When the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announced its class of 2025 earlier this month, the man who integrated both college and pro hoops — well over a hundred years ago — was once again left off the list.
Never mind that Harry “Bucky” Lew may have been the first player ever “nominated” for the Hall. Gerry Finn, the Springfield Union reporter who interviewed Lew just before it opened its doors, asked way back in 1958: “When they;re handing out memberships in the Basketball Hall of Fame, how about a vote for Bucky Lew? Is there anyone in the hall who can say he doesn’t deserve it?”
Lew, the game’s first Black professional, first started playing at the YMCA in Lowell as an amateur in 1898, within the first decade of the game. He made history when he signed a pro contract to play in the New England League in 1902, then he doubled down by coaching at what is now the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1903.
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And Lew didn’t stop there. In a career that spanned 25 years, he ultimately became the integrated game’s first Black player, coach, manager, referee, and franchise owner. And he did it all in otherwise white leagues. (Lew moved to Springfield after his career wound down and lies buried in the city’s Oak Grove cemetery.)
Lew’s logical connection to Jackie Robinson is obvious. He made it himself when he told Finn, “All those things you read about Jackie Robinson … they’re all true. I got the same treatment and even worse … But I gave it right back. It was rough but worth it. Once they knew I could take it, I had it made.”
His impact on the floor may be hard to quantify because he played in basketball’s dead ball era — a time when scores were low to an extreme due to the lopsided ball, small rims, hazardous courts, methodical offenses, and evolving skills.
But his true legacy is easier to measure. It lies in the assist he gave the Dodgers in integrating pro baseball. While Robinson started in Canada, the Dodgers struggled to find a home for an integrated farm team in the United States until they reached Nashua Telegraph editor Fred Dobens, who assured them his city would welcome its Black players.
How did he know? As a high school basketball star, Dobens’ teams entertained crowds at halftime of Lew’s games in the 1920s. He saw firsthand what a beloved figure Lew was and wrote about it in his column decades later: “Bucky was a Negro and in those days they didn’t like to see Negroes playing on white teams and many is the time the fans refused to let him play — not in this city though … He was a great favorite.”
Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella experienced similar treatment in Nashua and went on to unite with Robinson in Brooklyn. The winning ways of the Dodgers after they integrated their organization led the rest of major league sports to soon follow.
Lew’s absence from the Hall is partly explained by its cancellation of the Early African-American Pioneers Direct-Elect Committee in 2023. The committee was intended to recognize the game’s overlooked trailblazers, of which there were many. After adding 13 members in 11 years, the direct-elect committee and the best hope for old-time players like Lew, was quietly disbanded.
The decision to end the committee was surprising in light of efforts by other halls of fame to diversify their inductees, in part, by looking back at forgotten players from the early days of their sports. While baseball has honored Bud Fowler and football Fritz Pollard, both pioneering players and executives, the Naismith Hall has yet to recognize Lew.
The Hall acknowledges Lew’s status as basketball’s first Black professional, with a 1978 letter to the Lew family from Lee Williams, executive director of the hall at the time, saying as much. And while Lew was on the list of candidates considered by the direct-elect committee, one wonders if they were aware of his full resume.
The timing is unfortunate because the newspapers of old are becoming digitized and more and more is being “remembered” about such figures. It’s the accessibility of the old papers that has powered much of my research into Lew’s career.
When I first heard of my hometown hero, my efforts to learn more about him were frustrated by the limited coverage he received in the books on the era. He was treated as a footnote more than anything else. But after a few years of research, I’ve learned enough to fill two books, the second of which, a biography soon-to-be-released by McFarland, features over 600 citations.
All that said, at least one hall has answered the call made from Springfield so long ago. The American Basketball Hall of Fame, founded by LaMont Robinson, is set to induct Lew this August in Detroit. And regardless of how many other halls open their doors to Lew, true fans know he has already earned his place in basketball heaven.
The American Basketball Hall of Fame has moved its Class of 2025 induction to November, but one thing that isn’t changing is that Lew remains part of the class!