'He paved the road': Western North Carolina remembers basketball pioneer Henry Logan
Steve White considers Henry Logan one of the best basketball players to ever play the game.
“If you want to think about players, there’s Michael Jordan,” said White, a fixture at Western Carolina for more than 50 years including including four decades as sports information director for the Catamounts before retiring. “A lot of people say he was a Michael Jordan before there was a Michael Jordan.”
White said Logan's style reminded him of other basketball greats.
“He handled the ball like a Pete Maravich …” White said about Logan, who played at Western Carolina from 1965-68. “That type of ballhandler. He shot like a Steph Curry. That kind of shooter.”
Logan, a basketball pioneer, died on July 26. He was 78.
Logan wasn’t just a terrific basketball player. He played a pivotal role in breaking the color barrier in college basketball. He is believed to be the first Black athlete to play basketball at any predominantly white institution in the Southeast.
Logan won two state titles at Stephens-Lee, the all-Black, segregated high school that closed a year after his graduation as the Asheville school system integrated in the mid-1960s, years after desegregation was mandated by federal law.
Henry Logan was the 6-foot guard who 'could fly'
Lifelong friend Eugene Ellison remembered the 6-foot guard who “could fly.”
During his four-year career with the Catamounts, Logan scored 3,290 points, a school record that still stands currently. This despite the 3-point line wasn’t introduced in NCAA basketball until 1986, 18 years after he played for the Catamounts.
White added Logan could do it all. Logan still holds the program record for assists with 1,037 and averaged almost eight rebounds per game.
"When they talk about (my accomplishments), I think, 'Did I do all that?' " Logan told the Citizen Times in April during a celebration for his 78th birthday. "I still can't believe it. But it must have happened, because they're talking about it."
Logan was selected in the fourth round of the 1968 NBA Draft by the Seattle SuperSonics. Logan was also selected by the Oakland Oaks of the American Basketball Association. He helped the Oaks win the 1969 ABA championship.
Damage to his knees cut his pro career short after just two seasons.
He entered the WCU Hall of Fame in 1990 and the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
“But his quickness, the way he could dribble stop and go and handle the ball, behind the back passes, through the legs, overhead,” White said. “Had eyes in the back of his head. Could drive very few people could guard him.”
Logan turned WCU games, who played in the NAIA at the time, into must-see events, drawing spectators from all over the region. White said if fans didn’t arrive at the gymnasium an hour before tipoff that they wouldn’t get in. He said they expanded the 3,500-seat arena by a thousand while Logan was there.
Western Carolina competed in the Carolinas Conference while Logan played for the Catamounts. White said they moved the conference tournament for his last two seasons from the YMCA Gymnasium in Lexington, North Carolina, that seated only 4,000 to the Winston-Salem Coliseum, which held 8,800. The tournament was a sellout both seasons.
“That just tells you the impact,” White said. “A lot of curiosity for people to see him play. Because basically if you played in our league, you’d never seen a Black basketball player play basketball. He was something else.”
Henry Logan 'opened the door' for others
As his talent broke color barriers across the region, Logan also became the target of racist slurs, harassment and discrimination.
Ellison said he never got angry about how he was treated.
“He used that to inspire him,” Ellison said. “And he told me that, he said, ‘They call me all them names. Every time they do that, I just go score more.’ “
White added Logan's legacy helped so many others.
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“He opened the door,” White said. “He paved the road, not only to Western Carolina but all over the Southeast. The next year you saw a tremendous number of Black football and basketball players and all over the Carolinas. He paved the highway for that.”
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Western North Carolina remembers basketball pioneer Henry Logan
