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CARL FULLER
COURTESY BETHUNE-COOKMAN AHTLETICS |
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- Fifty years ago today (February 26, 1965) , Carl Fuller registered the greatest double-double in Bethune-Cookman basketball history: A 60-point, 40-rebound display as the Wildcats downed Fisk 107-80 in the semifinals of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Collegiate tournament in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Basketball legend John Chaney held the previous scoring record –57 points against Knoxville in 1952. Fuller did have the previous rebounding record – 38 against Florida Memorial earlier in the season.
Alas, very little physical information exists – only three paragraphs in a Daytona Beach News-Journal recap, no scorebook, no stat sheets. And after 50 years, the memories are starting to fade.
“The thing I can remember is that everything I did went right,” said Fuller. “I was a super hero that night.”
Some memories do remain strong, though.
HOW FULLER GOT TO BETHUNE-COOKMAN: Wildcat legend Jack “Cy McClairen” was in the first couple of years of his coaching era in 1963 when he travelled to St. Augustine to recruit Fuller. It went easier than expected.
His dad told him `You’ll do a great thing if you go to Bethune. You’re going to Bethune.’” McClairen said. “I’m glad he [Fuller’s dad] said that.”
Fuller averaged just 8.7 points, but had 16.3 rebounds as a freshman in 1963-64. Jerome Hamler was the primary scoring threat, averaging 22.9 points a game. Doing the dirty work on the boards, Fuller’s scoring averaged vaulted to 19 a game his sophomore season.
THAT ONE NIGHT: Fuller started hitting early, had little resistance underneath, and his teammates recognized it.
“They kept passing me the ball,” Fuller said. “I couldn’t miss.”
Two things that Fuller and McClairen agreed on: The coach wanted to see him dunk the ball and the reason McClairen took him out with eight minutes remaining.
“He didn’t want me getting a big head,” Fuller said.
“I wanted him to dunk …. He was trying to put the ball off the glass and he didn’t need to do that,” McClairen said. “And I didn’t want him going crazy and thinking he was going to score 80 points in the championship game.”
SO WHAT DID HAPPEN THE NEXT NIGHT? (AND AFTER THAT): Fuller “only” scored 15 points as the Wildcats dropped a 62-61 loss to Clark in the championship game. Fuller still garnered tournament MVP honors, the first Wildcat to do so since McClairen led the 1953 team to a championship.
“Their coach [Clark legend L.S. Epps] was a heck of a coach and he could come up with a plan to stop Carl,” McClairen said. “He did.”
By virtue of their 20-7 record and taking the SIAC’s regular season championship, the Wildcats earned their first berth in the NCAA Division II championship. But in the first round, Bethune-Cookman went up against top-ranked Evansville, which featured future Chicago Bull standout and Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, and Evansville posted a convincing 116-77 decision in the opening round. Norfolk State, then a member of the CIAA, downed the Wildcats 91-74 in a consolation game.
ENTER MR. ALLEN: Fuller would be teamed with Johnnie Allen the following year, and all the duo did was set scoring and rebounding records that still stand today. The penultimate was the 1967-68 team that went 24-7, won the SIAC championship with a 104-101 victory over Florida A&M and earned the program’s second berth in the NCAA tournament. Allen averaged 32.1 points a game that year, while Fuller pulled down 12.9 rebounds per night.
FULL-ER PERSPECTIVE: Fuller finished his career with 1,685 rebounds. The Division I record is Michael Williams II with 754. The Division I single-season record for rebounds is Don Hill’s 1986 total of 317—171 shy of Fuller’s overall program record of 488 set in 1965. Of Bethune-Cookman’s 101 recorded games with 15 rebounds or more, 20 of those were by Fuller.
Fuller’s also the Wildcats’ sixth-leading all-time scorer with 1,573 points. After the 60-40, he would score more than 30 in a game just once – a 31 point night against Albany State the following year.
Allen racked up 3,056 points during his Bethune-Cookman career, but never got past the 51-point mark for a single game high. The Division I record is held by Richard Toussaint, and he needed double-overtime to get 49 points against Morgan State in a 2003 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament game.
THE FAMU PERSPECTIVE: “I felt Carl Fuller was the best big man in the SIAC,” said Al Lawson, who was a forward for Florida A&M who would go on to be a state senator and has the Rattlers’ arena named after him. “I still have marks on my eye from when he hit me with an elbow. The only player who even came close to him was [former University of Florida star] Neal Walk. Even when I coached basketball, none of the players I had was greater than Fuller. They didn’t have his tenacity to rebound.”
THE PROS: Fuller was actually drafted twice. In 1967, the St. Louis (now Atlanta) Hawks took him in the seventh round but he elected to stay for his senior year. The Detroit Pistons took him in the fifth round the following year, but he would spend the 1970-71 season with the Miami Floridians of the ABA, where he averaged 5.9 points and 4.7 rebounds in 71 games. His pro career ended the following year.
TODAY: Fuller was inducted in the Bethune-Cookman Athletic Department Hall of Fame in 2012. He currently resides, in Houston, Texas after being displaced from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
OTHER ANNIVERSARIES: In addition to Fuller's 60-40, Bethune-Cookman is also celebrating the 60th anniversary of John Chaney's senior season and the 35th anniversary of the 1980 team's surprising SIAC championship.
Chaney, who would go on to a legendary coaching career, led the Wildcats to two trips to the NAIA District 29 tournament -- essentially the Black College national championship in three season, the 1955 team lost to eventual champion Texas Southern in the opening round.
The 1980 team struggled to a 10-14 regular season record, but caught fire at the tournament, beating Morehouse 84-67, Tuskegee in 2OT 74-72 and Benedict 76-72 in the title game for a berth in the NCAA Division II tournament. The Wildcats went up against Florida Southern on their home court, lost that one 81-72, then dropped a75-63 to West Georgia in consolation action. The leading scorer was Anthony Chester, who averaged 24.7 ppg while Norris Clemons averaged 14.1 and Coach Cy McClairen’s son , Dwayne, was leading rebounder at 10.0. This was the Wildcats' final season as a Division II; they went to Division I the following year.
NOTE: Bethune-Cookman athletics and the Daytona Beach News-Journal have partnered on a centerpiece to tell to the story of Carl Fuller and other great Wildcat basketball achievements.
Click here to read Ken Willis' feature on Fuller.
Click here to read Brent Woronoff's feature on John Chaney.
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