SAN ANTONIO — The colorful testimony of Nevil Shed has paved the way for countless African American athletes over time.
It was 1966, in the heat of Civil Rights racial tension, that the Texas Western Minors, of which Shed was a teammate, made history by being the first college basketball team with an all-black starting lineup to win the NCAA championship.
At the age of 75, Shed leans on those experiences to impact the next generation. He said he believes that understanding the history of black success will ensure the future of success for black Americans.
“I didn’t have what you all have today. I didn’t have the technology or the access to venues,” Shed said. “I had to struggle to get here.”
He shared about his humble beginnings, when many young people like him were rich in ability but poor in opportunity simply because of their skin color.
“(In a college game) some guys behind me started calling me names like ‘black trash,’ and I got tired of it and turned around to say something back,” he said. "Coach Haskins said, 'Turn back around!' I said, ‘But, Coach, they’re calling me names!’ Coach said, 'Are you those things they’re calling you?' I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ Coach said, 'Then show them who you really are.'"
The triumphant story of his team’s win that day echoed from the pages of the El Paso newspaper to the pages of the Hollywood script for the 2006 blockbuster "Glory Road." Shed was portrayed by Al Shearer.
“They say that legends live forever, well, praise God. It looks like my teammates and I are walking that road to glory,” he said with a smile. “I remember being a young man listening to speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King. He wouldn’t speak to you. He would ‘sang’ to you, and I would buy in to what he was saying.”
Shed said that it was messages like Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech that inspired him to pursue his own dream of becoming a successful basketball player. It was only three years after that speech was delivered that the Texas Western Minors beat Kentucky in that NCAA championship game.
“We see our athletes today are not really buying into what people did yesterday to get you to this opportunity today,” he said.
Shed uses that passion as fuel in his mission to impart on-court skills and off-court character to the next generation.