Dick Barnett Was a Hero Long Before He Helped the Knicks Win Two Championships  – The Village Voice

The unknown is always scary. Well, for most people. For Dick Barnett and the members of the Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State University Tigers, competing as an all-Black team in the 1957 NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) national championship tournament, there was no fear of what they were about to face, on or off the court.

“We always thought we could kick anybody’s ass,” Barnett tells the Voice during a recent phone interview. “All we needed was an opportunity.”

When Tennessee A&I, led by future Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame coach John McLendon, got that opportunity, they ran with it — literally — winning three consecutive NAIA championships, from 1957 to 1959, at the height of the Jim Crow era in the United States. 

And while the NAIA tournament wasn’t viewed by the average fan as being at the prestige level of the NCAA or NIT (which both integrated in 1950), it was the first collegiate association to welcome HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges or Universities) to their tournament, in 1953, something that didn’t happen in the NCAA until 1980 or in the NIT until 1974. 

So it was a major accomplishment at the time, with the Tigers’ combined record over those championship years a dominant 93-10. “We worked hard and made this happen when nobody ever thought that we were able to do it from a historically Black college,” says Barnett, the tournament MVP in 1958 and ’59.

This was nine years before Texas Western became the first team to win the NCAA title with an all-Black starting lineup. Yet while the 1966 Miners were given their place in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the Tennessee A&I teams — the first to win three consecutive national championships at any collegiate level — were lost to history.

When asked if he is bitter about having to deal with such racism, Barnett says no. “We were never bitter. We just knew that we were better. We didn’t have to be bitter. Just be better. We just had to be who we were.”

But Barnett wasn’t about to let that happen, and kept the story alive. After a 2011 New York Post story by George Willis told a larger audience about Tennessee A&I (renamed Tennessee State University, in 1968), award-winning filmmaker Eric Drath, whose previous documentary work includes HBO’s Assault in the Ring and Showtime’s Macho: The Hector Camacho Story, was sent the article by then Atlanta Hawks co-owner Ed Peskowitz, and the two decided to lend themselves to a seemingly quixotic quest to recognize the Tigers.

The Dream Whisperer was born.

“This was not a project for money,” Drath tells the Voice. “This was really just a passion project, because that’s what it became. Watching Dick Barnett and his relentless pursuit of his dream, it’s contagious.” 

The film, released in 2022 and airing this month on PBS stations, follows Barnett for 12 years as he tells the story of his team to anyone who will listen, from Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame executives and Spike Lee to NBA players past and present, as well as Rev. Al Sharpton. All the while you watch as Barnett, now 87, ages but doesn’t slow down in his desire to make something happen that, frankly, he didn’t need as a key player whose NBA legacy was secured during the New York Knicks’ two championship seasons, in 1969-70 and 1972-73. But Barnett didn’t want the world to forget his college coach and teammates, and what they did.

“I wanted to get it done because that’s a hell of an accomplishment that we were able to pull off during my lifetime,” says Barnett, whose No. 12 jersey was retired by the Knicks in 1990. Yet, more than winning on the basketball court, the story of Tennessee A&I is one of resilience over incredible odds, during a time when the proverbial deck was stacked against them at every turn.

In The Dream Whisperer, Barnett tells of returning home from the 1959 NAIA tournament and taking part in the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins. The footage is disturbing, with protesters getting spit on, hit with projectiles and in some cases, arrested. 

“The team, winning the National championship, returning to Nashville and going directly from the airport to a lunch-counter sit-in downtown, where they had to have the discipline not to respond when white people spit on them for protesting segregated restaurants, that’s an experience that’s searing,” says former U.S. senator and Barnett’s New York Knicks teammate Bill Bradley in the documentary.

Yet when asked if he is bitter about having to deal with such racism, Barnett tells the Voice no. “We were never bitter. We just knew that we were better. We didn’t have to be bitter. Just be better. We just had to be who we were.”

As the film progresses, there’s an almost cliffhanger quality to it, as viewers wonder if Barnett will ever see his dream realized and root for him to get that place in the hall of fame secured before time runs out. 

“I think that [Barnett] saw what [Tennessee A&I] went through, not just on the court but what they went through as a team during the time in which they did it,  that’s something that is very important and should not be forgotten,” Drath tells the Voice, adding, “So that, on its own, is so important, but the way to elevate it is by talking about what the team did. I think he realized that the barriers which they had to play through can’t be forgotten. It’s not that long ago. It’s really not. And … then seeing what happened with the BLM movement in 2020 and over the pandemic, it all kind of came full circle. And I think he realized that this was a bigger cause and that it was so important. And he also was a selfless player, as it was. Think about his role on the Knicks. He was a great passer and great shooter, and he was a team player. So that kind of attitude made him realize that he needed to do it for those guys, as well. He said, If not me, who?”

In 2019, the dream became a reality for Barnett and the 1957-59 Tennessee A&I Tigers, when they were inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The wait was over, and the weight was off his shoulders. Or was it?

“No, it’s not a weight off,” Barnett says. “It just feels like it was time for us to go in. We understood where we were in terms of the history of America. We had to be aware of that.” And while you can’t see it in the film, it’s a safe bet that Barnett smiled. Maybe.

“He is a serious guy,” says Drath. “So as far as a relief, yes and no. A guy like Dick Barnett needs to constantly have something to be working for. So as soon as we got in, he’s like, ‘Well, I’m not done yet, we got to get to the White House and we’ve got to make sure everybody knows this story.’”

On January 19, New York congressman Gregory W. Meeks and 54 of his fellow members of Congress sent a letter to President Biden, requesting that Barnett and the surviving members of the 1957-59 Tennessee A&I Tigers be honored in the White House, as countless college and professional teams have been in the past.

“The Tennessee A&I story is one of trailblazing courage from over sixty years ago that until recently had been buried in the underground railroads of America,” wrote Meeks. “As you are well aware, during the era of segregation, HBCUs like Tennessee A&I were often denied access to the same opportunities, resources, and recognition as predominantly white institutions. Discrimination and racial bias were obstacles that the Tigers had to confront on and off the field.”

All these years later, it’s the least that could be done to celebrate Barnett and the surviving members of the team (George Finley, Jim Satterwhite, Ron Hamilton, Henry Carlton, Ernie Jones, and assistant coach Homer Wheaton). 

“We always thought we were a great team,” says Barnett, when asked what made these teams special. “We had the personnel that could make things happen. Guys were determined to be as great as we thought we could be. And we didn’t fear anybody in terms of talent. We felt that our talent was just as good or better than anybody else. Give us the opportunity and we will do our thing.”  ❖