In many ways it was appropriate that the second annual Hoops for a Better America basketball tournament came down to one last shot. The two teams in last month’s final, the Peace Posse and the Fellas, consisted of outstanding players in their early to mid 20s who have been playing with and against one another for more than 12 years. With a few seconds left, the Fellas led by three, but Posse star Jonathan Speller, a former Continental Basketball Association player, was charging up court with the ball and a chance to tie the score.
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Lufrano inherited his love for basketball from his father, Ned Lufrano, who was a star guard at Marshall High in the late 1940s and early ’50s. As a kid, Rich spent hours practicing on courts near his family’s north-side apartment. But he didn’t reach his potential until he enrolled at Lane Tech. “I went to Anshe Emet for grade school because my parents wanted me to get a good Jewish education, but my parents realized that I needed to go to a public high school to experience a wide range of people,” says Lufrano. “I was scared to death when I first got to Lane. The school had about 5,000 kids. I was overwhelmed.”
His classmates remember Lufrano’s first days at Lane a little differently. “Rich was just the way you want your point guard to be–cocky,” says Ed “Scooter” Silas, who graduated from Lane in 1986. “I remember when he was a freshman he came up to a bunch of us upperclassmen in the hall and said, ‘Hey, don’t you guys have a class to be in?’ He was just trying to be friendly, but one guy took it wrong and picked Rich up by the shirt and slammed him against the locker. We pulled the guy off, saying, ‘Come on, man, he didn’t mean anything.’”
In 1988 Lufrano enrolled at Knox College, a small liberal-arts school in downstate Galesburg. “What a difference–there were only 1,200 students at Knox and only about 40 black Students,” says Lufrano. “I had some good experiences at Knox, but I felt separated from my past. I was losing touch with my high school friends. Oh, you try to stay in contact by calling them during the summer, but it’s hard. I really missed those high school days when you could hang out. with your friends and have not a care in the world. With blacks and whites going their separate ways I wanted some way to get those old days back.”
This year Orlove and Lufrano were able to solicit $2,000 in contributions from Chernin’s Shoes–enough money to supply each team with T-shirts. Each team came up with $75 to help hire a security guard and cover miscellaneous expenses. One of the high points of the season was a barbecue on August 23. “We held the barbecue in the parking lot for anyone who wanted to come–free of charge,” says Orlove. “WGCI came out with a music van and the Jesse White Tumblers performed.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jon Randolph.
