Harlem's Legendary Holcombe Rucker Park

The ultimate home for summer basketball is Harlem's Holcombe Rucker Park, whose namesake died 50 years ago but let the game in good hands.

- Bobbito Garcia

1950. HARLEM.

Fourth grader Bob McCullough, a pre-teen gang member of the Politicians, was raiding places at lunchtime, getting in fights every day and got arrested. His Saint Phillips Community Center (aka St. C) basketball coach, Holcombe Rucker, went to the 32nd Precinct…“Hey Ruck, what you doing here?” young McCullough inquired. “Checking up on knuckle heads like you!”

McCullough started doing his homework, became St. C’s top scorer, and in 1965 was the second leading scorer in the nation (right behind future Hall of Famer Rick Barry) with 36.4 ppg while at Benedict College. “Rucker changed my life,” McCullough says.

In his years as an educator, coach and community activist, Holcombe Rucker helped hundreds of other Harlem youth get into better schools, using basketball as a tool for social change. Rucker’s most lasting legacy though was to invent the idea in 1946 of producing an outdoor youth league during the summer.

Believe it or not, one had never before existed—anywhere in the world.

During the 1950s, Rucker added college and pro divisions, and the very best ballplayers around participated: Ed Warner,the 1950 NIT Championship MVP for City College (CCNY) who weeks later led his squad to the NCAA Championship as well (the only team in history to win both in the same season);Sihugo Green from Duquesne,the 1955 NIT Championship MVP and No. 1 pick of the 1956 NBA Draft (ahead of Bill Russell); and future Hall of Fame inductees Connie Hawkins from Brooklyn and Wilt Chamberlain from Philly, just to name a few.