 It's an absolute pleasure to bring to you some of Philadelphia's greatest basketball legends. Ken Hamilton, Wally Jones, and Bill Backett. Let's hear their stories. Thank you for tuning in to Will Megatv. 2016 went to Bill Logan University. Let me back up a little bit. I did have a chance to go to prep school right after that. Graduated from prep school in 1960 and continued my education at Bill Logan University. Then I went on to the Baltimore Bullets. I made the NBA our rookie team. Then I played six years with the World Champion 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks, Utah Stars, and Detroit also. I was fortunate to have a career as community relations director for the Miami Heat, which Billy Cunningham was a part owner, wrote me down there. I became a principal of the Heat Academy after school program and also a scout for 20 years for the Miami Heat. Now I'm now working as sports inside and out Wally Wonder segment broadcasting blog talk ready my byline radio with the Army Network in Pentagon. Go back again known as Double B. Graduated from grass in 1961. Graduated from Temple Prep in 1962. Went to NYU. Graduated from NYU in 1966. From that time on I was with the Sixers, with Denver, played overseas, played with Venezuela for a while, coached in Venezuela, and the three of us have been working the shoot for the stars in 30 years. We've been working with children. Q says 40 years, but we've been working with kids all over the country all these years. Thank you. Coach Ham, talk to me about your time playing at Germantown, who your coach was, who were some of your fellow players, and what's your most memorable moment as a player at Germantown High School? And what year are we talking about? We're talking about 58, 50, oh you want me to start? Okay. All right at Germantown High School when I went there we were probably the second best program in the city. Of course Overwood was number one and in my junior year and my senior year we went to the championship. We could beat everybody with Overwood High School. As a matter of fact in the championship it was almost like men playing against boys. Neither game was competitive. They killed us both times, but actually we were just happy to go as far as we did because I consider those particular Overwood teams to be probably the best high school teams to come out of Philadelphia. I would say maybe other than maybe the William Chamberlain teams. So unfortunately we came along at an era at a time when the Overwood Dynasty was just too much for us. I guess my most memorable thing would be playing at the Pulasmy. Being at the Pulasmy in such a great atmosphere but unfortunately the outcome both years was not so good. So what position did you play? Guard. Point guard, shooting guard or was there at Germantown? Who was your coach? Bill Nelson who I had the opportunity also to coach against. My very first game as a high school coach was against my high school coach, Bill Nelson. Fortunately we beat him. Basketball schemes back in the early 60s, late 50s, were they are they much different than what we see today in 2013 in terms of defense, schemes, offensive plays. I would say that we played on the floor. Today's players play in the air. As a matter of fact we say that they lack fundamentals whereas actually they just don't know what to do on the floor because they're jumping and up in the air and they use jumping as their escape or out for everything. You can get in trouble you jump so I would say that in our era we played on the floor and today they pretty much played in the air. Coming to you Mr. Jones, talk to me about your high school experience. Their overbrook what years were you there? Who were some of the players you played within and against? Who was your coach and what's one of your most memorable moments? Well you know I can think about the tradition that overbrook that Wilt was there. Marty Hughes, Vince Miller, Jimmy Sadler and as a young man seeing those ball players and actually competing against those guys at Haddington it was so much about tradition and the overbook tradition about winning and then I followed my brother little Bobby Jones, Wayne Hightower, Ralph Hayward, how we launched him and they won championships there. Matter of fact I didn't realize my brother Bob was an MVP in the city championship when they had the public play against the Catholic and one of the things that had us was tradition and we had a fellow named Walt Hazard that actually came from Maryland and had won the championship in Maryland in the ninth grade and he was a ball player that had all the skills and fundamentals and with our coach Paul Ward that's what we were about about fundamentals but one of the things about our team was if you didn't play football you were running cross-country so our team was one of the best condition teams that played because most of the guys ran cross-country and that goes as far as Wayne Hightower being 6'10", Ralph Hayward. During those days we were three sports the fact that we wanted to let her cross-country track and basketball were the three that I competed in but I had a guy that used to take Walt Hazard and I in the gym and physically beat us up and that was my hygiene teacher John Cheney. If you're talking about ball players that could play that's one of the great ball players that come out and fill up you. Come out of Ben Franklin High guys like Guy Rodgers, Hal Lear, Tim Parham, Carl Lacey, Joe Howe, you're talking about Reese Mary. These are guys that I looked up to as a guard and to see the top players in Philly coming from that crop of ball players you learned a lot from all of them but I really attribute a lot to what John Cheney would do to Hazard and he would play both of us and one of the things that he taught us is something that carried on with our game was that defense was very important in winning and I think that carried on through my career later on in prep school that Bill Lover and then in professional games. So let me just write you you were playing against John Cheney in school like what during lunch or lunchtime or break anytime here's my hygiene teacher come on we're gonna take you into take you and Hazard to the gym you guys are high school high shots that's the same thing with Tim Parham the industrial league they would come beat you they would physically try to intimidate you your high school high shots but these guys what made us tough and made us understand the game I think when QP and Bagga talk about Guy Rodgers he one of the roughest and smartest passing one of the best back court players ever come out of Philadelphia as a matter of fact we rate him and Al Lear is probably two of the top guard combos that ever played in college in his area I'm not going to exclude the young man Jameer Nelson and the other kid that played the St. Joe they were excellent back court but we had some great back court players we had some great great guards that came out of here he'd be white we had a combination of George Leftwood we had Pickles Kennedy we had Tom Gola you're talking about some of the greatest guards ever to come out of Grand Duffy Grand Duffy that's right you can play basketball so you think about tradition and what Philadelphia basketball is about it's really about not only the toughness but the basketball IQ and they would always talk about the New York ballplayers could drive to the basket or jump they'd jump out of the gym but we had playmakers we had shooters we had defenders and that's the way we learned the game because if you couldn't play bovins you couldn't play you couldn't play let me ask you about this I'm thinking about your era you graduated in 60 which means that you were at Overbrook High School with Guy M. Buford did you know Guy M. Buford no I didn't I mean I told you right but I didn't but he went to Westfield no he went to Overbrook I thought he was in Denver no they hired all them they have that's right okay now at Overbrook we were at a school that was very it's interesting QP had the same thing we're half Jewish-American have African-American Jametown with us so our competition was also in the academia because when we first came to school the counselors would try to put you in the shop for all those courses my mother said no he's taking trade trade they try to put in trade during those time counselors but our parents told us you taking yes academic courses because it's something that I'm going to pass on during those times they stare at you as brawn and no brains of course we have the Jewish in my school there are guys that were great athletes Richie Richmond a double score three sports played a bill low ball so football but it was academia it was us being student athletes matter of fact I was the campaign manager for the one of the first African-Americans to be president of the student body and his name is Walt Hazard and at our school the Jewish students ran the yearbook they ran they controlled everything because that's the way it was my father went to Overbrook and he's 96 and he said they won't allow him to play baseball they didn't allow African-Americans to compete and he was the same high school I went to and he wasn't allowed to compete in sports so you see we're on the brain and that's right when I first started my first year at Ben Franklin as a coach I got several arguments with the physical head teachers who were at Ben Franklin because I was putting in plays and they actually said to me that these kids can't learn how to play the plays and this was 1971 and these were the people who had been coaching there prior to me and that was their way they felt about people that they had and they they were physically possible mentally possible to learn plays that's when I broke in we had to argue about that we're going to come back to that with some some of the guys that you coach talk to us about of Grats you're experienced there at Grats Teddy block we had some fantastic time times there we've got some funny things too we got a big boy named Tony forward who wound up being the mayor's bodyguard for about eight years showed up at a game at Overbrook forgot his sneaks and he had to play barefoot Overbrook was talking about jump on his feet jump on his feet and now Tony was the biggest guy in the public league at the time he's about six nine about two eighties and he had no sneakers there's a jump on his feet jump on his feet so he was a protector of our shooter our shooter was Bobby Bandon yes Tony wouldn't let nobody touch Bobby he protected Bobby like Bobby was a child and Bobby could really shoot the ball but my greatest time in high school was when I was at Temple Prep and when we went to Canada and play Canada High with Archie Smith and Sonny Sunker we'd beat them 160 to 60 so when you're at Temple Prep that was still considered high school at that point okay Temple Prep was high school yeah but we played all freshman team was Temple Prep at Temple University yes okay yes when he went they were brought down that's right well when I went they were born in Columbia they had moved to a new building yeah but they were this old building playing with all the old guys how about Southall yeah no that's not all this was on he's on Southall yeah it's on down the street that's where he was I'm telling you that didn't Earl go to prep Earl go to the Earl Monroe go to prep school he didn't go to Temple Prep he didn't go to no big Bobby went big Bobby went it was a brown prep too yeah it was yeah great Carter went to right right right great Carter with the Roman and then to William Penn or been he didn't go to Roman he went to Ben Franklin he went to Roman and then Ben Franklin and then Brown prep and then he went to Mount Saint Mary Mount Saint by the way the other thing is that we've made playoff in 61 and lost to Earl Monroe talked to me about Earl Monroe well in in the beginning he was an average player he played a lot he played soccer yeah he won the basketball and that's how he got his moves played soccer Teddy Blunt he had Teddy was a he was a golden so these guys yeah he got played soccer right that's how Earl got his moves but Earl didn't really spring out until he went to Whistlesale then he was another person but he he was a different kind of player as when he was young because he was a forward yeah and he was a jumper and a slasher and he had a terrible knee was wobble yeah I mean I think he might have broke his knee he broke everything in his body right and I think for a year he won a full cast yeah from here all the way down but he kept playing basketball yes he did and this cast had a spiked heel and while this year that he played that's when he actually developed that famous move in the head because he would get the ball and spin around on that spiked heel and he was a completely different player after that he could jump no more I don't think it's he never left the ground again after that but Earl could get up and do all that stuff but he changed his entire game and boy his new game took him to the NBA all right so now that leads me to to to this question Philadelphia man we have a long tradition of basketball nicknames talk to me how you got chores how you got chores how Earl Monroe get his I think I got mine this guy chinks got chinks started calling me double B and it just stopped but he's the first guy to ever call me double B he tells everybody since we saw the lookalike that I'm his little brother but that's my man but he's the one that laid the nickname on me double B that besides me dumping and running after Jeff yeah I was dumping the ball and just keep running just just for the hell of it yeah Jeff Walker was one gave me my name while I wanted him but I tripled a lot to him not only in the journalistic aspect because he's a writer he's also a producer of the Isaiah Thomas story his mother's story and Muhammad Ali's story but he got me interested in writing a composed a book with Jim Washington called black champions challenge American sports I think one thing about our era was that we read a lot and we exchanged books that we played in pro ball we go to the creams house and chess jazz but also a lot of reading Richard Wright's solo on ice I could tell so many books that we learned about being African-American but that's when we all started to change our names we started to study more about our heritage and I think when I was traded from here to Milwaukee that's when I changed my name there's so many ball players had really found out about their heritage and done so many things I think that even comes to coach Hamilton so what did you change your name from what to what is Wali WALI which Mawali means teacher in Swahili it means ruler and Kenyan is different names and African names and we can't tell you the real name because he's named after a couple presidents so Malcolm X changed his name once to oh Mawali yeah when he went to Africa yeah it's pretty interesting because after learning a lot from coach Hamilton about black history I learned so much about different kings so as a matter of fact he named his son Esquia and I named my son Esquia he's actually a great African king and I have other African names for my children Kahar and Muki because you learned so much about your heritage you started to identify but I think one thing I told my papa I wasn't disgracing his name that he gave me but this is what I believe when I changed my name Abdul Wali Kimyan but when I went to the Mawaki Bucks it's just all I did is Wali Mahid Abdul Rahman Walhazid Keith Wilkes Jamal Wilkes Lou Alcindor Warren Jibali Warren Jibali these are guys that were his name was Armstrong but there so many African-Americans played ball changed their name I mean I mean Rashi so we we just learned so much about our heritage so we became more proud and not only that how we dressed beside beside the fro we wore eastern clothing kabubas robes that shit good that shit yeah we wore that shit yeah long long time wow we wore bells oh on the shoes yeah so what kind of music would you listen to that then pre-game pre-game what were you listening to before the game or did you have anything to listen to we'll talk to me it was like hot you dropped the bomb on me you dropped the bomb on me baby yeah that was your favorite so that was that your favorite song what's your favorite one of my favorites okay okay all right so last question talk to me about that the greatest yeah talk to me about a high school perspective did you see him play when we when you were younger any personal story you have about him I guess what you can say about him is that he changed the game because he destroyed the game and he destroyed the game so much they had to change the rules so other people could compete such as you mentioned with Elaine Will Chamberlain could stand outside in lane hold the ball reach over and dump the ball so they actually had him come in stand there hold out his arm and then when they realized that this was past where he could reach the basket that was a new lane and some gyms you still go and they still have the narrow lane and then they have the lane they had to do for Will Chamberlain and for the longest time they talked about raising the basket for 12 feet yeah yeah right he had a problem shooting foul shots because when he was in high school the rule was he could not come down and touch the floor before the ball went in the basket so Will Chamberlain was standing at the top of the key take a step to the foul line fly in the air and dunk his foul shot