He Turned Us All Around

by Ken Parr

Back in March of 1960, we went to the NCAA basketball tournament in Evansville, Ind. Our plane was diverted to Louisville, Ky., because of bad weather.

There's a hotel in the city of Louisville named the Camberley Brown Hotel. It's still there to this day, I believe. It was late at night and we were all set to check into that hotel in downtown Louisville.

Our coach, Len Serfustini, was told by the person at the desk that because we had a black player on our basketball team, Earl, we would be unable to stay at the Camberley Brown Hotel. As soon as our coach found that out, even though it was after midnight and very tough for us to get another hotel, he turned us all around and got us out of there.

We finally found a place where we could stay for the night out in the suburbs of Louisville. But it taught us a lesson about dignity and tolerance, and about how different things were in the south than in the north.