A committee of West Virginia lawmakers agreed Monday evening to recommend a bill to the full Senate that would prohibit discrimination based on hair type.
Senate Bill 850, originating in the Judiciary Committee, would add protections for “hair textures and protective hairstyles historically associated with a particular race” to the West Virginia Human Rights Act. This section of state code already prohibits discrimination regardless of race, gender, age and other characteristics.
Protective hairstyles include braids, locks and twists, according to the bill, which also has been dubbed the “Crown Act.”
Senators heard from Beckley resident Tarsha Bolt before voting on the bill. She talked to the committee about an incident earlier in the school year, when a basketball coach barred her teenage son from playing because of her son’s dreadlocks.
According to Bolt, her son missed three games because he wouldn’t change his hair.
“If you guys are familiar with dreadlocks, you would know that it’s just a natural way of maintaining the texture of his hair,” Bolt told lawmakers on Monday. “It’s not something you can just cut out or rip out.”
The discrimination occurred despite the fact, she added, that her son was allowed to play on the same school’s football team and participate in the JROTC program earlier that year, with the same dreadlocks.
“It was just not right. Why was he targeted?” Bolt asked. “Why were his dreadlocks targeted? He’s a good kid. He has good grades. He has the skills to make the team. Why should his hair have him benched? And why should he be bullied to strip himself of his identity?”
As the Beckley Register-Herald reported following the meeting, Wood County Sen. Mike Azinger, a Republican, was opposed to the bill. As of Tuesday he was the only members of the Senate Judiciary Committee not appearing on the bill as a co-sponsor.
Calling the proposal a “sticky situation,” Azinger asked the committee to consider replacing it with a study resolution instead.
The motion failed.
Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, said the bill was “appropriately authored” by the committee counsel.
“I think that as it relates back to the race aspect [of the West Virginia Human Rights Act], I think that it is proper,” Weld said.
Sen. Mark Maynard, R-Wayne, agreed with Azinger, saying he wanted to hear from the coach Bolt mentioned and sporting groups like the Southern States Athletic Conference.
Sen. Richard Lindsay, D-Kanawha, said the bill was about more than the Beckley incident.
“This is something that applies across the spectrum to all types of individuals,” Lindsay said.
In the House of Delegates, Del. Danielle Walker, D-Monongalia, was the lead sponsor behind the House version of the bill. She called the Senate’s action a success.
“Discrimination and hate have no home here, there or anywhere,” Walker said in an interview Tuesday morning. “It’s not just about a high school student and a coach. It is about a landlord and a tenant. It is about an employer and an employee. It’s about an employee trying to go up the chain, but who is stuck because of how their natural hair [is], and the texture of their natural hair.”
The Senate was scheduled to consider any potential amendments to the bill on Tuesday, Feb. 25, before voting on whether to pass the bill to the full House of Delegates for consideration on Wednesday.
Basketball star Rod Hundley was born in Charleston on October 26, 1934. He was a sensation at Charleston High School, dazzling opponents with his tricks and talent. His flashy style is rarely seen today, outside of the Harlem Globetrotters.
His repertoire included trick shots, a signature behind-the-back dribble, and spinning the ball on his finger—all during games. His flair on the court earned him the nickname the “clown prince of basketball.” But he’ll always be remembered as “Hot Rod.”
Many who watched him play at West Virginia University in the 1950s consider “Hot Rod” Hundley the greatest natural athlete the state ever produced. In 1954, he averaged 34 points a game for WVU’s freshman team and then led the varsity squad to a 72-16 record and three straight Southern Conference titles. Hundley earned first team All-American recognition his senior year.
Hundley played six years in the National Basketball Association for the Lakers and was named an all-star twice. Hundley was a radio announcer for the NBA’s Utah Jazz for 35 years, until his retirement in 2009.
On May 20, 1983, basketball coach and author Clair Bee died at age 87. He was a native of Pennsboro in Ritchie County but grew up in Grafton.
He became a coaching legend at Long Island University in the 1930s. Bee led the Blackbirds to 43 straight wins, two undefeated seasons, and National Invitational Tournament titles in 1939 and ’41. He resigned in 1951 after a point-shaving scandal implicated three of his players. During his career, Bee won nearly 83 percent of his games—still an NCAA Division I record. He also developed the 1-3-1 zone.
Although his coaching days ended on a sad note, Clair Bee had another career ahead of him. In 1948, he wrote Touchdown Pass about fictional high school football player Chip Hilton. Amazingly, the book sold more than 125,000 copies. He published 23 more books about Hilton, which taught young readers to be honest and to obey their parents and coaches. The stories were set in the town of Valley Falls, a fictional version of a real place near Grafton.
Clair Bee was later elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Coal was king in McDowell County in the 1960s and 70s. At one point, it was one of the richest counties in the country due to coal production. There were more than 53 communities that either had their own mines or housed miners who worked in the area. Because the coal mines attracted workers from all over the country, even the world, there was a pretty diverse group of people in McDowell.
But over time, as the coal mines closed, people began to move away. The population has decreased by almost 17 percent since 2010. Where once there were thriving businesses and lively communities, there’s now little that looks the same.
Credit Courtesy of Patricia Boyd
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I wanted to learn the story about Northfork’s rise to fame, the story I never really knew. I moved from Northfork to Princeton when I was still relatively young. But we still had family who lived here, including my grandparents, and our home church remained in Keystone just outside of Northfork, even after we had moved away. When we would drive to see my grandparents, we’d always drive past a large sign that had a basketball with the number 8 in the center. I would call it the “Beasketball” sign.
Credit John Hale / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Mark Page
My family mostly lived in a little community of Algoma, just outside of Northfork. Algoma was a small community. If you blinked, you might not notice you drove through it. When they were kids, my uncles Mark Page and David McDaniel played without any blacktop, or asphalt, just dirt. They lovingly referred to those games as “dust bowl” games.
Credit John Hale / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
David McDaniel
They played basketball on a makeshift court in their small community.
“We created our own playground. We used to go in mountains, cut trees, make a backboard,” David recalled.
In the wintertime, they played in the snow. My uncle Mark, who we always called Joe, remembered shooting ball in the winter and knocking the snow off the net. “I still remember that feeling of making that shot.”
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My uncles grew up in the 1960s, after desegregation became law. One thing that brought the communities together was the success of the high school basketball team, The Blue Demons.
The school was quite famous during the 1970s and 80s, winning eight state straight AA basketball championships in a row during one particularly successful stretch. This record set by the Northfork Blue Demons wouldn’t be challenged until 2015.
As a result, black athletes were probably treated better than non athletes, given their status in the community.
“With me getting attention on who I was, I didn’t know racial things happened until I got older and I heard some other people’s stories,” recalled David McDaniel, who played for Northfork in 1971. “I was a basketball star at the time. I got along with white folks and black folks. Everybody treated me well. I just thought that’s the way it was. But after I grew up and started hearing other people’s stories… I do remember the movie theater, the Freeman theater, we always sat in the back, white folk sat up front. I imagine [there were] racial tensions around here during that time, but they never got displayed on me.”
Credit Courtesy of Patricia Boyd
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The 1977 Blue Demons.
Basketball Capital of the United States
In 1971, David was a star player and co-captain for the team as the Northfork Blue Demons won their first state AA title. Three years later, Northfork again won the state AA championship title. That win would be the first of an eight-year streak for Northfork High School.
My other uncle, Joe, captained the ’74 team. “We were just hard to be beat,” he said.
The Blue Demons were a force to be reckoned with, beating teams that went nearly undefeated during the regular season. This small coal mining town received national attention. People wore jackets and hats that had the slogan “Northfork West Virginia– Basketball Capital of the United States”.
After college, Joe returned to Northfork and became the assistant coach in 1979. Then in 1983, he became the new head coach of the Northfork Blue Demons. After a two-year absence from the state tournament, Joe led the Blue Demons to win the ’84 state championships.
This win felt like the comeback the town desperately needed. Because in 1984, jobs in Northfork were really starting to disappear. Eastern Coal, the largest coal mine in the county, had shut down operations. In the middle of that, the high school winning the state title just felt like there was a ray of hope in sight.
Credit John Hale / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The former Northfork High School building.
Devastating News
And then came the news that the county Board of Education planned to close the school. The school’s fate came down to the vote of five board members. Three of the five chose to close the school. Two of the board members urged their counterparts to reconsider, but the three board members who voted for school closure were adamant in their decision.
Northfork High School was to be no more.
The students of Northfork High organized a mass walk out once the news came and even organized a protest against the Board’s decision. The community organized a small committee to hopefully change the board’s mind. It didn’t matter. All the kids in the county were squeezed into one school, Mt. View High School.
The adjustment was tough on the students and parents, according to my uncle Joe. “Cause you’ve got these communities that always rivaled against each other. And you’ve got their parents who always rooted against this other town, and now all of a sudden, your kids are all on the same team. It was… a lot of tension going on at Mt. View high school.”
After the school closed, the town slowly began to fade.
Credit John Hale / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
My uncle David says 1985 was when he really started to notice the decline. “’Cause if you aint got kids in the neighborhood and you ain’t doing no business in your own town, that drags everything down.That was real personal that they closed the school. That was really heartbreaking that they closed the school like that.”
When Northfork High closed, the trophies were moved to the local Northfork Museum. After that building began to fall into disrepair, they were then moved to City Hall, where they reside to this day. Years of accomplishments now sit in a tiny bank vault in city hall.
Northfork and McDowell County as a whole have seen some rough times. A majority of the coal mines in McDowell county ceased production. In 2001, violent floods tore through the community, taking with it a majority of the remaining infrastructure, as well as the population.
When Northfork High School closed, it was made into a middle school. The school was closed permanently in 2002.
This story wasn’t an isolated incident. Small towns all around southern West Virginia seem to be just barely hanging on. State lawmakers grapple with population loss and how devastating it is to the West Virginia economy.
Northfork was a powerhouse of a town. From the economic wealth from coal production, to the athletic achievements that garnered national attention from across the country, it’s easy to forget that without the community of people that made up this small coal town, none of this would’ve been possible.
Author’s Note: During the production of this story, my uncle Joe passed away following a sudden illness. I’m grateful that I had time to sit down with him and recount his career as a basketball player, a coach and educator. This story is dedicated to his memory.
Editor’s Note: This story is part of an Inside Episode episode about school closure and its impact on sports teams, as well as the pride community residents have in their local schools.
Dan D’Antoni never got far from his roots, even though basketball took him away from his home in Mullens, West Virginia for nearly 50 years. He continued to be a proud son of the Mountain State while teaching the world about the unique style of basketball that he says came from the courts he grew up on.
He calls that style of play West Virginia basketball or more famously “Hillbilly Ball.” It is the fast break style of play that dominated West Virginia in the 1950s and 60s under famous coaches and players like Jerry West, Hal Greer, Willie Akers and Leo Bird and is now taking over the NBA, much to the credit of Dan’s younger brother Mike D’Antoni — the head coach of the Houston Rockets.
Credit Courtesy / Marshall University
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Marshall University
“I always said you had to shoot real fast because first of all the courts were uneven and you might lose your dribble and if you shot it and missed it would go down the side of a hill. So you learned to go real fast, shoot quick and make it because if not you would have to chase it,” he said.
The term “hillbilly” may have negative connotations for some, but D’Antoni said he didn’t buy that.
“This is what Hillbillies look like. We put a team out there that’s efficient. They are clean cut young men who carry themselves well, who represent the basketball program both academically and on the court. This is really what a hillbilly stands for, hardworking, creative, able to accomplish things,” D’Antoni explained.
Dan D’Antoni grew up in Mullens while his dad, the late Lewis D’Antoni, lead the Mullens Runnin Rebels to a state title in 1955.
“As a young kid, Mullens was the Hoosiers before the movie. They won a state title from a very small school, when there were no classifications. They were runners up, they were champions and they were semifinalists the last one being beaten by (Jerry) West. Those were right in my formative years. It was great, the feeling I had and the passion that it gave me to play basketball and all my life I’ve been chasing to repeat the experience,” he said.
Lewis D’Antoni pushed young kids to get out and play basketball in one of the five outdoor courts. He even helped to construct some of the community courts when they were built. The courts became a gathering place for young people and almost a sort of training ground for players that helped Mullens earn seven state titles.
The D’Antoni family contributed to a foundation that’s working to restore the Mullens basketball courts of the D’Antoni’s youth. The West Mullens playground will be dedicated to Lewis D’Antoni, later this year.
The governing body for high school sports in West Virginia has passed a proposal to expand the number of classes in basketball to four.
The Secondary School Activities Commission’s Board of Control passed the proposal on a 111-26 vote Tuesday. It would expand the current system of three classes under the two-year trial. The board consists of high school principals and athletic directors.
The state Board of Education will put the proposal out for public comment for 30 days before voting on it.
Private schools have won multiple Class A state championships in both girls and boys basketball in the past three decades. Last month St. Joseph won its ninth girls title in 11 years.
