I spent my formative years growing up in the heart of ACC Basketball country. What this meant as a North Carolinian, was that one was expected to show exclusive allegiance, as a fan, to one of the “Big Four” schools within the state. Only one team amongst The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, NC State or Duke University was supposed to gain adoration. The social mileau expected one to treat one’s love for a team like a monogamous marriage, meaning it was believed that one could not love more than one of these teams at a time. At least this was the expectation, but I would eventually not allow that expectation to affect my favorite sport.

Basketball has always been my favorite sport, and growing up with both a father and an older brother who were sports enthusiasts, it enhanced my love of the game. In the late 1960’s, media exposure of college basketball was restricted to predominately White schools. At that time, it would have been unheard of to have seen a Historically Black college basketball team on television, or even to have heard them on the radio. With The Civil Rights Movement as a backdrop, combined with a push towards integration, a number of Black college players were looking at the possibility of playing at predominately White schools. From the perspective of the player, I think the idea that his career would have more exposure, and thus increase his odds of becoming a future professional player was key to this phenomenon. I also suspect that in the eyes of individual players, they surmised that they would have better resources, in terms of practice facilities, weight rooms and what-not, and those things were also factored into their eye towards going to White schools. At the same time, these players would act as heroes in the larger Black Community, due to their visibility, and because the Community knew the odds and difficulties they would face in their early attempts at integration.

So, when a young man named Charlie Scott, enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the late 1960’s, the fact that we could witness him on TV, made him an immediate hero in my Black North Carolina household. According to future North Carolina star, Phil Ford, Scott became the first Black player to play at a predominately White school below the Mason-Dixon line. Sensing this, and though I was only 6 or 7 years old at the time, Charlie became my first basketball hero, with UCLA’s Lew Alcindor following shortly behind. Scott was our local version of The Jackie Robinson of North Carolina basketball, and we were drawn to his talent and success with a singular sense of loyalty. I need to stress that my allegiance to Charlie Scott, was first and foremost, towards him as an individual, and then secondarily, towards his team. I was not going to get caught up into that monogamous mentality of being forced to be a fan of only one ACC team.

Therefore, four or five years later, though it may have seemed sacrilegious in the eyes of many, I saw no contradiction in becoming an ardent fan of NC State star, David Thompson. Thompson became my all-time favorite college player because I had never seen a game at his level. He had the ability to do things on the Court that seemed almost super-human, and just as I had done with Charlie Scott, my allegiance was mainly towards Thompson, the individual, than it was NC State, the team. In not caring what people thought, being a Charlie Scott fan did not exclude me from becoming a David Thompson fan. In my mind, I did not have to choose between them. I could have both.

I will be a Charlie Scott fan until the day I die…But, my all-time favorite college basketball player is David Thompson. I find no contradiction in knowing that though Thompson played at NC State, one of Carolina’s biggest rivals, Thompson, to this day, views Charlie Scott as one of his basketball heroes. That makes so much sense to me that it is ridiculous. I maintain a sense of exultation from the joy that both men brought to me as a basketball fan, and the sense of pride they embodied for the larger Black Community of North Carolina. There is a DVD documentary of David Thompson called “Sky Walker,” and there is a still shot within it, of Charlie Scott guarding David Thompson as a professional player. I would literally give my right arm (almost) to have a copy of that picture on my wall. A funny story comes from David Thompson SPECIFICALLY not choosing to attend Carolina, instead choosing to go to NC State, so that he could forge his own identity and legend. He didn’t want to become “another Charlie Scott.” He wanted to be the first “David Thompson.” History has shown that Thompson made the right decision.