How hoops Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore helped usher in golden era of Gardner-Webb basketball
rwalker@gastongazette.com
Basketball has long been a big deal in Cleveland County.
It was never bigger than in the late 1960s, when two eventual professional players were on the same team at Gardner-Webb.
And it may not have happened if not for a meeting between the two at Kings Mountain's Recreation Center during Kings Mountain High's best basketball season in history.
"We had a good team and the gyms were packed when we played," George Adams recalls of the 1967-68 season in which the Mountaineers went 25-1 overall, losing only in the state championship game of the old Western N.C. Activities Association. "And I looked around the outline of the wall and I saw this man and he was obviously taller than everybody else."
Adams was talking about the 7-foot-2 Artis Gilmore, who was then a freshman at Gardner-Webb Junior College.
Gilmore and 6-foot-7 teammate Ernie Fleming were there to watch Adams along with GWU coach Eddie Holbrook.
"After the game was over, Artis and Ernie (Fleming) came over and introduced themselves," Adams remembers. "And coach Holbrook came walking over. That began our relationship."
It's a relationship that would put Gardner-Webb on the map — and turn Adams, Fleming, Gilmore and Holbrook into lifelong friends.
Last month, Gardner-Webb honored the 50th anniversary of the team in which all four were key figures and led the Bulldogs to their first-ever national tournament victory.
Gardner-Webb has been to 10 national tournaments in its history — though the program is still in search of its first NCAA Division I tournament bid.
The current Bulldogs squad begins that quest Thursday at 8 p.m. against High Point in the Big South Conference tournament.
In the 1967-68 and 1968-69 seasons, Gilmore was on his way to becoming the only Springfield, Mass., Basketball Hall of Famer in Gardner-Webb history.
What Gilmore remembers of his Gardner-Webb experience is a welcoming community that embraced him during very turbulent times in the country.
"I was one frightened individual," said Gilmore, who grew up in tiny Chipley, Fla. in the Florida panhandle. "My hometown had one stoplight and I remember the police driving down the street with their lights on and the Ku Klux Klan on trucks throwing bottles of fire into our yard. My home was like a straw house and any kind of fire would've evaporated it in a short time."
Cleveland County didn't have that type of violent racial history, but it was home to Thomas Dixon.
Dixon authored the 1905 book "The Clansman," which was turned into the 1915 movie "Birth of a Nation" widely considered as the inspiration for a surge in Ku Klux Klan membership in the 1920s.
The U.S. Highway 74 bypass that runs through Shelby is named in Dixon's honor.
Gardner-Webb integrated its basketball team in the 1966-67 season with Laurence "Sonny" Jackson of Laurinburg. A few months later, Gilmore came to G-W in the summer of 1967.
Johnson played one season for the Bulldogs but his biggest impact came in the role he had in the recruitment of African-American players Gilmore, Fleming (from Fall River, Mass.) and Art Roberts (from Birmingham, Ala.) in Holbrook's 1967 recruiting class.
"When Ernie and I came for our first visit, Sonny was the individual that talked to us about this institution," Gilmore said. "And he sold us on being here because he said the support was here."
Gilmore and Fleming thrived at G-W, leading the Bulldogs to back-to-back National Junior College Athletic Association Region X championships, and consecutive trips to the national tournament in Hutchinson, Kansas.
Gilmore scored 1,543 points in his two seasons for the Bulldogs while earning All-American honors each year.
He and Fleming, who died in 2016, transferred to Jacksonville University, helping the Dolphins to the 1970 NCAA title game.
Gilmore then played six years in the old American Basketball Association and 12 more years in the NBA. Now 69 years old and living in Jacksonville, Fla., Gilmore was inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.
"He was a guy who was willing to work," Holbrook said of Gilmore. "He put in extra hours and put in the sweat that it took to be great. You have to realize the level that he played at professionally. He was at the top of the game of basketball."
Holbrook would lead Gardner-Webb to a 335-68 record and 12 top 10 national finishes in his 14 years as junior college and senior college coach.
And he says it wouldn't have been possible without Gilmore.
"I owe a lot of my life and a lot of the success that I've had in my life to Artis," said Holbrook, who left Gardner-Webb to coach at Furman before returning to Shelby as a sporting goods salesman and later an elected official and the longtime chairman of the Shelby American Legion World Series. "Artis helped me develop as a coach and helped me meet people nationally. I wouldn't have gotten where I got without him."
Gilmore and Adams played one year together at Gardner-Webb before Adams developed and thrived in the years after Gilmore left.
Adams, who led the Bulldogs to their first NAIA national tournament in 1972, remains the school's career scoring (2,404) and rebounding (1,113) leader even as his first year in junior college - 559 points and 250 rebounds - doesn't count towards that career senior college record.
"The year Artis left, I cannot emphasize how well things worked out for me," said Adams, who played three seasons in the ABA and lives in Gastonia. "And I was happy I didn't go."
Gilmore (Enola Maddox) and Adams (Aundra Maddox) married cousins and have remained close ever since.
Adams, 69, recalls a recent phone conversation he had with Gilmore.
"I was just talking to him two or three days ago," Adams said. "I was telling how wonderful it is that we stay in touch. Think about it, I'm always able to call up a Hall of Famer."
Gilmore recalls his friendship with Fleming when he looks back on his professional career.
Fleming invited Gilmore to visit his family during the 1967-68 holidays in Fall River, Mass., which is 50 miles south of Boston.
"There wasn't much going on here so I went home with Ernie for Christmas," Gilmore said. "They were close enough to Boston that we went to see a Celtics game against the old Cincinnati Royals (now the Sacramento Kings franchise)."
Gilmore and Fleming got to see the eventual 1968 NBA champion Celtics of Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Sam Jones and others edge the Royals 120-117 despite a game-high 36 points from Cincinnati's Oscar Robertson.
"I'd never seen a pro game before and it was just a great thrill."
Ironically, the final game of Gilmore's NBA career came in 1988 when he was a backup center for the Celtics in a 4-2 Eastern Conference finals playoff series loss to the Detroit Pistons.
"So I'm always reminded when I think of that how life comes full circle," Gilmore said. "My first pro game was watching Boston play and I finished my NBA career playing for the Celtics."
Richard Walker: 704-869-1843; twitter.com/jrwalk22.
Gardner-Webb national tournament appearances
NJCAA in Hutchinson, Kansas
lost (Sterling, Ohio) Northeast College 80-83 (OT)
lost (Carthage, Ill.) Robert Morris 80-82
lost (Pittsburgh, Pa.) Robert Morris 83-88
d. Brevard (Fla.) 107-83
lost Phoenix (Ariz.) 106-108 (3 OT)
NAIA in Kansas City, Mo.
(3-2, 4th place)
d. Eastern Montana 109-94
d. Pittsburg State (Kansas) 91-87
d. Western Washington 81-75
lost Wisconsin-Eau Claire 68-83
lost Stephen F. Austin (Tex.) 91-94
d. Oregon Tech 91-56
lost West Georgia 101-116
lost Huron (S.D.) 52-59
2000 (Southeast Regional at Georgia College and State University)
lost to Georgia College and State University 81-92
National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association (NCCAA)
2001 (March 15-17 at Gardner-Webb)
d. Ohio Valley 88-58
d. Emmanuel, Ga. 77-69
d. Geneva, Pa. 89-83 (champion - later forfeited title and 22 seasonal wins due to ineligible player)
d. Trinity Christian, Ill. 97-59
d. Cedarville, Ohio 75-65
lost to Mount Vernon Nazarene 94-103 (runner-up)
2013 March 19 vs. Eastern Kentucky L 62-69
2015 March 18 at Colorado L 78-87