yourself in the event of a problem with the primary chute. It was interesting because you’d see all of these people standing up and bailing out of the plane, and the parachutes opening up, and that’s all you want to happen when it’s your turn to jump. It’s a thrill that everyone should try once in their lives because there’s nothing under you.
In training they work with you on how to hit the ground – they teach you to roll over because you hit pretty hard. It’s a thud, it’s not an easy landing. I hurt my ankle pretty badly once. I think it was my fifth jump. I didn’t break it, but it was about as close as you come so I got out of there – I didn’t jump anymore [laughs]. In the meantime I got shipped to White Sands Proving Grounds, which is in New Mexico. I was given a desk job, and they were starting a basketball team – it was the first basketball team that they had ever fielded – and it was fielded by a second lieutenant named Robert Williams. Fine man. He is still living, resides in California, and we still keep in touch quite often by telephone. Well, when he started the team he made me his assistant coach. He wanted me to help because he was inexperienced and really didn’t like cutting players, and he knew he could delegate the duties that he didn’t like to his assistant [laughs].
We had twelve players on that first team. We were very fortunate in one respect, because we had people on the team who were over 6’6”. We didn’t think the Army was allowed to take anybody over 6’6”. Anyway, we played our games with these twelve volunteers who were simply interested in the game of basketball. There was nothing fancy about it – in fact, that first year we didn’t even have a gym to play in. We scrimmaged in a Quonset hut. Now, you don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you [laughs]? A Quonset hut is like a metal, oval-shaped building that could be quickly assembled without skilled labor. That’s what we used to practice in – they just put baskets on each end of the Quonset hut, and when they were finished only a small number of people could be seated in it. I’m talking 60-to70, tops. That’s the place we practiced. So needless to say, we didn’t have any home games that season. We played all of our games off base – at other air force bases, army bases, and on some college campuses against junior varsity teams. That year we played 34 games, and we won 30. The current athletic director at Texas Tech, Gerald Myers, was on that junior varsity team that we played against at Texas Tech. This was back in 1955. And then there were people like Frank Ramsey, who was my teammate in Boston. Frank was in the military, based at Fort Knox, Kentucky. And there was Bobby Leonard, who was known as Slick – he played professional basketball for the Minneapolis Lakers and the Los Angeles Lakers. Both of these gentleman are in the Hall of Fame, and both were playing basketball in the military at the same time as me. Bobby was the one who really got me interested in playing professional basketball. I’d never really thought about it until we played against each other at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Frank Ramsey was there, Bobby Leonard was there, Al Bianchi was there – Al Bianchi played for Syracuse and Philadelphia, and went on to coach professionally with Chicago and Phoenix.
I didn’t get a chance to play against Frank Ramsey because he had just gotten shipped out, but I played against some of these other guys and I performed pretty well. That’s when people started asking me if I wanted to play pro ball. Bobby Leonard left and went to Minneapolis, and the Lakers actually drafted me while I was in the service, but I decided that I wanted to go back to school and get my degree – I’d always wanted to get my degree. So I went back to school and my name went back into the hat for the NBA Draft.
You were the eighth overall selection in the 1957 NBA Draft, site unseen, by
the legendary Red Auerbach. Your initial reaction was one of
disappointment. Please share your reaction to being drafted by the Boston
Celtics.
To
be quite honest, I was shocked when the Boston Celtics drafted me in the
first round of the 1957 NBA Draft. I don’t think many people knew who I was
because I didn’t play for a big program like Kansas or Kentucky. In fact, I
was the first African-American from a black college to be drafted in the
first round of any sport. I didn’t feel like I had something to prove, but
I carried burden on my shoulders that felt very similar to what Jackie
Robinson must have felt. I wanted to succeed. I wanted to make good so
that others could follow me, and so that the people in this country could
see that we had some good basketball players in our black collegiate
institutions.
There is something else I would like to mention: My father died when I was quite young, and that could have given me the excuse to go the wrong way – but I did not. I had a very fine immediate family, and a fine extended family, and we still have family reunions every year. So to be drafted by the Boston Celtics was more than an honor for me – it was a testament to the fine family that raised me into the man that I became.
The year that I was discharged from the army and returned to school, well, I want you to know that we had a hell of a season. We just simply had a good team. North Carolina Central always had good teams back then, even though it was a small, Division II school, but that year we were particularly strong. Bones McKinney, who had played for Red Auerbach and who had also coached in the ACC, knew who I was because we were so good, and he played a big part in my becoming a Boston Celtic. It was during my senior season that Red called Bones McKinney and asked him who, in his opinion, was the best basketball player in the State of North Carolina. And he said, “Sam Jones’. Red Auerbach didn’t know anything about me [laughs], but he knew that that year UNC had won 32 straight games, had beat Kansas in triple-overtime for the NCAA championship, and had done so by beating a KU team featuring Wilt Chamberlain. This is 1957. This is the year that UNC had guys like Tommy Kearns and Lennie Rosenbluth – Rosenbluth averaged over 29 points-per-game that season and was named the Helms Foundation National Player of the Year. Red knew all of this because these were the big schools with proven programs, and that’s why he really challenged Bones McKinney’s evaluation. McKinney never wavered - he said the best player in the State of North Carolina was Sam Jones – and that was ultimately enough to convince Red. He ended up drafting me in the first round of the 1957 NBA Draft.
You’re right – I was disappointed that the Boston Celtics drafted me, because I really didn’t want to go up there and play with ‘em [laughs]. I didn’t want to go with them because I felt that I wouldn’t get to play. Don’t get me wrong, I felt that I was good enough to play, but because the Celtics had just won their first world championship I didn’t think I would even have a shot at making the team. People today don’t realize this, but back them teams were only allowed to carry ten players on the active roster. My thinking was that Red wasn’t going to cut anybody. I felt that he was going to be loyal to that team because it was the one that won his first world championship. Well, I thought it over and finally decided to give it a try, and the fella that I beat out for the last spot was coached by Bones McKinney. How ironic is that? His name was Dick Hemric. To me, it was almost unbelievable at the time. Hemric was a two-time ACC Men's Basketball Player of the Year in ‘54 and ’55. He set the conference scoring records that remained untouched for 50 years, until that kid [J.J.] Redick from Duke broke it a couple of years ago. And like I said, he was a member of Red’s first championship team, so it was very special to beat out such a fine player for that last roster spot.
After playing college basketball in relatively small venues, what was it
like to play in fabled arenas like the Boston Garden and Madison Square
Garden?
It
was a big adjustment, believe me. All of a sudden, you’re in these huge
arenas. All of a sudden, you’re looking at 18,000 people there to watch a
basketball game, and you’re a part of it. I remember playing in New York
for the first time and performing at Madison Square Garden. As a rookie it
was very intimidating. You’ve got to run out there, and the spotlight is on
you. You just hear the noise. You feel like you’re as small as an ant, and
you’re so nervous.