Sherman White (basketball)

White was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and moved with his family to Englewood, New Jersey, at the age of two and grew up there. His father was a certified refrigeration engineer who supported the family while also taking night classes. At Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, the sophomore immediately became the star basketball player under coach Tom Morgan. He felt close to Morgan, would follow his directions well and always heeded his advice. As a senior in 1946–47, White guided Morrow High to an undefeated season (28–0) and a Northeastern High School championship, scored a then-New Jersey prep record 49 points in a single game, and was a unanimous first team all-state selection. White was a rather poor student; he graduated 230th in a class of 263 students. However, he had an innate ability to recall the names and statistics of the leading college basketball players in the country. Although he attracted interest from some colleges, a number of them, such as Duquesne University, rescinded their scholarship offers out of concern about his lackluster grades. ==College career==

White sought advice from Morgan while deciding on which college to attend. Morgan was an alumnus of Villanova University, and pushed White to enroll there because he felt that the Wildcats were a good fit. Not wanting to displease his coach, a man White both respected and trusted, he agreed. Sollazzo was a 45-year-old jeweler and gambler who had spent five years in prison during the 1930s. Judge Saul Streit presided over the entire case involving all of the schools. One positive thing to come of the scandal, a journalist for Time wrote in the March 5, 1951 issue, was the awareness of how much influence the game had over gambling and illicit money-making ventures, which got the ball rolling to clean not just college basketball, but all college sports across the country. ==Professional career==

;Hazleton Hawks, Baltimore Bullets, and Wilkes-Barre Barons (1953–1963) After White served his sentence at Rikers Island, he played in the Eastern Professional Basketball League on the weekends. He played for the Hazleton Hawks, Baltimore Bullets and Wilkes-Barre Barons for ten seasons while simultaneously selling storm windows, automobiles and liquor. White was the EPBL Most Valuable Player in 1955 and was a five-time All-EPBL First Team selection. ==Career statistics==

College Sherman White played during the era before many of the basketball statistics that are kept today were recorded, such as rebounds, assists, blocks, steals and turnovers. ==Legacy==

Sherman White was viewed as a can't-miss pick in the 1951 NBA draft. == Personal life ==

White married twice, and with his second wife, Ellen, they raised six children. He also coached basketball at the Newark and East Orange YMCAs in New Jersey. Home Box Office (HBO) wanted to interview him for a feature-length documentary on the college basketball scandal of 1951 called City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal, but he refused. White was upset that HBO had also wrongly claimed that part of the reason for his harsher punishment compared to the other players was that he had a juvenile criminal record, which he claimed was not true. White died on August 4, 2011, at his home in Piscataway, New Jersey, of congestive heart failure. ==See also==