This the story of L.M. Ellis, the man who integrated the OVC. There is much to cover, ranging from his time at Burt to a star turn at Kean's Little Garden in Nashville to Drake and back, full circle, to Clarksville and Austin Peay. It's hard to fathom in 2021 and harder to imagine the things he endured on that path.
But L.M. Ellis isn't looking for sympathy, or accolades, or really anything. He's almost 78 years old. His legacy is secure. He, very simply, wants you to know how his life has gone, the good and the bad, and that the candid nature he discusses it with is how it should be absorbed.
Reach his age, do what he did, know what he knows and hopefully you'll reach that same level of comfort with how you view yourself.
Being the first Black man to play in the OVC is a monumental achievement. Ellis came along barely 15 years after Jackie Robinson broke professional baseball's color barrier; the Freedom Rides had occurred during his time at Drake before he came back to Clarksville. This was a very real, very powerful thing he did; he stood his ground and broke a barrier, not only because he'd earned the right but because he possessed the necessary conviction to see it come to fruition.
All things should begin at the beginning, and Ellis' story begins as the son of farmers who sold the family's 44 acres for $1,400 dollars when he was six years old—$700 to pay off the debt and $700 to buy a little house on Ford Street in Clarksville. But if that move doesn't happen, Ellis freely admits he would not have played basketball or gone to Austin Peay.
"I was the first in my family to go to college and graduate," he said. "We had high aspirations to do well educationally. I was a good student because of my mother and I worked real hard to get good grades. My mother only finished the eighth grade, and my father only finished sixth grade but she always impressed on me to get a good education and a good job."
During his time at Burt School, he became a pupil of Dave Whitney and he went on to lead Burt to a Black National High School Championship in 1961. As with most everything in Ellis' upbringing, it was earned the hard way.
"We were so lowly-rated heading into the national high school tournament that we had to play a game at eight in the morning that Thursday just to qualify," he said. "We played that game, we came out ahead by three points and it must have loosened us up a bit because that night we came back and as a high school team we scored 112 points in four eight-minute quarters. We could score in four seconds. We beat Minden in Louisiana in the finals and from that day on, it has been an easier path for me."
The reason might be because of the climate of the times. From Texas to West Virginia, Black men were barred in the rural south from playing college basketball. 'Barred' might not be the right phrase, because there was no rule on the books regarding segregation; it was, perhaps, 'merely' widely understood.
But at Kean Hall—Kean's Little Garden, on Tennessee State's campus—the schools further north and further west descended during this time, showing up to the Black National Championships in pursuit of the best players of the era, be they Black or White. The talent on display, denied a chance at home in many cases, could flourish elsewhere.
This would, according to Ellis, at least partially account for the change in attitude as segregation became more accepted in Division I basketball, along with the efforts of his coach and mentor Dave Whitney.
"That was a really good opportunity for integration, because the coaches and schools saw that they couldn't keep losing players to the northern schools," he said. "[Coach Whitney] sent off letters all over the country, and I wound up getting scholarship offers from Utah, Duquesne in Pittsburgh and all around."
Ellis' collegiate journey began in Iowa, at Drake. The Missouri Valley was one of the premiere integrated conferences of the time, and Ellis' showing as part of the champion program at Burt led to an opportunity even he would describe as incredible.
But opportunity is only as good as its circumstance and, integrated or not, prejudice was still something Ellis would face.
"There was one thing that precipitated my departure," he said. "We were going on a Christmas trip at Drake and I had beaten out an All-American there. But when they came to hand out the plane tickets to Long Beach for the holiday tournament, they had his name on it and that really crushed me inside. I didn't want to be second."
In the south, things were changing, opening up. But how open-minded folks might be to a Black man playing basketball—an absolutely ludicrous notion when you type it out and read it in 2021—the 1960s were different. There were questions, concerns. And they were very, very real.
Ellis was coming back to Clarksville at a time when one of its greatest heroes, Wilma Rudolph, was coming off her greatest triumphs—a trio of gold medals at the 1960 Rome Olympics. But Rudolph was Black; and more than 50 years later, Ellis can easily recall what one of the city's greatest heroes faced because of prejudices.
"Wilma came back here and couldn't even stay downtown at a hotel," he remembers. "Even when I came back, there was a little restaurant between Ford Street and campus where I couldn't go with my teammates to sit down and have a Coke or a hamburger. The apprehension was there; I didn't know how I was going to be treated, but I knew I needed to stay with it and pursue my education.
"It was scary. It was just as scary for my parents, because even when Wilma went to the Olympics and came back here with her gold medals, we couldn't go sit down at the Shoney's on Riverside Drive. We had teachers who organized a car caravan to park in all the spaces and after that they made the decision to open it us for us."
It was into this environment Ellis willingly returned to Clarksville, pursue the opportunity to attend Austin Peay and integrate the Ohio Valley Conference. George Fisher, Austin Peay's head coach, was no idiot—he knew that the opportunity would be fraught with peril for Ellis.
The duo had extensive discussions on the subject, but Ellis knew early exactly where Fisher stood.
"When we went on our first trip, Coach Fisher and I roomed together and we slept two to a bed, a regular old full size bed," he said. "When we got up to get ready to go in the morning, he said, 'Lum—he just put the L and the M together—I have to be honest with you, I slept with one eye open last night.'
"I said, 'Coach, that's okay. I had both open.'"
Ellis faced things at home and on the road that are unspeakable. One night, a cross was burned outside his dorm room and men tried to get at him downstairs; his teammates intervened, and Ellis actually didn't find out about the incident for some days. One night in Martin, after repeated physicality, Ellis retaliated and was kicked out of the game; the cops were stationed outside the locker room and provided an escort out of town so no one could attempt to do him harm.
As his tenure at Austin Peay went on, the vitriol he received began to subside. And if part of that was down to his dignified stature and ability to tolerate the intolerable, he also credits his teammates for helping him maintain an even keel.
"I had good support from my teammates," he said. "They wouldn't let me get in trouble. When I first got here and was doing my year I had to spend not playing, we went to a party on somebody's farm. And I guess Black people weren't supposed to be there. Someone said something and was told, 'He's with us; don't bother him.'
"Almost all my teammates put themselves second and me first. Sometimes you have to have a little wisdom and age on you to realize that."
Ellis was very good as a Gov. He's enshrined in the APSU Athletics Hall of Fame, and the Red Coat Society—very few can claim honor for both their athletic accolades and their philanthropic support. As time goes on, he evolves from a legendary figure to one almost mythical in his import. L.M. Ellis may have been a good athlete in his day, but he's the very best of people when it comes to Austin Peay State University.
