50 years ago, NBA bypassed a Black candidate for commissioner, spurring boycott call

Although the boycott didn’t catch on, the struggle helped to open the door for Black NBA executives.

By Frederic J. Frommer

In 1975, the NBA chose not to elevate its Black deputy commissioner as the sport’s commissioner, opting instead to hire a politically connected white outsider—a move that prompted a New York state senator to call for a boycott of the league.

Many thought that the deputy commissioner, Simon Gourdine, was the logical choice to succeed Commissioner J. Walter Kennedy. A few years earlier, Kennedy himself had told Gourdine, “Play your cards right and you might have my job someday.”

When Kennedy announced plans to retire, effective at the end of the 1974-75 season, that day appeared near. As the Baltimore Sun reported in March 1974, “The National Basketball Association, which is already several light years ahead of its football and baseball brethren in appointing blacks to positions of leadership, is now seriously contemplating naming a black man as its next commissioner. … The man who replaces Kennedy may be only a short jump shot away in the next office in the league’s executive office in midtown New York.”

At the time, Gourdine was administrative vice president to Kennedy and a rising star at just 33. He had excellent credentials outside the NBA, as a Fordham University Law School graduate, an Army captain in Vietnam, and an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. And Gourdine made no secret of his interest in becoming commissioner.

“Primarily, I feel I have the necessary education and experience for the job,” he told the Sun.

NBA owners gave Gourdine a vote of confidence in November 1974, unanimously choosing him as deputy commissioner. He was the first person to hold that title for the NBA, and the highest-ranking Black executive in American sports. The appointment also made Gourdine “the most obvious potential successor” to Kennedy, New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson wrote at the time.

But instead, owners chose Larry O’Brien, who had been a special assistant to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and was chairman of the Democratic National Committee when burglars broke into his office in 1972, leading to the Watergate scandal. He took over as NBA commissioner in June 1975 – 50 years ago this month. O’Brien’s political chops were considered key assets at a time the NBA was facing antitrust lawsuits from the American Basketball Association and the players union.

“I'm not sure how many friends I have in high places in Washington,” O’Brien said at the time. “I recollect that a lot of people who were once in Washington aren't there anymore. And I'm not sure they were my friends in the first place.” (Today, the NBA’s championship trophy is named for O’Brien.)

New York state Sen. Carl McCall—a Black Democratic leader who would go on to become state comptroller and a candidate for governor—urged Black players and fans to boycott the league for bypassing Gourdine, calling it “an insult to the black community,” the New York Times reported.

“The NBA became a multimillion-dollar super-agency because Black athletes, who make up the majority of the association’s superstars, used their talent to make money for the NBA and themselves,” McCall said, according to a story in the New York Amsterdam News, a Black newspaper. “However, when it comes around to selecting the people responsible for directing the NBA the picture changes and the administration, at the highest level, remains lily white. Simon Gourdine deserves this position and I think it is the responsibility of the Black players and the Black ticket-buying public which supports the NBA to mount a united protest against Larry O’Brien’s selection.”

McCall added that he wasn’t against the NBA or O’Brien, but “I am for Black equity in the high-level administration of the association.”

The selection also angered the players union.

“The players are upset that Gourdine didn't get it,” Larry Fleisher, the Players Association’s general counsel, told the New York Times. “We felt he was extremely qualified. Unfortunately, the owners never discussed with the players the choice of commissioner. It's an integral part of the game to have a good player relationship.”

Milwaukee Bucks President William Akerson, who served as chairman of the NBA board of governors, pushed back on McCall’s allegations.

“Our league doesn't have to prove itself in our dealings with blacks,” he said. “It's all on the record and a good one.”

Compared with the NFL and Major League Baseball, the NBA had a far superior record when it came to coaching opportunities for Black candidates. Bill Russell became the first Black NBA coach in 1966, nearly a decade before Frank Robinson became baseball’s first African American manager, and 23 years before Art Shell was named the first modern-day Black NFL coach.

And even as the NBA was missing a historic opportunity to name the first Black sports commissioner in major American pro sports, the league was showcasing two Black coaches facing off in the NBA Finals.

Although the boycott didn’t catch on, “Gourdine’s struggle helped to open the door for Black NBA executives and team owners in subsequent decades,” wrote Theresa Runstedtler, author of “Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA,” in a 2023 Time magazine essay.

Gourdine would eventually become a top basketball sports executive—not with the NBA, but opposite it, as executive director of the players union, years after resigning from the NBA in 1981. He died in 2012 at the age of 72.

“There were never any barriers against me,” he said. “It’s just, How long do you want to stay after being passed over?”

Frederic J. Frommer, a writer and sports and politics historian, has written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic, History.com and other national publications. A former Associated Press reporter, Frommer is the author of several books, including “You Gotta Have Heart: Washington Baseball from Walter Johnson to the 2019 World Series Champion Nationals." Follow him on X.

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