A native of Alexandria, Virginia, Earl Lloyd began playing basketball at Parker Gray High School. In 1947 he attended West Virginia State College and played for the Yellow Jackets where he quickly became known for his defense and guard for the team’s best offensive players. The team went to two Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Conference and Tournament Championships in 1948 and 1949 where they finished in second place. Lloyd was named All-Conference for three years, from 1948 to 1950, and named All-American by the Pittsburgh Courier for 1949 and 1950. During his senior year, he averaged 14 points and 8 rebounds per game.
“My parents taught me one thing to fit every situation, and that’s to never ever dignify ignorance.” – Earl Lloyd
Racial tensions may have been strong in 1950, but in sports, barriers were being broken. A basketball standout at West Virginia State, Lloyd mulled an offer to take what he considered the only professional basketball opportunity open to him at the time: a slot with the razzle-dazzle, acrobatically inclined Harlem Globetrotters, whose on-court antics delighted basketball audiences of the day. But as Lloyd finished college in 1950, Jackie Robinson had broken baseball’s color barrier three years before and had begun the long and arduous dismantling of the institutional racial segregation that pervaded American life. Lloyd’s coach saw changes coming in other sports, and, perhaps mindful of the NBA scouts in the stands who were keeping an eye on his hot prospect, warned Lloyd to keep his options open.
Though Lloyd became the first African American player in the NBA, he was not the first one drafted. Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, who ironically was later responsible for building the great and largely-white dominated Celtics basketball dynasty of the 1980s, was the first basketball decision-maker to break with tradition; the Celtics picked Duquesne forward Chuck Cooper in the second round of the 1950 NBA draft. Once the doors had been opened, two more African American players were picked. Nat (Sweetwater) Clifton, a Harlem Globetrotter forward was drafted by the New York Knickerbockers and became the first African American to sign an NBA contract.
Lloyd was selected by the Washington Capitols in the ninth round of the draft. He himself credited Auerbach for his own chance to enter the NBA. “I don’t think you can put a price tag on what [Auerbach] has done for the black athlete,” he told the Washington Times. “I believed then and I believe now that if Red Auerbach had not drafted Chuck Cooper, the Washington Capitols would not have drafted me,” he continued. Reporting to the Capitols training camp, Lloyd faced a sharp period of adjustment.
Earl Lloyd was the first black to play in an NBA game. On October 31, 1950, Lloyd played in that historic game against the Rochester Royals. Although the Royals defeated the Capitols 78-70, Lloyd scored 6 points and began the inevitable acceptance of African Americans in the NBA.
While traveling with the Capitols, Lloyd was rarely allowed to eat at the same restaurants as his white teammates or stay in the same hotels. Lloyd even missed a pre-season game in Spartanburg, South Carolina because of the school’s racist rules – no black players allowed. Months later, the entire Washington Capitols team fell under.
Lloyd was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving in Korea for two years. He returned and signed with the Syracuse Nationals.
After retirement, Earl “The Big Cat” Lloyd became the first black assistant coach in the NBA in 1968 with Detroit. Two years later, Lloyd was named head coach of the Pistons, the first for an African American.
In 2003, Earl Lloyd was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame