Four Minutes That Changed History

By Jim Joanos

Lenny Hall shot twice and made two baskets. He also collected two rebounds. It happened in less than four minutes. Then, Hall came down hard and twisted his knee, forcing him to leave the game. Shortly, thereafter, he re-entered the game and tried to play but the knee would not support him. He fell and his career as an FSU basketball player had ended. It would later be determined that there was cartilage damage.

Brief as they were, those few minutes changed athletics at Florida State forever. In those minutes, Lenny Hall and FSU had penetrated a major barrier. Those moments, despite the controversy surrounding them, or, perhaps, because of the controversy that surrounded them, are among the "shiniest" in FSU sports history. In those few minutes, Hall had become the first African American to play varsity basketball at Florida State and among the very first at a predominantly white university in the Deep South. Some believe that he was the first. In today’s world, it may not seem like much. It was huge. When December comes around this year, it will be 40 years since that game took place.

The event took place in FSU’s season-opening game against Valdosta State in old Tully Gym on the first day of December of 1966. Ironically, FSU won the game by four points (62-58), the same number that Lenny Hall had scored in those first four minutes of the game. Incidentally, on that very same day, Bill Jones, a University of Maryland basketball player became the first African American to play for an Atlantic Coast Conference basketball team when he played against Penn State. A season later, on December 2, 1967, Perry Wallace would play at Vanderbilt and become the first black player to play in a Southeastern Conference varsity basketball game.

That 1966 game against Valdosta State was remarkable for another reason. It was the first game in which Hugh Durham served FSU as its head coach. Durham had played at FSU in the late fifties and had followed that up by becoming head coach J.K. "Bud" Kennedy’s top assistant for nine years.

While it was Kennedy, as head coach, who had signed Hall, Durham had also been strongly involved in the recruitment. It would be under Durham that Hall would play at FSU. Shortly following the recruitment of Hall, Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer and not long thereafter passed away. Durham was selected to move up and become FSU’s head basketball coach.

Under Durham, FSU greatly increased its efforts to recruit and play black athletes. It proved to be of major importance in the rise of FSU basketball. The 1971-72 team, which featured an all black starting five, reached the highest level ever achieved so far by an FSU basketball team. That team finished as the runner-up to UCLA, the national champions that season.

In a column written following that 1971-72 season, famed Tallahassee Democrat sports writer, Bill McGrotha, attributed FSU’s success to Durham’s willingness and ability to recruit black players. He described Durham as having "no personal hang-ups on the color of basketball players, be they red, yellow, white, black or any shade of the rainbow." He further wrote that Durham "does have a hangup about basketball talent."

McGrotha further analyzed that Durham’s reasons for pursuing black athletes were that: "Because almost all of the more talented white players were going to more prestigious basketball schools, because there was little chance from the beginning that Florida State could corral enough of those for an exceptional program, because there were a great many talented black players available and many other schools were shying away from them for a variety of reasons and Florida State, therefore, had a far better opportunity to recruit top blacks than top whites."

A native of New Jersey

Leonard R. Hall grew up in Camden, New Jersey, and went to Camden High School from 1958 to 1961. An excellent high school basketball and baseball player, he made the New Jersey state tournament all star team in basketball his senior year and also attained all star status in baseball. He then attended Temple University Preparatory School and Virginia Union for a year, studying biology education before later coming to Florida and enrolling at St. Petersburg Junior College where he starred on the basketball court.

At St. Petersburg J.C., he was selected as an All American Junior College player at the end of the 1965-66 season. As a result, he got a lot of attention from recruiters of a number of major basketball programs. Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in the Brown case was more than a decade old and predominantly white Southern colleges were beginning to admit small numbers of black students, there were still very few athletic scholarships being made available to black athletes at those institutions. Fortunately, at Florida State, the head basketball coach, Bud Kennedy, with the strong support of assistant, Hugh Durham, decided that it was time to set aside the barrier that existed and recruit Hall.

Hall’s recruitment caused something of a stir in the State of Florida, but the coaches’ courage prevailed and Kennedy signed Hall to a grant-in-aid. Hall recently described his recruitment by FSU "as a very positive situation" and that before deciding to go to FSU he was "leaning toward Drake University, Villanova, and Southern Cal." He states that at "the time my goal was to achieve something for the City of Saint Pete, and the Gibbs Campus community all of which showed me great admiration as a person."

He said that he never doubted his ability to play for FSU "because of the experience that he had playing in the Camden-Philly area." He further points out that his experience playing for the St. Petersburg area "Johnny’s Cleaners Team" had provided him with "more games against good competition."

Thus, Hall describes his recruitment and signing by FSU in positive terms, focusing more on the question of his ability to play at that level rather than the issue of his breaking the color barrier. However, elsewhere, there was, a great deal of controversy about the signing. Coach Kennedy got death threats and nasty letters. Both Kennedy and Durham lost friends in the Tallahassee community over it. There was public criticism over the action. As an example, a Jacksonville lawyer wrote to the President of FSU with copies to the governor and the chairman of the Florida Board of Control declaring that he "was shocked to read...that Coach Kennedy of the Florida State Basketball Team has given an athletic scholarship to a Negro to play basketball on Florida State Team."

In addition, he included statements such as that "a mixed blood race" is detrimental "to the races involved" and that he did not believe that "thinking people, either white or colored, want racial intermarriage in this country." He concluded with the request that due "to this ill-advised action on the part of Coach Kennedy his services as Head Coach of Basketball at Florida State University should be terminated."

A very positive person

Hall arrived in Tallahassee in the Fall of 1966 and reported to the basketball team. While the town and state were somewhat abuzz over Hall’s recruitment, on campus, Hall was treated pretty much the same as other students. A teammate, Bill Glenn, who started at the other forward spot with Hall in the Valdosta State game, speaks of how much "fun" it was to "ride around campus with Lenny and visit with other students." Glenn says that there was "no team resentment whatever" and as "far as I know none elsewhere on campus."

Glenn, now serves as the Chief Federal Bankruptcy Judge in the middle area of Florida. Glenn ended up that 1966-67 season as the team’s high point scorer. He describes Hall as "a positive guy...real friendly." He adds that Hall was the kind of person that became "your best friend as soon as you meet him."

Hall, with his outward personality made friends easily. He developed an especially close bond with the other African American students on campus. There was only a handful of them at the time. One of his closest friends became John Marks.

Marks , a successful attorney, has been Tallahassee’s mayor for the last few years. Among the endeavors that Hall participated in along with Marks and seven other black male students was to organize and have chartered a chapter of the Omega Psi Phi social fraternity on campus. It was FSU’s first chapter of a predominantly black social fraternity and very well might have been the first one on any of the formerly all white campuses in the Southeast. Marks describes Hall as being "one of the most effervescent people I have known."

"Nothing you could say would upset him...just a great guy to be around...a great, great individual," Marks said.

Hall and Marks have remained good friends through the years. When Hall last came to Tallahassee twenty or so years ago, they visited and reminisced about old times.

Hall appreciated the talents of other players. Marks tells the story about how "one day, Lenny came back from basketball practice raving about this big red-headed white guy from Kentucky and said that we would not believe how this guy can play."

He was, of course, talking about Dave Cowens, who had been recruited the same time as Hall and entered FSU at the same time. The two became friends although they could not be teammates on the varsity as Cowens, because of his freshman status, was required under the rules in place at the time to play on the freshman team for his first year. Throughout the years since, Hall has followed Cowens' career with great interest and has kept in contact with the Hall of Famer. In recent times, they communicate through the Internet. Hall has also followed Coach Durham’s storied career and also communicates with him from time to time.

Back to New Jersey

After sustaining the knee injury that ended his FSU career, Hall returned to New Jersey. He reports that the rehabilitation of the knee was a "serious" matter. The knee got better and in July of 1967 he began to play in summer professional basketball league, the Philadelphia Baker League. Hall became employed as an inspector for the Camden City Health Department from 1967 to 1969. In connection with his work, he took some courses at the Rutgers University, New Brunswick branch, in the school of environmental science.

In 1969, with the assistance of former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, "Jersey Joe" Walcott, Hall was able to join the Camden Police Department. Walcott, a community relations officer with the police department at the time, put in a good word for him. Walcott happened to be the uncle of Hall’s FSU roommate and best friend, Nicky Harris. Hall spent twenty-nine years with the police department until he retired in 1997. Much of the time he served as a senior investigator in regard to juveniles and youth gangs. He participated in numerous training programs regarding subjects such as community relations, drugs and alcohol, homicide, and gang awareness. He received many honors as a police officer and served on a number of task forces.

After retiring from the police department, Hall served as chief of security for the New Jersey State Aquarium for two years, and for three years as a homeless coordinator for the Center for Family Service in Camden.

Hall, continues to be recognized for the contributions that he has made to his community through the years. He is especially proud of having been inducted into the South New Jersey Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992 and in being designated and honored by the Camden police officers in 1995 as one of their "Living Legends".

Hall and wife, Sandra, have been married since 1977. He has six children: Charlotte, Randi, Makin, Janeen, Adrian, and Leonard, Jr., as well as seven grandchildren. Hall spends time enjoying his grandchildren and says that they "are geared to go further in life by getting plenty of advanced education." He also takes interests in other members of his family. He notes that when Notre Dame beat FSU several years ago that "the defensive end Ryan Roberts who had a few sacks is one of my great nephews."

That positive spirit continues

Hall suffered from a pituitary brain tumor in 2002 which left him blind in one eye and vision somewhat diminished in the other. He has also had a knee replaced. However, nothing has dimmed his spirit. When talking to him over the phone you get the feeling that he is just as enthusiastic and optimistic as ever. He has good feelings about his experiences at FSU and says that his "memories are pleasant."

His last visit to Tallahassee came in the 1980’s when he attended an FSU basketball reunion. He states that he is most appreciative of the "warm crowd of people who came into my life" which include "team members, fraternity brothers, Mayor John Marks and his family and the citizens of Tallahassee."

There are not too many people who have done more for Florida State than what Lenny Hall did when he scored four points in those four minutes in that game 40 years ago.