Supreme Courts© How Washington Changed the Basketball World

• Four-part documentary series

• Nationally distributed and televised

• Interviews include Earl Lloyd, Mayor Dave Bing, Elgin Baylor, Sportscaster James Brown, Washington Wizards’ owner Ted Leonsis, Coach John Thompson, Vice President Al Gore, President Barack Obama and many more

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Black basketball was born in segregated, Washington , D.C., as a civil rights tool in the fight for African-American equality.

Part One of “Supreme Courts©: How Washington Changed the Basketball World,” tells the inspiring story of Dr. Edwin B. Henderson, the leader of the city’s black basketball movement.

Dr. Edwin Henderson lived, played, coached and administrated the game in Washington, D.C. in the 1910s. Henderson’s Twelfth Street YMCA team won the first Negro National Championship and went on to become Howard University’s first varsity basketball team.

His most famous player was Dr. Charles Drew – who went on to develop large scale blood-banks during World War II.

Armstrong High School won the first Negro H.S. National Championship in 1934.

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Part Two of “Supreme Courts©: : How Washington Changed the Basketball World,” shows us how the color line fell.

In 1950, Earl “Moon Fixer” Lloyd became the first black to play in an NBA game, at the old Uline Arena for the Washington Capitols, and later became the second black coach in the NBA.

Dave Bing, a 7-time All-Star, played 12 seasons in the NBA. In 1996, he was named as one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players in the NBA.

"I cannot offer proof of authorship, but I have often heard that the word 'superstar' was first applied to basketball hero Elgin Baylor —" Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford, in a letter to the editor of New York magazine.

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marched on Washington, and a generation of local players began to make their mark on college and professional basketball.

Part Two of “Supreme Courts©: How Washington Changed the Basketball World,” presents this remarkable story and sets the stage for the sport’s integration in Washington area high schools and colleges throughout the South.

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Basketball crosses the lines of gender, class and race.

Part Three of “Supreme Courts©: How Washington Changed the Basketball World,” shows how schools, playgrounds and summer leagues became talent centers in part through coaching legends like Red Auerbach and John Thompson.

Washington’s finest white high school teams grab the headlines and the city’s collective attention - A coaching rivalry begins between St. John’s Joe Gallagher and DeMatha’s Morgan Wootten that spans for more than four decades.

Two of DeMatha’s standout performers on the court include James Brown and Danny Ferry.

“ The best playground basketball in the country is played in Washington” …Red Auerbach

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It starts with the tragic death of Len Bias.

Part Four of “Supreme Courts©: How Washington Changed the Basketball World,” features the stars of our past and concludes with the story of hope.

Basketball brings change that everyone can believe in.

Grant Hill, Marissa Coleman, Kevin Durant and Washington Wizard’s owner Ted Leonsis all share their incredible stories.

Washington, D. C. continues to be a basketball force to be reckoned with. Another example is the awesome ball-handling skills of Patrick ‘Pat da Roc’ Robinson. Every challenge has been met with clutch performances.

Ted LeonsisWashington Wizards Owner

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www.dcbasketball.com

Our Mission: DC Basketball© was established to encourage

local youth to view basketball as a door to a wider world, athletic or otherwise-and provide a network of current and former players to facilitate those opportunities.

What We Provide: Preserve local basketball history through

documentation, preservation and restoration, collection, digitization and awards/enshrinement of deserving performers and officials.

Publish internet or printed material that speaks of the DC Basketball© story past and present, and illuminates your role in connecting children and parents to it.

Conduct clinics for needy children with past and present players.

Your Benefit:Establish Your Organization or Association as an entity concerned with both local history and Metro youth.

Our Future:Some of the game’s primary referees, conference founders, coaches, and announcers are Washington area natives.

No area has produced more top draft choices or NBA players per capita.

The legacy lives on, and we welcome an opportunity to work with your organization to familiarize people with this story. We look forward to hearing from, and supporting your group.

Washington, D.C. “The Birthplace of Urban Basketball” ©

Pennington S. Greene, Jr. Executive Producer

Pennington Greene, a native of Washington, D.C. , is a real estate developer who brings a dynamic background in leadership and commercial success to each project in which he is engaged. He has been a sales and management leader with some of the most prominent corporations in America. Most recently, the suburban Atlanta entrepreneur has been involved with a property called Tuscany Hills. http://www.tuscanyhillsga.com/.

There, in only seven months, Greene developed 225 acres of raw land into a 101 one-to-three acre lot community along the Chattahoochee River. He also supervised and reviewed all infrastructure tasks on a day to day basis, logging all activities from the development of the site to the completion of the clubhouse and the amenities area. Greene secured all permits for project, from the preliminary plat approval to final plat approval and certificate of occupancy for clubhouse. He was responsible for negotiating pricing with all the contractors that worked on Tuscany Hills project.

Prior to entering the real estate industry, Greene sold laboratory services and managed a blood donation station at Tampa’s Met Path Laboratories- where he gained 20 new clients in one year, 50% of whom had previously done business with Smith-Kline. Under his sales tenure, patient count increased by 50%.

As a sales representative with Bristol Myers-Squibb, Greene cold called a client base consisting of physicians, therapists, and pharmacists. He sold 25 medical products, increased sales volume by 40% and finished among the top 10 salespersons in the country.

 The leadership component predates his professional career- Pennington Greene was an All-Met high school basketball player at Parkdale H.S. in Maryland, and he captained both his high school, and University of South Florida basketball teams. The highlight of his college basketball career was a standing ovation in the world’s most famous sports area Madison Square Garden.

His community service includes the founding of an organization called DC Basketball Institute and the website www.dcbasketball.com. He is a Business Management graduate of University of South Florida.

John ErshekDirector / Producer / Writer

 

John created the name for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans football team. Based on Nashville’s reputation as the “Athens of the South”, the name tied together the best of Greek mythology and the Olympic ideal of athletic excellence. This strong name used the “T” to appeal to an existing fan base, keeping the primary blue color of the Houston Oilers franchise and the organizations ties to the AFL by reviving the Titans name. He has written Supreme Courts (screenplay), SHIFT (screenplay), The Evolutionary War (screenplay) and Freedom Child (screenplay). Writer, director, editor and producer of SMASHVILLE, The 2008 Demolition Derby, The 2007 and 2009 USQRA National Championship Games, MURDERBALL Greatest Hits, (he also owns the Murderball trademark),RunRoll Models, The Gene Pool, “Party Like A Rock Star”, Simmons Brothers Music Video, Simmons Brother’s EPK, Josh Turner Fan Club Party Video, Lady Antebellum Fan Club Party Video, Carter’s Chord Interview, “This Dream Is On Me”, Tom Sartori Music Video, “Dig Deep” Shawna P. and The Earth Funk Tribe Live Video, Gabe Dixon CMA Performance Video, Ray Price EPK, Ray Price Live at the Roy Acuff Theater, Heroes Documentary Short, Phil Jones Promo, The Effects Interview, Kellie Pickler CMA Interview, Kenny Rogers Album Press Release and Can You Dig It (reality show pilot).  John was involved in the filming and distribution of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award Winner and Academy Award nominated documentary feature film MURDERBALL. He is currently involved in the filming and production of Operation: Sound Off, with producers and musicians Robert Reynolds and Scotty Huff, as well as various productions for 16 Ton Studio, Digital Rodeo and Play Music City.

Education University of Toledo           Toledo, OH B.B.A., Marketing, Deans List.

Renà M. DavisProducer

With more than 20 years of experience in the TV industry, Renà M. Davis has a strong background in national sports shows, live games, special events, commercials and documentary productions. She has demonstrated her work ethic with proven initiative and dedication. She’s people oriented with excellent interpersonal communication skills.

Her keen sense of managing and supervising staff personnel, planning and outlining budgets for various projects, and developing financial strategies and long- term planning while delivering quality productions are part of her many attributes. Her work with high profile personalities like Roger Staubach, Mark Harmon, Marcus Allen, Robin Roberts and Angela Bassett has been seen on networks such as ESPN, FOX Sports Net, ABC, CBS and BET.

Ms. Davis produced the nationally-aired program “Black College Sports Today” on ESPN. While at Host Communications she was a co-producer of “The Slant” which nationally-aired on FOX Sports Net. She produced “Foundations of Courage…A Cry to Freedom,” a one-hour documentary, honoring great African-American women and key moments in American History, such as the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement. Hosted by Angela Bassett, the show aired on BET and was part of Procter & Gamble’s involvement with the Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH.

Currently, Ms. Davis produces the vignettes for American Urban Radio Network’s prestigious awards banquet which showcases top athletes and teams from the Historically Black Colleges & Universities.

She is a graduate of Elon University.

Bijan C. Bayne Associate Producer / Writer

Bayne is an award-winning Washington-based freelance writer, and author of “Sky Kings: Black Pioneers of Professional Basketball“, which was named to the Suggested Reading List of the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004.  The book is also cited in “Booktalks Plus: Motivating Teens to Read” by Lucy Schall. In July 2002, Bayne, who speaks Spanish, won the Robert Peterson Research Award for his presentation “The Struggle of the Latin American Ballplayer”, given at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

In addition to appearing in the upcoming documentary on the historic International League Baltimore Orioles, he  has served as a consultant for film, television and corporate clients such as The Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau, Destination DC, Aviva Kempner, Jennifer Lawson, and Jay Smith, Spike Lee, Nike, the books “Wilt”, and “Spinning The Globe” (the latter about the Harlem Globetrotters), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s “On The Shoulders of Giants.”  He is a founding member of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. In August 2009, he served as moderator for the Filmmakers’ Panel at the seventh annual Martha’s Vineyard African America Film Festival (on the topic “Black Film In The Age of Obama”). 

His essay on the early NBA will be published in the forthcoming The Forties in America by Salem Press. He has been assigned the biographical essay on Ornette Coleman for Salem Press’ upcoming Great Lives from History: African Americans.

Bayne is a contributor to The Travel Planners radio show www.kevinandsuetravel.com. His chapter on Black baseball in North Carolina appears in the book “Baseball in the Carolinas” (McFarland 2002). He was a contributor to “Basketball: A Biographical Dictionary” (Greenwood 2005).

He is an Executive Board member, and Media Relations Director of the Association for Professional Basketball Research. Bayne is a frequent arts and sports history contributor to “The Bay State Banner”, where he has written reviews of books about Thelonious Monk and Louis Armstrong. He is a member of the Southern Documentary Fund. He is a co-creator of the website dedicated to the history of basketball in Washington, D.C. (www.dcbasketball.com) and serves as secretary of the organization DC Basketball.

Bob KuskaWriter

Bob Kuska, a long-time NIH science writer, has spent the last decade writing a definitive history of black basketball, focusing on what he determined were the sport's twin African American cradles — Washington, D.C., and New York City.

As long as he can remember, Kuska has been a basketball junkie. This lifelong interest in basketball history was the inspiration for Kuska’s first book in 2004, Hot Potato: The Origins of Black Basketball in New York City and Washington, D.C. (1905-1930).

His book, Hot Potato: How Washington and New York Gave Birth to Black Basketball and Changed America's Game Forever, was published this spring by the University of Virginia Press.

Kuska has followed up with the soon-to-be-released Cinderella Ball, a real-life Hoosiers story about a small college in an old coal mining town in West Virginia. He’s currently working on a biography of former Washington Bullet star Archie Clark.

Kuska had been a comparative literature major at Brigham Young University, then got a graduate degree in journalism at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

He was working as an environmental reporter for Medill News Service in Washington, D.C., when word came of a job opening at NIH in 1987.

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Washington, D.C.“The Birthplace of Urban Basketball” ©

Supreme Courts© How Washington Changed the Basketball World