Sherman White is the best basketball player you never knew. His greatness is forever tarnished by the one mistake that changed his life forever. White was Long Islands University’s greatest player and perhaps the best in New York City’s history. He was regarded for his feathery soft touch around the basket, agile moves, and warrior-like intensity. White became the model for the hundreds of young basketball players in the northeast part of the country that patterned their game after him. What set him even further apart from his contemporaries was his agility and fluidness; despite being 6-8, he possessed the skills of guard that many in the NBA considered franchise-level talent. The Knicks were eager to select him as a territorial pick in the 1951 NBA Draft as visions of multiple championships flashed in the mind of Vice President Ned Irish. Before the end of his senior year, Sherman White was on pace to break the then all-time scoring record in a single season while becoming the nation’s leading scorer.

The Problem

During the 1949-1950 season, one of White’s teammates, Eddie Gard, played less than stellar ball. White was frustrated with Gard’s clumsy play and confronted him. Gard, along with teammates Adolph Bigos and Dick Fuertado, pulled White to the side and told of the money they were making to keep the points under the spread (about $3,000 for the season, which equates to $26,000 today). White was faced with the pressure and temptation of the situation and decided to join in on the ploy. For him, as long as they won the game he didn’t care about the spread, but the fix soon became more than White bargained for when he and his teammates were ordered to lose games or the suffer consequences. Rumors began to circulate that Long Island was on the take and the events that followed almost ruined the future of college basketball that we enjoy today. The investigation uncovered that 86 games were fixed between the 1947-1951 college basketball seasons. Twenty players were indicted, many of them were very prominent during their time. Sherman White and a host of others were banned from the NBA for life and sentenced to prison time. To this day no one knows why White received the longest sentence, but some allege that racism played a part in his 9-month Rikers Island sentence.

Conclusion

Game fixing is never to be condoned and it’s obvious that Sherman White brought about his own demise. He marred his reputation and didn’t go down in the history of the 1951 NBA draft. The Draft Review recognizes Sherman White on the basis of his on-court excellence during the 1950s era and name him as a TDR Honorable Draftee.