DAVE HARRIS-KANSAS UNIVERSITY RUNNING BACK

He grew up in NW DC and attended Cardozo High School. Dave, excelled in football, and track. All-Met in both sports. His coach and mentor was the great, Sal Hall.

In 1954 he was named to the first integrated high school All-Star Football Team to be played at the iconic Griffith Stadium, the home of the Washington Senators baseball team and the Negro Baseball League.

This was a big game in my Parkside NE housing project. My neighbor, Thomas ‘Shorty’ Sumlin was playing in the game. Shorty lived directly across the alley from me. I lived on Kenilworth Terrace and he lived on Kenilworth Avenue in NE.

Shorty was a senior at Phelps Vocation High School and I was attending Brown Middle School located on the same 24th street corridor. There were many mornings we would ride the bus together to 24th and Benning Road NE. He was the Law and Order guy when things got out of hand on the bus. Shorty was like my big brother. 

The stretch of 24th and Benning Road NE would begin with Langston Golf Course, Spingarn High School, Charles Young Elementary, Phelps Vocation High School, and last but not lease, Brown Middle School.

Brown was located at the very end of the 24th street corridor. It was the best kept secret in the country and the most unique parcel of education landscape in the United States. We called it, “Education Hill.” Gentrification has since made ‘The Hill’ almost a ghost town. 

Those schools in the near future will eventually become town homes, the golf course will become a country club and the Anacostia River will house the boats and yachts of the rich and powerful. 

The river will be use for their nights out to the MGM Casino to gamble, have dinner in Prince Georges County, Maryland and back home via the Anacostia River to the Golf Course to park their boats.

All the schools are in a 5 minute walk of each other. My friends and teammates living in Langston Terrace, like Andrew Johnson, Irving Brown John ‘Turk’ Edwards, and Teddy Atcherson never had to leave the neighborhood to complete their education until college.

Some evenings after school I would watch the Phelps football team practice and other evenings, I was watching Spingarn two minutes away.  I loved football and I was caught in middle of the two schools. 

My pick was usually the Spingarn practice. My hero was Spingarn running back, George Carlos Williams. He use to let me carry his helmet back to the school after practice.

He was selected to play in the high school All-Star Game along with teammate, Olin Robinson. Shorty and Peasy Jordan of Phelps were also named. 

THE LEGENDS OF THE INTER-HIGH / STANDING TALL THIRD FROM THE LEFT-DAVE HARRIS.

Shorty and Peasy were were offensive linemen and George was one of the great running backs selected along with Dan Droze from Anacostia High School. Dave Harris was selected, he had speed to burn.

I could not wait to see this game between the Catholic Schools and the DC Public Schools. It was the talk of the town and it was history making. 

What made this game so special, it was all an all white undefeated St. John’s High School against a diverse group of black and white All-Stars from the DC Public Schools. The DC Public School team was the underdogs (no surprise).

I remember sitting on the doorssteps of the elders in Parkside late in the evenings and listening to them describe the trials and tribulations of the great black athletes including, Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Jackie Robinson. 

To me this game was similar to the trials and tribulations of those black athletes. Especially, Heavyweight Champion, Joe Louis and his two encounters with Germany’s Max Schmeling.

To my surprise my mother benched me for the game. The reason, I was late getting home to watch my little brothers. I made her miss her hair appointment. I held that against my brothers Billy, and Earl for years. I missed the game of the ages.

The DC All-Stars upset the undefeated Catholic All-Stars 12-7. Cardozo’s All-Met end, Dave Harris caught the winning touchdown pass from Anacostia’s tailback, Dan Droze-never to be heard from again.

Dan returned to the white side of Anacostia and Dave returned to the black side of Cardozo–business as usual.

I would meet Dave several years later at the Florida Avenue Grill. The grill was a popular soul food restaurant, located at corner of 11th street and Florida Avenue NW, across the street from his alma mater.  

He was coming out of the restaurant with his former All-Star teammate, Willie Wood attended Armstrong High School. I was with my older brother Bobby. He was Willie’s baseball teammate at Armstrong.

Bobby introduced me to Willie and Dave. Dave had already enrolled at Kansas and Willie had decided to go the junior college route in California.  My brother was now a student/athlete at Maryland State in Princess Ann, Maryland.

In 1957 I was in my junior year at Spingarn and making a name for myself as an all-around athlete. 

I look back now and I say, “What a coincident”, in 1955 Spingarn would meet Armstrong at Cardozo Stadium for the DC Public High School East Division Championship. The Armstrong quarterback, was the great Willie Wood.

If you think the DC Public High School All-Stars beating the undefeated St. John’s team 12-7 was an upset–I have some news for you. 

In 1955 Spingarn was the underdog big time, all because of the great Willie Wood. He was considered to be the best high school football player in the city. 

Spingarn upset Armstrong 13-7, almost the identical score of the first ever integrated high school All-Star game played in Griffith Stadium in 1954.

I remember going into the 4th quarter, we were trailing Armstrong 7-6 in the closing minutes. All hell broke loose when Willie turned to pitch out to his running back moving to his left. Our outside linebacker, Maurice ‘Smack’ Lucas picked off the ball and went the other way for the winning touchdown 13-7. 

Almost the identical score of the All-Star Game. This was one game I did not miss. I had a front row seat on the Spingarn bench. 

I was about 5’6 inches end weighting about 140 pounds with bricks under my shoulder pads. I never got off the bench–still it was the defining game of my high school football career.

This is ironic, guess who would be our opponent for the championship of the DC Public Schools–would you believe Cardozo at Griffith Stadium?

We had talent galore–it was a defensive struggle. The game ended in a 0-0 tie. Cardozo won the right to meet guess who-St. John’s in the city championship game.

There was a ruling on the books that stated, “If a play-off game ends in a tie, the Penetration Rule is used to determine the winner. The team that crosses the others’ 50 yard line more times than its opponent is declared the winner.” Cardozo won 2-1.

Willie Wood and I became great friends later, I never reminded him I was on that Spingarn team. I heard him in an interview with TV 9 sportscaster, Warner Wolf, he asked Willie about his high school playing days in DC, his response, “That Spingarn game still hurts.”

In 1957 I was pissing teammates and coaches off with my selfish, “Give me the ball attitude.” I wanted the ball when the game was on the line. I never thought of it as selfish-I just hated losing.

The Spingarn quarterback for that big win over Armstrong was, Donald ‘Duck’ Wills. We became the TD combination in 1957 despite my, “Give me the ball attitude.”

Willie Wood was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1989 after an outstanding 12 year NFL career. As a player he won several Super Bowls. He was named to the All-Pro team 9 times and played for the great Vince Lombardi. 

Lombardi said, “Willie Wood was my coach on the field.” Willie died in February 2021 in his hometown of Washington, DC.

Maurice ‘Smack’ Lucas died in Hawaii in 2023. It was his home for the past several decades.

It has often been said, “Death takes no holidays.” On Tuesday morning I received a call from my long time friend, Lester Lewis with some sad news, my friend and hero, Dave Harris had died.

Dave and Dan would make football sports history that will never be forgotten.

Dave Harris and Dan Droze meet face to face for the first time since the Griffith Stadium All-Star Game in 1954. The occasion-Inside Sports Black History Month. They are truly an important part of American History.

DC All-Star, Dan Droze and I would become friends and teammates on the Virginia Sailors, a minor league football team for the Washington Redskins. 

The Virginia Sailors: We are celebrating “We are the Champions” in Ladd Stadium in Mobile, Alabama. Dan Droze is on the back wall center. He is the guy that looks like he has no hair.

The late Senator Decatur Trotter (D-MD 5th District) honor young men of distinction during a Kids In Trouble tribute. In the background are my support team, the sons of Dave and Teresa Harris.

The interview with Dave opens with McKenna a writer for the Grantland.com blog describes Wilt Chamberlain’s new car, a blood red Oldsmobile convertible on the campus of Kansas University:

“Chamberlain had just gotten the flashy car, at the finish of his sophomore year at Kansas and his first as a varsity basketball player — the NCAA didn’t allow Division One freshmen to play at the time.

Chamberlain pulled into D.C over Memorial Day weekend in 1957 behind the wheel of a red-and-white Oldsmobile convertible with his roommate and DC native Dave Harris with the top down.

NOT TRUE: DAVE HARRIS DID ALL THE DRIVING IN DC–WILT WOULD HAVE NEVER GIVEN ME THE KEYS TO PARK THE CAR-THIS WAS MY FIRST TIME MEETING WILT.

“Dave Harris, grew up in D.C. and was a revered athlete back home. He’d been a football star at all-black Cardozo High School, and had gotten attention for being on the receiving end of the first integrated touchdown pass in the history of D.C. high school football. That came at Griffith Stadium on December 5, 1954, in the waning minutes of a game matching an all-star team made up of players from the city’s all-white or all-black public high schools against the all-white powerhouse squad from St. John’s College High School, a private prep. Along with its historical significance, Harris’s touchdown catch, on a pass thrown by quarterback Danny Droze of all-white Anacostia High, gave the integrated squad a 12-7 upset win over the previously undefeated Johnnies.

Harris earned a football scholarship to Kansas, and met Chamberlain during their freshman year in Carruth-O’Leary Hall, a dorm where a lot of Jayhawks athletes resided. They also lived together as sophomores in the Kappa Alpha Si house. Harris made the trip to Kansas City to cheer on his frat brother during the KU-UNC title matchup, and saw the emotional funk the loss put Chamberlain in. After his last exam for the spring semester, Chamberlain told Harris he didn’t want to leave his fancy car on campus over the summer so he’d be driving back to Philly and could use a companion.

Harris went along for the ride.

We all now take the Interstate Highway System for granted, but the ribbon cutting to open up the very first stretch of federal pavement, a section of I-70 in Kansas, had been held in November 1956. With the new thoroughfare, Chamberlain and Harris planned on making the 1,115-mile trip to D.C. straight through.

Funny noises started coming from under the hood just outside Indianapolis, on the weekend the town was hosting the Indy 500.

“So we coasted into this gas station in Indianapolis, and Wilt gets out of the car,” recalls Harris, now 75 and living in D.C. “A guy comes out of the garage and says, ‘Goddamn! Wilt the stilt!’ And he’s yelling at people in the shop, ‘Get Wilt’s car right up on the rack!’ And they fixed it right there, something with the carburetor, and the guy says, ‘Wilt, this is on us! Keep on going!’ I said, ‘Wilt, they know you everywhere you go!’ Wilt hated being called ‘Wilt the Stilt.’ Hated it. But he liked being taken care of like that.”

When they got back on the road, and started talking about their plans for the summer, Chamberlain confessed he had some downtime. Harris suggested Chamberlain stay a few weeks in D.C. at his family’s home. And he made Chamberlain an offer he knew his buddy couldn’t refuse.

“I said, ‘You know, Elgin Baylor’s going to be around,’” Harris says.

Wilt didn’t know Baylor personally. Baylor now recalls only meeting Chamberlain once before their playground matchup, at a brief gathering of top college players in New York put together by Look magazine for the March 24, 1957, broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show.

But Chamberlain, like all serious ballplayers, knew a lot about Baylor by then. Baylor had just finished his redshirt sophomore season playing for Seattle University, and was the only player in the country to put up better overall numbers than Chamberlain. Baylor finished fourth in the NCAA scoring race, with 29.7 points per game to Wilt’s 29.6. And Baylor led the nation in rebounding percentage, regarded as a major basketball stat at the time, hauling in .235 of the total rebounds taken by both teams in all his games; Chamberlain’s .227 was good for fourth place.

Baylor’s college season, like Chamberlain’s, ended with March sadness. Seattle, which was viewed to be as much a one-man gang as Kansas, was ranked fifth in the country at the end of the regular season, but bypassed the NCAA tournament to accept a bid from the then-esteemed National Invitation Tournament. In the days leading up to the New York–based event, Baylor got more coverage from the mainstream press than he’d ever gotten. Bob Feerick, coach of Santa Clara, told the New York Daily News that Baylor was “absolutely the greatest, the best I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve seen Chamberlain and [Columbia All-American Chet] Forte and [West Virginia All-American Rod] Hundley and most of the other hot shots,” Feerick said in the NIT preview piece. “Wrap ’em all up in one, and I’ll still take Baylor.”

But despite being the top seed in the NIT and getting a first-round bye, the Chieftains got blown out in their first game by St. Bonaventure.

Harris, being a football guy, only knew Baylor by reputation. But, especially after the NIT loss, he had a hunch where Baylor could be found: On the courts at Kelly Miller Junior High in Northeast D.C., which at the time was the hottest spot for basketball players in the city.

“I told Wilt we could set up some games,” Harris says.

Wilt agreed to stay. Baylor was the draw. Chamberlain wouldn’t go home to Philadelphia until two weeks later, Harris says. He came back to D.C. after a few days at home and spent “about 10 more days” as Harris’s guest, playing Baylor on the playgrounds day after day.

To that point in basketball history, there were only two cities with pickup basketball scenes with any reputation: Philadelphia, which stocked the historically robust Fab Five college programs, and New York, which produced talent for colleges across the country — all five starters on the North Carolina team that had just beat Kansas came off New York’s courts.

Chamberlain’s decision to forego Philly and Haddington Rec Center to spend so much of his break lacing up his Converse high-tops on D.C. playgrounds was a huge stamp of approval for the ball being played in the nation’s capital. And for Baylor.

“In the summer of 1957, Wilt Chamberlain came to Washington, D.C., on the promise he’d get to play Elgin Baylor on the playground.

A few hours after Dave Harris and Chamberlain hit D.C., the shiny Olds, with its top down, pulled over on 49th Street NE, beneath the fenced-in court on the hill at Kelly Miller playground. Baylor was already there.

KELLY MILLER DID NOT SIT ON A HILL / IT SAT ON THE SAME LEVEL AS 49TH STREET!

And they played. Over several weeks, Chamberlain, a Philadelphia kid and the first 7-footer who mattered, scrimmaged Baylor on his home blacktop, just as the local phenom was introducing playground flair to the hoops realm. Chamberlain would return to D.C. a year later for an encore of their pickup games, shortly after which both he and Baylor would turn pro and put up numbers that will be drooled over for as long as the game is played — 61,798 points, 41,024 rebounds, and 24 NBA All-Star Game appearances between them.

But, before any of that, there was this street ball series for the ages.

Chamberlain and Baylor went at it in five-on-five encounters on various D.C. playgrounds around town. The city’s top young black ballplayers played alongside the headliners, making for an ungodly assemblage of future NBA first-round picks, NCAA tournament MVPs, and Hall of Famers. Flash mobs created entirely via analog social media appeared wherever Chamberlain and Baylor played.

NOT TRUE: THERE WAS NO STREET BALL SERIES AND THE ONLY PRO SPORTS HOPEFULS AND POTENTIAL HALL OF FAME PLAYERS ON THE BASKETBALL COURT THAT DAY WAS WILLIE JONES AND WILLIE WOOD. THERE WAS NOTHING RESEMBLING A FLASH MOB!

“It was people hanging on the fences, on the rooftops, everybody there to watch Elgin and Wilt,” says Ernie Dunston, who in 1957 was a sophomore at Spingarn High School, and who would later follow fellow Spingarn alum Baylor to Seattle University.

TRUE: ERNIE DUNSTON WAS A SOPHOMORE AT SPINGARN AND PLAYED ON THE JAY-VEE TEAM. SPINGARN VARSITY BASKETBALL AND KELLY MILLER PLAYGROUND WERE MY DOMAINS. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WHO CLAIM THEY WERE IN ATTENDANCE AND HUNDREDS CLAIM THEY PLAYED IN THE GAME-I WAS ON THE SIDELINE WHERE I BELONGED! 

No newspapers reported on these Eisenhower-era faceoffs. No movies or photos of the action are known to exist, and, obviously, no box scores of their pickup games were ever kept.

Baylor was as careless a caretaker of his legend as he’s ever been. What should be a fantastical chapter of basketball lore has never gotten any attention from anybody other than the now sixty- and seventy somethings who had a hand in it. And, if left up to Baylor, the games would remain in obscurity.

THE TRUTH BE TOLD ELGIN AND WILT WOULD HAVE PREFERRED PLAYING IN A GYM WITH DAVE AS THE ONLY SPECTATOR.

THE REAL NB G-O-A-T-S

DAVE HARRIS, ELGIN BAYLOR-WILT CHAMBERLAIN-WILLIE WOOD AND MAURY WILLS TOGETHER AGAIN-THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES!