Don Barksdale
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| Olympic medal record | |||
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| Gold | 1948 London | United States | |
Donald Angelo "Don" Barksdale (March 31, 1923 – March 8, 1993) was a professional basketball player.
Born in Oakland, California, Don Barksdale attended nearby Berkeley High School, where the basketball coach cut him from the team for three-straight years because he wanted no more than one black player. Barksdale honed his playing skills in park basketball and then played for two years for Marin Junior College, across San Francisco Bay, before earning a scholarship to UCLA. A 6'6" center at UCLA, he became the first African American to be named consensus All-American in 1947. In 1948, he was the first African American to play with the U.S. Olympic team. After college, he played for an Oakland AAU team until the NBA began to integrate. In 1951, he signed a lucrative contract with the Baltimore Bullets and entered the NBA as a 28-year-old rookie. While with the Bullets, he became the first African American to appear in an NBA All-Star Game in 1953. Shortly afterward, he was traded to the Boston Celtics. Two years later, his playing career was cut short by ankle injuries.
Through Barksdale's basketball-playing years, he was also starting a career in radio broadcasting. In 1948, he became the first black radio disc jockey in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also worked in television and owned a beer distributorship. After his basketball career ended, he returned to radio, started his own recording label, and opened two nightclubs in Oakland. In 1983, he launched Save High School Sports Foundation, which is credited with helping to save Oakland school athletic programs from collapse. He succumbed to throat cancer when he was 69.
In February, Bounce: The Don Barksdale Story is scheduled to be broadcast on FSN Bay Area. The documentary was produced by Doug Harris for Athletes United for Peace, a Berkeley-based youth sports and media organization.
Barksdale is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter organization established for African Americans.[1]
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