First black b-ball player reflects
By: Holden Slattery
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: News
Julius Pegues' name will not turn up in any NBA record books or highlights, and that's fine with him. But he will turn up in a search for the first black man ever to play basketball for the Pitt Panthers. He'll also turn up as a distinguished consultant for the Federal Aviation Administration.Pegues used basketball scholarships to earn an aeronautical engineering degree from Pitt and never looked back. This past Sunday, Pitt honored Pegues at the Pitt-Louisville game. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his graduation. At center court of a packed Petersen Events Center, Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg handed Pegues a commemorative basketball. "I was humbled, and I'm still in awe of how they put all of that together to observe my 50th anniversary and being the lone black player," Pegues said Wednesday from his home in Tulsa, Okla.
Pegues was impressed with the crowd at Sunday's game, especially the student section known as the Oakland Zoo."If we had 1,300 people in our arena, we probably would have had a better record than we did," Pegues said. "The atmosphere is great!"Pegues, 72, played for the Panthers from 1954 to 1958 - one year on the freshman team and three on varsity. He is now the 34th leading scorer in Pitt history. He said he started every game in his four seasons at Pitt and helped the team win its first Big East title.
Because of segregation laws at the time, Pegues was unable to play basketball for any college in his home state of Oklahoma except for Langston University, a historically black college that did not offer engineering. But a Tulsa oil man named E. Alex Phillips helped him get to Pitt.
When Pegues was playing at Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Phillips used to watch the team play. Phillips helped to pay for Pegues' first year at Pitt, and after an impressive season on the freshmen team, Pegues received a full scholarship.
To read full article go to The Pitt News
Media Credit: Courtesy Pitt Media Relations
In 1954, Julius Pegeus became the first black man to play on Pitt's basketball team. He averaged 17.6 points per game, he said.
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