the Oneida County History center
the
utica pros By Lou Parrotta
City of Utica Historian, Oneida County History Center Volunteer As the National Basketball Association (NBA) Season for 2020-2021 opens, let’s harken back sixty years to when Utica was home to a professional basketball team in the old American Basketball League. The Utica Pros were only in operation for one year, but the team was home to some noted college and NBA players. They did not endure much success on the court, finishing with a 17-22 record, and they were forced to back out of the ABA playoffs due to a lack of enough players to compete. The team ended the season $20,000 in debt and ultimately folded. These are some of the men who donned a Pros uniform and played for the Utica hoops entry. The most noted player on the team was Chuck Harmon. Harmon, an African-American, was a player-coach of the Pros and that afforded him the groundbreaking honor of becoming the first black coach of an integrated professional sports team. While he is most familiar to sports fans as a professional baseball player and the first African-American to play for the Cincinnati Reds, Harmon was a basketball star at the University of Toledo. He did not get signed after trying out for the NBA’s Boston Celtics, so he came to Utica to play and coach. In 37 games, he scored 288 points for the Pros.
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Sports fans may remember Chuck Harmon as a professional baseball player, but he was also a basketball player and coach for the Utica Pros.
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