Basketball touches lives

Gene Steinmeyer

When I was a kid, I dreamed of leading a basketball team to a championship. In the postgame celebration, my teammates and I would throw the coach in the shower. Unfortunately, my teammates and I were not talented enough to win much of anything.

You can always dream. I had a picture of a coach from a small school in the same county that was being showered with water after winning a tournament championship. I taped the picture to my bedroom wall. Small communities in southeast Nebraska were farming communities of Germans, Czechs, and other one-generation immigrants. They all were white. The coach being thrown in the shower was black. It was 1965.

Wilson Fitzpatrick was hired in the fall of 1959. I knew who Wilson Fitzpatrick was because he played college basketball at the University of Nebraska, at least for one year. It may have been his only one year, but it was an eventful year.

In late February, the Cornhuskers visited Kansas. Kansas was one of the top-ranked teams in the nation because of one very talented seven-footer, Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt the Stilt and his Jayhawks demolished Nebraska that night, 102-46.

Soon after that game, Nebraska came back to Lincoln to face the nationally No. 1-ranked team, Kansas State. The Wildcats were led by future NBA All-Star, Bob Boozer. Amazingly, Nebraska, which was led by Wilson Fitzpatrick, defeated Kansas State.

Wilson was the leading scorer in 1958. His team next had to face Wilt for a second time, only 12 days after the 56-point loss. Wilson played great but his name will never be mentioned because of the legend of Jimmy Kubacki.

You see, Jimmy had been on the bench in street clothes. He had a bad knee. With about eight minutes left in the game, he convinced his coach, Jerry Bush, to let him suit up. One of his teammates was experiencing leg cramps and they needed Jimmy.

Bush gave in and with 2:43 left in the game, Jimmy entered the contest. With the score tied, Nebraska played for the final shot. It was Jimmy Kubacki who took the 18-foot shot. It went in and the mighty Kansas Jayhawks and Wilt Chamberlain had fallen to the lowly Cornhuskers. The campus celebrated so much, the president called off all classes for the following Monday.

Wilson only played in 1958, but the leading scorer was inducted into the Nebraska Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996. His journey from a tough beginning in Marshall, Missouri to Lewiston to the Hall of Fame is the real story I want to tell.

Wilson couldn’t go to school in Marshall. No blacks could attend the all-white school. That meant he had to travel by school bus to an all-black school 60 miles from home. Wilson was a great basketball player, but his team couldn’t compete in the Missouri State Basketball Tournament. That was reserved for all-white teams.

His baseball team could only play all-black teams, but once in a while, a game with an all-white team was arranged. It was never close as Wilson’s baseball team dominated, although no one noticed.

Even at Nebraska, discrimination followed Wilson. He would come back to his home state to play the University of Missouri. All the black players on the Nebraska team had to stay at a different hotel than the one furnished for the white players. Yet, during that single year on the Nebraska team, Wilson showed could score with anyone.

After graduation, Wilson wanted to coach. He had a job interview at Papillion High School, a suburb of Omaha. When the principal saw Wilson, he was stunned to find he was black. His resume never mentioned his race. The principal told Wilson that Papillion wasn’t ready for a black coach.

It took a couple of connections with someone’s uncle telling someone at Lewiston, but the small school in Gage County welcomed Wilson to their school district in 1959. Like most coaches and teachers back then, he had to coach every sport, plus a full workload in the classroom.

Lewiston had a population of somewhere under 200 people. However, the rural area was full of small farms with plenty of kids to field very competitive teams. Now they had a coach that not only was competitive, but very intelligent. It didn’t take him long to earn the communities respect.

It took longer for people outside of Lewiston. Gene Searcey played for Wilson. They are still good friends. “Wilson refused to pay attention to discrimination,” Searcey said. “We got homered by the officials but Wilson never complained. He gained their respect.”

Wilson was married, but his wife never moved to Lewiston. He lived in a house in Lewiston and saw his wife on weekends. She rarely came to the small community that had embraced her husband.

After five years, finances forced Wilson to take a job in the private sector. He moved to Omaha and left Lewiston with a lasting legacy.

“Wilson was a great person, he knew his sports and he was a great coach,” Searcey said. “But he was better in the classroom. Everyone said that.”

I might have been a little late for a story to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King. Wilson Fitzpatrick now lives in Boulder, Colorado. A couple of years ago, they surprised him back in Lewiston with a surprise dinner and celebration. Wilson was not given a special day, but he’s still special to the people whose lives he touched in Lewiston.