Skeeter: Harley Swift's Buzzer-Beating Trash-Talking March through Madness. Brand-new books autographed and sold by author. Hundreds of hours spent with Skeeter as well as interviews with nearly 100 who knew him, including George "Iceman" Gervin, Mel Daniels, Steve "Snapper" Jones, Warren Jabali, David "Big Daddy" Lattin, Clem Haskins, Wayne Chapman, John Hummer, Pat Toomay, Bill Justus, Johnny Oldham, Red Jenkins, George Thompson, Tommy Woods, Cal Luther, Gene Rhodes, Morris Levin, Mike Kretzer, George Pitts (wrote the foreword). Shipped with USPS Media Mail.
An oral history of a bipolar, basketball junkie that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Alexandria, Va. The 1968 Ohio Valley Conference player of the Year after helping East Tennessee State defeat Dave Cowens-led Florida State to get to the Sweet 16. Skeeter was married five times and had six coaching jobs in seven years. He drop-kicked a field goal and made a length-of-the-court buzzer-beater at George Washington High School -- both on Friday the 13th. He put Oak Hill Academy on the map and was Jerry Falwell's head coach at Liberty for a tumultuous season. He played five years in the ABA, getting dunked on by Dr. J and injured by George McGinnis, and eventually beat George "Iceman" Gervin and Louie Dampier in a 3-point shootout during a San Antonio Spurs reunion.
PrologueHe led the state of Tennessee in technical fouls coaching at RogersvilleHigh School and took a timeout with one second remaining while trailingby nine points when his Oak Hill Academy Warriors’ 58-game win streakwas coming to a halt, but losing basketball games was not necessary for Harley“Skeeter” Swift to show his butt.
In the early 1960s “Leave it to Beaver” era, the 16-year-old Swift showed up atKelly Miller Park in Washington, D.C., looking as white as Ward Cleaver and aboutas sculpted as Lumpy Rutherford. Swift didn’t appear likely to contribute to victoriesin pickup games at this basketball beehive, where losing often meant lengthy breaksat the crowded court.
Selecting Swift didn’t appeal to Willie Jones, who by then had scored 1,982 points at American University, including an NCAA tournament record 54 against Evansville in 1960. A quick 5-foot-9 guard with deep shooting range, Jones enjoyed scoring almost as much as letting his defender hear about it. In fact, Jones was talking trash when he made his first impression on Swift, who had bicycled over from his nearby hometown of Alexandria, Virginia.
“I got there and started watching,” Swift says, “and this little fart faded over to a corner and went up to shoot, and this big 6-foot-6 guy was getting ready to knock it away, and Willie Jones made the shot and said ‘In your eyes where beauty lies.’ I said to myself, ‘Skeeter, this is gonna be alright.’”
Swift was a proven commodity by then in Alexandria, and his stature hadn’t come exclusively at the expense of white players. There was clearly more talent here, though.
Swift eyed the scene eager for a fiery baptism, but his pale skin and plump rump initially made him the Unchosen One.
“I was a white boy standing on the side and nobody wanted to pick me,” Swift says. “I started going to Kelly Miller in 1962. It was the height of D.C. basketball when you had guys like Dave Bing and Elgin Baylor and the Globetrotters and Willie Jones. Most of the players that day were probably guys back from college who went to places like Norfolk State and Virginia Union and Howard, and all of those places. A lot of them were just really good playground players who loved to play the game.”
None loved basketball more than Jones, the only player other than Kermit Washington to have his jersey retired at American University.
“At one time, Kelly Miller was where all the pros would come and play,” Jones said. “Of course, it was in a heavily populated black neighborhood, right? Skeeter came over to Kelly Miller and didn’t nobody know him. He was a heavy-set white boy. You get what I’m saying? Nobody would’ve looked at him and thought he was a player or nothing. He really wanted to play and he’d be standing over there dancing around and waiting for somebody to choose him. But they didn’t choose Skeeter, right? So to show you his persistence, Skeeter came back the next week and he brought five white boys.”
And the white boys won.
“Skeeter and them done won about five or six games, and you’re talking about playing in the sun,” Jones said. “It was hot. Usually after you play so long, somebody winning will say ‘You can take my place,’ but that ain’t what Skeeter did. Once they got tired they just quit and he said ‘We’re going back across the bridge to Virginia.’”
Jones said Swift and the others piled into a car and left. A moment later, the car came back past and Skeeter was cussing at the top of his lungs at the players on the playground – apparently for not picking him on his previous visit.
“So I look over and Skeeter had his big ass sticking out the window,” Jones said, triggering hearty laughter. “Skeeter mooned everybody and was cussing us. I can still see that big ass. But what was so surprising was he came back the next week. That’s what I loved about him. He was just a tough monkey.
“Skeeter was one of the first white guys to come over to Kelly Miller and make a resounding reputation for himself. Skeeter was one of the few whites that I can remember coming over there a lot. That wasn’t an easy place to just be coming. You understand what I’m saying?”
Swift imposed his will. He called fouls more than most and he talked as much as Jones.
“He talked the same amount of shit wherever he was – at every level he played,” Jones said. “He had no problem telling somebody when he scored on them, ‘You can’t check me.’ He didn’t give a shit if he was in black America; he didn’t care. Skeeter would go anywhere they were playing basketball. If he was playing in Alaska with all Eskimos or he was playing in Kentucky with all hillbillies, he was the same Skeeter. He wasn’t gonna do no changing. He was gonna say ‘You can’t handle me’ and ‘Come and get this.’ ”
Swift never reached Alaska, but basketball took him to Kentucky and other “hillbilly” regions, as well as stops in Europe, Puerto Rico and all over the United States while running a nomadic, 20-year fast break as a player, coach and captivating basketball camp personality.
“Was I taking a chance going to Kelly Miller? Yeah,” Swift said. “I didn’t know what to expect that first time riding my bicycle across (the) 14th Street Bridge and all the way down past RFK Stadium. But I wasn’t afraid, because all I knew I wanted to do was become a basketball player and I was told that was the place to go. Eventually I got the point across and I started getting picked.”