They call themselves the Inner City Sports Legends. They meet once a year on the night before Thanksgiving, so that expats who are home for the holiday can attend. As it happens, it is just the right night for another reason, too:
They come to give thanks. For one another, and for basketball.
They will meet at the Rose Bar and Grille on Scott Street. They’ve held this get-together every year since 1992, except last year, of course, when the pandemic scotched it. The party hasn’t changed much over the years. There is no formal invitation, just an open one. And each year these old friends tell all the old stories, and honor their own.
“It is a night of camaraderie, brotherhood – and lies,” said LeRoi Johnson, the Buffalo attorney and artist who played basketball at Lafayette High School. “In our minds we get better every year. But then there are always guys there to check you, too.”
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These Buffalo legends boast a bona fide link to James Naismith, who invented basketball in 1891. The late Ricky McCarley, a star at Bennett High School in the early 1960s, played at Kentucky State for James McLendon, who learned the game from Naismith at the University of Kansas.
“In that respect, our roots go back to the beginnings of basketball,” Johnson said. “During the era that Ricky played, a lot of Black players in Buffalo were going to historically Black colleges and universities. Kentucky State, Tennessee State, Johnson C. Smith, Virginia Union, Virginia State, Howard University. And these schools I’m naming, I knew players who went to all of them.
“We had guys go to major schools, too. Harvey Austin went to Purdue. Jim Horne and Howie Lewis went to UB. Gene Roberson, Mike Norwood and Roger Brown all went to Canisius. And Bob Lanier went to St. Bonaventure.”
Those names and many more roll off Johnson’s tongue in a sort of roll call of Buffalo hoops heroes. Lum Smith and Gil Hargrave, who are retired Buffalo school principals, nod knowingly. They are all in their 70s, but the glint in their eyes and the lilt in their voices tells you that when they talk about the old days, they are young again.
“It is a night to celebrate our history,” Johnson said. “It is a brotherhood for the older guys, and it exposes the younger guys to what came before. It all didn’t start with them.”
Richard Clark, who played with Lanier at Bennett, got the party started at the Humboldt Inn all those years ago. Johnson is among the night’s organizers, as are Smith, who played at East High School and SUNY Buffalo State, and Hargrave, who played at Hutch-Tech and Erie Community College.
“My wife calls us the ‘Old Jocks Club,’ ” Hargrave said. “Everywhere I go I see someone I used to play ball with or against.”
Earl Holmes is coming from Charlotte, N.C., where he is a retired transit worker. He played at Lafayette and at Marist College and fondly remembers playing in the Randy Smith summer league in the 1970s. “The game was above the rim every night,” he said. “We enjoyed the joy of competition.”
Smith, of course, is the late Buffalo State legend who grew into an NBA All-Star with the Buffalo Braves.
“I’m in the barbershop sometimes,” Hargrave said, “and I ask the guys who are 35 or 40 years old if they know who Randy Smith is. And they don’t know. They don’t know.”
Johnson said he learned the game from Horne and Austin – and he, in turn, is among those who mentored a new generation at the Boys & Girls Club on Masten Avenue. That’s a lot of what this night is about: remembering mentors. Horne, who is nearing 90, will get a plaque at the party.
“Jim Horne is still training people,” Johnson said. “I came through him, and Willie ‘Hutch’ Jones came through me. Some of the kids I coached are now coaches themselves. I mentored Trevor Ruffin, too.”
Jones played for the San Diego Clippers – and the Bishop Turner Trojans. Ruffin played for the Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia 76ers – and the Bennett Tigers.
“Jerry Rowe is in our group,” Johnson said, “and his son is Jason Rowe,” who played at Buffalo Traditional and Loyola of Maryland and had a long professional career overseas. Now he coaches Timon-St. Jude, and he’ll be getting one of the plaques, too.
Some years the Inner City Sports Legends hand out more than a dozen awards. Among the honorees this time are Roberson, Norwood and Brown.
“We’re trying to get these tributes out while the people are still with us,” Smith said. “This is something that is owed.”
Among tonight’s other honorees are Charles Mancuso, who played point guard at Buffalo State and is one of the founders of the Buffalo Masters Basketball program; Art Serotte, who coached football and basketball at Grover Cleveland High School; and Romeo McKinney, who coached basketball at South Park and Kensington.
Danny McKinney, who played for his father at South Park, is coming from Nashville, where he is a stock trader. “My father didn’t get into this for accolades,” he said. “But at this juncture he’s 81, and it must feel good to get this kind of formal acknowledgment.”
Shane Johnson (no relation to LeRoi Johnson) is coming from Fort Washington, Md. He is a special education teacher in Arlington, Va., and a Hall of Famer at Bennett and Buffalo State. He has been back for this party on Thanksgiving Eve many times over the years.
“It allows me to be around the people who influenced me when I was coming up,” he said. “I like to be a fly on the wall and hear all the stories. You know what they say, ‘If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.’ We respect our elders. I think that’s what’s missing in society today.”
The night is about sisterhood, too. Yvette Angel, who played at Sacred Heart for Sister Maria Pares and at Ohio State for Tara VanDerveer, is another honoree. So is Dwight Williams, who played at East High School and Bishop Neumann and then played for the Big East founder Dave Gavitt at Providence College.
LeRoi Johnson recalls the gathering was an informal affair in its early years, always on the night before Thanksgiving.
“It was just a room full of athletes,” he said. “Guys and women who just wanted to partake and listen. And it just got bigger and bigger, and more formalized, over time.”
Tonight is the night. It’s like a high school or college reunion without the high schools or colleges. The organizing principle is people, not institutions.
“We know each other so well from the Michigan Y and the Humboldt Y and the Boys Club,” Smith said.
“I look forward to it every year,” Hargrave said. “It’s a fellowship and a rejuvenation of what athletics has brought to our lives and to the community.”
For those of us who have never been, what is this night of legends really like? Smith rolls the question around in his mind. A gentle smile arrives with his answer.
“It’s like a Luke Easter home run,” he said. “It just keeps going and going.”
