The Nate Archibald Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Friday, November 6th, 2004
You were born on September 2nd, 1948 in the South Bronx’s
Patterson housing projects. Please take me back to those early years – what
stands out most about your childhood, and how were you able to rise above
the drugs that were so prevalent at the time?
A lot has been written about Patterson and my growing up there, and about
how horrible it was supposed to have been. A lot of that negative stuff
comes from people who write about the projects but haven’t lived there, so
you have this misconception that it was a dangerous, drug-infested place
where you ran for your life every day. I’m not saying that there wasn’t
trouble – every neighborhood has it’s problems, and you have to deal with
them, but Patterson wasn’t as bad as it has been portrayed in print.
Journalists who haven’t lived there do their research, but it’s not the same
because they didn’t grow up in the projects. I don’t remember seeing a
bunch of abandoned cars all over the place, but I’ve read about them in
articles that people have written about Patterson. There just weren’t a lot
of cars of any kind when I was growing up – most folks took the train or the
bus. I don’t remember people throwing garbage from their apartment windows,
but I’ve read about that happening, too. The stories made it sound like you
needed an umbrella to keep from getting hit with all of the trash being
poured onto the sidewalks [laughs]. But that just wasn’t the case.
Patterson was clean. The buildings were clean.
It was a tight community. People looked out for each other – the parents and grandparents knew each other, they visited with their neighbors, and they ate at each other’s tables. That closeness was part of what I called my survival kit, which helped to keep me out of trouble. I had the community center and all of the programs it offered. I had sports. I had the school. It all played a part in keeping me from falling victim to bad influences such as drugs, crime and violence.
Growing up we didn’t have a lot of material possessions, but we made the best out of the situation. There was always food on the table. My mother made the best cornbread, and we always had beans and grits to eat. Meat was considered a luxury. Steak, chicken and fish were served on special occasions. There were seven of us to feed, so she made whatever food we had stretch as far as possible. And although we didn’t have a lot, we shared what we did have. Everybody looked out for one another. People got along. When I go back to Patterson now, I can tell that there is a big gap in that closeness between neighbors. Growing up, if any of us did something wrong the other parents would report on it. They were given permission to slap us on the backside if we got out of line, and then we knew we’d get it again when we got back home [laughs]. Today, people don’t want to get involved. That’s unfortunate.
I played basketball and softball, but I didn’t play football – I couldn’t afford the equipment and wasn’t really big enough anyway [laughs]. The games drew people together and gave us all a common bond, regardless of our backgrounds or ethnicities. It was beautiful. Patterson had a large Latino population, but by living there you understood that the term “Latino” was an umbrella that covered many different groups of Latin communities. There were Puerto Ricans, and there were Dominicans. There was a distinction. Each group had it’s own identity, and things that made them unique.
There was always music being played. Folks would dance to all different kinds of stuff, because the words really weren’t the important part. You might not understand the words to a song written in Spanish, but everyone could understand the beat. The music crossed all boundaries. I remember listening to the Latin music and loving it. I was a fan of artists like Eddie Palmarie, who played what is now known as Latin jazz. Those are some of the things that stand out in my mind.
You attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, where you failed to
make the basketball team during your sophomore year. Two years later you
were All-City. Please tell me about Floyd Layne, and the role he played in
your decision to stay in school and continue playing basketball.
Floyd was a
very important man in my life. He was one of my many mentors growing up.
He was well-known for playing basketball for City College [Manhattan] in the
late 1940s and early 50s. He played on the City College team that won the
NIT championship and NCAA championship in the same year which, I believe,
has only happened once in the history of college basketball. I think that
they defeated Bradley in the finals of both tournaments. A year later, the
point-shaving scandal erupted and Floyd was caught up in it. He received a
suspended sentence for his role, and he was eventually able to restore his
public reputation. He later became the head coach at City College during
the 70s and 80s. He’s also in the school’s athletic hall of fame.
Floyd was the sports director at the community center in our neighborhood. The center was also known as the PSAT, and it was a positive outlet for me because there were so many programs to get involved in, including basketball. It was a haven for me, a safe place to do constructive things and to stay out of trouble. The center was always open – it had an after-school program and an evening program, and it brought people together in ways that gave them hope. There was a big cafeteria, a gym, and other rooms to play sports in. There were rooms for music, singing and dancing. It was a big part of my survival kit.
I didn’t make the basketball team as a sophomore at DeWitt – I was just a scrawny, skinny kid who liked to play the game – and who was also floundering in the classroom. I just wasn’t a good student. I was a drifter, and at one point I considered dropping out of school. Floyd mentored me. He convinced me to stay in school and get an education, and he also asked me to consider going out for basketball again. He talked to Hank Jacobson, who was the coach at DeWitt at the time, and convinced Hank to take another look. But Hank was gone by the time my junior year rolled around. He had been replaced by Bob Buckner, who had played basketball with Bobby Knight at Ohio State. Bob turned out to the be best thing for me – he was a disciplinarian who provided an open forum and who made players compete for spots on the roster. He didn’t care what had happened last season. Everyone started off with a clean slate, and players had to prove themselves all over again if they wanted to play on his team. I probably benefited more from the coaching change than anyone because I wasn’t even on the roster. It was a fresh start. His attitude was, “Last season doesn’t matter – what are you gonna give me now?” And he rewarded the players who bought into that. I was a much better player by then, and I really responded to him. I made All-City as a senior and I don’t think we lost a game all year. It was a major turning point in my life.
Following
graduation, you left New York to attend Arizona Western Community College.
How did you end up so far from home?
I had a scholarship to play Division I basketball, but my grades weren’t
good enough to qualify. So I had to go to Arizona Western, which was a
small school and the perfect place for me at that time in my life. Leaving
New York, it was good to go to a small environment where I didn’t disappear
in the shear numbers of students. The people there were genuine, the
classes were small, and the transition from high school to college wasn’t as
dramatic as it might have been at a bigger school. I was able to get the
attention that I needed – there was plenty of tutoring available to help
with the coursework, and there were resources available to help me learn how
to learn. Arizona Western was like my Noah’s Ark in a giant, confusing
ocean of higher education. It really prepped me for the rest of my academic
life.
And I had fun at Arizona Western – not many people know this, but I wanted to stay there two years instead of one. Our team went 35-1, which really made it hard for me to leave. The system was really suited to my style of play – we were constantly pushing the ball up the court. It was a fast-breaking attack. We ran at every opportunity. I think I averaged 29.5 points-per-game that season, and most of those baskets came in transition. But it wasn’t a run-and-gun, street-ball offense. We played smart on the court. We worked really hard on revving up the offense, and this philosophy was the exact opposite of the system in place at Texas Western. When I transferred there, Coach [Don] Haskins had just won a national championship with a defensive-oriented system. It was more disciplined. More structured. It was obviously successful – Coach Haskins is a hall-of-fame legend – and I gladly fit my style of play into it, but my time at Arizona Western stood out from a pure enjoyment standpoint. Who wouldn’t have fun running the court and scoring all of those points [laughs]?
After one season at Arizona Western, you accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Texas at El Paso (formerly Texas Western), where you averaged 20 points per game over three seasons. Please tell me about your time at UTEP.
UTEP was a huge transition. It was a much bigger campus and I was on
my own all over again, so my initial feeling was one of being lost. I’m
glad I had that year to adjust, because I wouldn’t have been ready in the
classroom. That year in Arizona taught me how to study, and how to use my
time productively. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to
school there first. I would have been even further behind, and I might not
have made it.
And there was also a transition on the basketball court, no doubt about it. I had to sit and learn. I had to wait my turn. Willie Worsley was on the team. He was a little older than me, and he also played ball at DeWitt Clinton – I was a sophomore when he was a senior. Back then no one knew who Nate Archibald was, but Willie Worsley was a player with the big-time reputation. He led the city in scoring as a senior – he averaged more than 30 points-per-game and was considered the best basketball player in New York. He never backed down from a challenge. The man always put on a show. He was also a big summertime player, so I got to play with him a little bit. I always tell people that when Willie was playing, I had the best seat in the house. Why? Because I was on the bench when he was busy doing all of those crazy things on the court [laughs].
Willie was on the Texas Western team that beat the Kentucky Wildcats in 1966. He was recruited by Coach Haskins – Coach grabbed a lot of talent out of New York City. That 1966 championship team had three players on it from New York City high schools – Worsley from Clinton, and two players from Morris High School in the Bronx; Nevil Shed and Willie Cager. I knew those guys because we played summer-league ball together, and having familiar faces there meant everything when it came to choosing UTEP. The fact that they had just won the national championship didn’t hurt, either [laughs].
Seriously, having those guys there made it much easier for me. I’d never been to Texas, and I knew nothing about El Paso. It was a huge campus – I’d never been on a university campus before, not even in New York – so it was something completely new to me. Everything was foreign because I was seeing it for the first time, and that made it very intimidating.
Playing ball at UTEP was a big adjustment up in a lot of ways. It was a natural-but-painful progression, but that’s the nature of the game. The farther you progress the less fun it becomes, and the more like work it becomes. Think about it; basketball in junior high was all about learning the game. High school was more about standing up to the competition and handling the pressure. All along the way you’re moving up, striving for the next level, preparing to test yourself against better and better players. So, college ball was more demanding and far less fun than any of the ball I’d played before. It was hard work. There was much more running and conditioning involved. I made the adjustment, even though it wasn’t easy, by pushing myself to succeed at that level. I was in shape mentally as well as physically. Today, guys miss out on that by going straight from high school to the NBA. They get lost by coming out too early and not getting a good foundation in college. Coaches just don’t have the time to teach the fundamentals that players should have learned at the college level, so that leap to the pros is huge. Some make it and some don’t. All of them have to rely on shear talent and ability at first, until they can figure out how to play the game the right way. And the guys who do go the college route don’t always stay long enough. They see the money to be made, and a lot of them are gone after one season. You just don’t have NBA-caliber guys staying four years anymore. They watch ESPN and see other guys that they’ve played against, and they decide to leave because they think they’re better. It’s sad. For every Kobe and LeBron there are ten more players like Omar Cook, guys that don’t make it and have nothing to fall back on. No education. No college degree. Nothing to carry with them into the rest of their lives. Sooner or later the dream dies for these guys, and then what? A failed basketball career isn’t going to get them the good jobs in the big companies. We need to do a better job of educating these players.
