One an All-American, the other an ex-teammate, both former NBA players, Bo Lamar and Freddie Saunders both hail from, and still live now in, the same Ohio capital city, Columbus.

But they don’t see each other often up there, if at all.

"It’s a big city," said Lamar, actually a two-time consensus All-American, in 1972 and ’73.

This week, however, Lamar and Saunders are together again — in Lafayette.

They’re here to help celebrate the life of their late coach, Beryl Shipley, at the university then known as USL — a man who, go figure, had a knack for bringing people together.

Shipley’s program actually was shut down for two years in the 1970s, sentenced to death by the NCAA for various recruiting violations and rules infractions.

The ban effectively ended his college coaching career, closing his avenue for winning at the game he loved.

But the punishment didn’t come until after Shipley successfully integrated black players into his basketball program, becoming the first coach at a Deep South public university to do so and bucking a school administration’s racially motivated unwillingness to have it happen.

"Beryl was such a leader of this university, and he deserved better treatment than he got," said Ron Gomez, the team’s radio announcer for most of the 16 years Shipley coached in Lafayette. "But he’s getting that tribute now, thank God."

A fundraising gala was held Wednesday night to promote the still-under-production documentary "Lights Out in Blackham," which trumpets Shipley’s triumph over social injustice.

Beginning tonight, UL — which hasn’t hosted an in-season tournament since 1992 — opens play in the three-day, four-team Beryl Shipley Classic at the Cajundome.

Some might wonder why a school would so honor now a coach whose program then was deemed a repeat cheat by the NCAA.

Even filmmaker Douglas Domingue was met with skepticism when his documentary plans were revealed.

"Everyone was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, are you guys really gonna drag all this up again,’ " he said.

Those closest to Shipley, however, understand.

"He would do anything in the world to help his players — and I’m not talking about if you scored 20 points he’d help you. If you never got in a game, he’d help you," said Dean Church, a white All-American who played at USL before Shipley integrate his team — and who had beg his way back onto the squad after quitting during his junior season and returning home to Kentucky. "Super guy: that’s all I can tell you."

"He stepped up, and became somebody, and he tried everything there was to do something, regardless of what he went through," said Roy Ebron, one of Shipley’s black All-Americans. "Because that was back in the day. It was real early. Everything wasn’t settled right when we came to the Deep South."

A different world

When the likes of Ebron, Lamar and Saunders initially stepped foot in Lafayette during the late 1960s and early 1970s, they walked into a different world.

Whites and blacks together, playing on the same college team, dressing in the same lockerrroom, breaking bread together?

Not everyone approved.

What not all of those black players understood, though, was that the man helping them navigate through the path of prejudice had already cleared some brush.

"One of the things he (Shipley) told me when he recruited me, with me being from up North, was, ‘Don’t come down here with none of the Black Power stuff,’ " said Saunders, who played for Phoenix, Boston and the New Orleans/now-Utah Jazz over four NBA seasons from 1974-78.

"I did not realize he had already taken care of it before I got down here," Saunders added. "That’s why he said not to come down with it."

Shipley, in other words, had all of his players’ backs — no matter their minutes on the floor, their points in the box score, the tone of their skin.

He did so no matter who that ticked off, be it racist education officials — he battled not only with some of his own administration at the time, but also Louisiana State Board of Education members — or jealous coaches.

"My job," Shipley says himself in the "Lights Out in Blackham," "was to go out there and win basketball games."

And whether it was playtime or real life, Shipley fought with vigor.

But he and program boosters, in the NCAA’s eyes, went too far, breaking a bunch of rules, from small payments to recruits and players, many in the $15-to-$20 range, to impermissible borrowed-car privileges, free gas fill-ups and even grades-doctoring.

Those who wanted him out for letting blacks in, supporters say, had found a way.

In the end, some suggest, it was the coach’s very passion, for both winning and doing right, that cost him his job.

His platform too.

"Any time you’re whoopin’ somebody’s behind, they don’t like it. They like it when you lose to them," Saunders said. "They don’t like it when you’re beating them. They respect you — but they don’t want to give it up."

A strict taskmaster

By all accounts Shipley was, in kind coaching cliché, a taskmaster.

When he’d get especially riled, veins would bulge.

UL’s current head coach, Bob Marlin, said he learned by talking directly with them just how "scared of him" so many ex-Shipley players were.

"He was hard on them," Marlin said. "Very efficient on offense, very demanding on defense — some of the same things we try to do today.

"It’s funny: The game hasn’t changed a lot."

Back then, though, Shipley changed when circumstances suggested he should.

So believes Gomez, who wrote — with Shipley — the 2007 book "Slam Dunked: The NCAA’s Shameful Reaction to Athletic Integration in the Deep South."

"He always played to his players," Gomez said.

When Gomez first started calling the team’s games, a few seasons after Shipley took over the program, all of its players were white.

"They were all slow and low jumpers," the announcer/author said.

Accordingly, Shipley ran an offensive system known as "The Shuffle" — one in which all five players on the court essentially rotate positions, allowing them to maximize ball-handling skills and cloak the absence of a dominant big man.

But once he began integrating into the program black players that Gomez said had "a little leaping ability and a little speed on the court," Shipley turned to a fastbreak offense and a 1-3-1 trap zone defense.

"Because not a lot of them," Gomez said, "played a heck of a lot of defense."

Rebuilding bridges

For years after the NCAA death penalty, Shipley and UL were estranged.

Marlin, though, was among those who helped rebuild bridges, getting to know Shipley shortly after his 2010 arrival from Sam Houston State.

He readily agreed when it was suggested that Shipley’s name could go on this weekend’s tournament his team was planning to host, and university president Dr. Joseph Savoie — another working to repair the Ragin’ Cajuns’ relationship with the entire Shipley family — did the same.

"I’m excited to recognize the winningest coach in our school’s history — and we’ve had some good coaches here," Marlin said. "But Coach Shipley got the program name recognition, and we’re proud to turn around and recognize him and his name."

Marlin knew Shipley less than a year, but he spent quality time with him talking basketball.

The current Cajuns coach’s voice cracked when speaking about the coach at Wednesday’s documentary sneak peek, and he wasn’t alone.

"It’s a wonderful tribute to Beryl Shipley. He was a dear friend, and I just wish he could be here," Gomez struggled to say. "The real tribute to Beryl, I think, is the number of players who are here and will be here this weekend.’

Saunders and Lamar couldn’t agree more.

"In a town like this, to have the turnout he has — it’s tremendous," said Lamar, who played the 1976-77 season with the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers after ABA stints with San Diego and Indiana.

"It speaks for itself," Saunders added. "I ain’t gonna be traveling no 1,200 miles "» just to come for an insignificant reason."

Legacy

 

of inspiration

But Saunders and Lamar came.

Other ex-Shipley players did, too, from throughout the country.

When they return home, however, questions may linger in the minds of some.

Are fences fully mended? Has the university properly brought Shipley back into the fold, or was it too late? And, perhaps mostly importantly, have wrongs properly been righted?

"I’ll be honest: I think it’s finished already. I really think it is," Church said.

"When he passed, he was at ease with the world. You know, there was a lot of controversy with he and the school and some members of the school.

"But he passed very peacefully, all the forgiveness in his heart. "» The school appreciates what he did; he’s at peace. What more can you ask for?"

Maybe, though, there is more.

So suggests those Shipley fought hardest to bring together in Lafayette — then, and now.

"I’m inspired by the situation," said Saunders, who called it "a very good beginning."

"I don’t think it will ever be over. And it should never be over. Because there’s always work to do," Lamar added. "But it’s up to us to carry out his work, which is giving everybody an equal chance.’

Athletic Network Footnote:

Click here for the Beryl Shipley Tribute Gala.

Click here for the Tribute to Coach Beryl Shipley.