In honor of Black History Month, the Franciscan University Athletic Department is highlighting one of the most decorated collegiate athletes of our past. Back in the College of Steubenville days, Jim Smith is still arguably the best basketball player to play his collegiate career in Steubenville.  He played from 1954-58 for decorated Head Coach Hank Kuzma and was a major contributor to the 1958 Small School National Championship Basketball team. We hope this story does justice to not only how great of a player he was, but also how great of a man he was through his actions during his post-basketball career.
 
My father was born in 1958, so I like most of you reading this story, did not get to see the 1950's Barons, but hopefully through research and first-hand accounts, the Jim Smith story will live on for countless generations.
 
James W. Smith Betsill was born on December 6, 1934, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Betsill attended Allderdice High School for his first two years of high school in Pittsburgh's city league. Betsill had dreams of playing basketball in college and needed to secure a scholarship. He took matters into his own hands, and transferred, just a few miles down the hill and across the Glenwood Bridge, to Homestead High School.
 
His brother, Lawrence Betsill has said it was one of Jim's best decisions. "At that time, Blacks needed to do whatever it was they could do in order to get into college sports," said Lawrence. Jim legally changed his name to Jim Smith and moved in with a local family and became his legal guardians, for basketball reasons. His former coach at Allderdice attempted to stop the transfer through appeals to the state and Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL), but because Smith was living with his legal guardians there was nothing he could do. The 6'6" 230-pound Smith would go on to letter in four sports (basketball, football, volleyball, and track) at Homestead. Smith also earned that sought-after scholarship to the College of Steubenville, then in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
 
Let me rewind for a second to explain the transfer to Homestead and set the scene to more of what Jim Smith was going through in these times. Allderdice was a City League school, predominantly African American, and it was the 1950s. The first African American to play in a college basketball tournament was Clarence Walker in 1948 in the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) Tournament—only after he was banned from playing in the tournament the year before—but thankfully John Wooden and his team refused the invitation in 1947. The NCAA tournament did not break the color barrier till 1950. Homestead was in the WPIAL, which was more predominantly comprised of white schools and received more press coverage to get the attention of college coaches like the young Hank Kuzma of the College of Steubenville. How young was Kuzma? He had just graduated from Duquesne in 1951 where he played basketball for the Dukes. The young Pennsylvanian recruited well in the Pittsburgh area and brought in Smith in his first recruiting class, to help Franciscan start a dynasty.

In the summer of 1954, Smith played in the Catskill Mountain Hotel Summer League. A league that had athletes from numerous prominent basketball colleges of the day with athletes from Kansas, North Carolina and many other schools. The leading scorer of the league that summer was a young man called Wilt Chamberlain. Yes, the one and only Wilt Chamberlain, who went on to score 31,419 points and 23,924 rebounds, the most rebounds in NBA history. Chamberlain and Smith squared off twice that summer, and Wilt recalls their first matchup

I remember meeting Smitty on the Almanac court the first time we played against each other. The referee, Lou Einstein, threw the ball up, and I figured, with seven inches on Jimmy, it would be no contest for control of the tip. Boy, I was surprised when Jimmy finger tipped the ball to a teammate. I had quite a session that night trying to defend him and rebounding with him. As I recall, we each scored 27 points, he controlled his defensive board and I handled my board .... Frankly it was the first time I had faced such tough personal competition .... I haven't met any better personal opponents than Jimmy in college.  

 
From 1954-58 the Barons went 96-19, while Jim Smith played at Franciscan. Smith amassed 2,048 points and 2,334 rebounds over his career. His career rebounding total is still the most in NAIA history. It is actually the most by any player across all levels of college basketball to this day. He is one of only a handful of players to have scored 2,000+ points and pulled in over 2,000 rebounds in a collegiate career. His Steubenville career culminated in his senior season when the Barons went 24-1 while being voted the #1 small-college team in the nation by the United Press International.
 
Smith was then drafted by the Boston Celtics in the second round, 15th overall, of the 1958 NBA Draft. Hall of Fame Coach Red Auerbach was taking a shot on Jim Smith and adding him to a roster with Bill Russell, Bob Cousy and Sam Jones, a trio of Hall of Famers. A dynasty that would go on to win the next EIGHT NBA Finals.
 
 
Jim Smith is not an NBA Hall of Famer, and he does not have over a handful of NBA Championship rings. In the same summer that he was drafted by the Celtics, he was drafted by the U.S Army to help serve his country in the Vietnam War. Smith served until 1960 when he was discharged for knee-related issues; issues that would also end his NBA dreams.
 
 
"Jimmy is the best player to ever come out of the University of Steubenville. He put this school on the map the same way that Maurice Stokes did for St. Francis," said Kuzma. "But when he came out of the Army, he wasn't the same player because of his knees. It is a shame, because had he played right out of college, he'd have probably had a nice NBA career and be remembered like the Chuck Coopers and Maurice Stokes."
 
 
Thankfully, this is not where Smith's story ends, some would say this is just the beginning, as he went on to have a 30+ year career in public service and racial integration activism that changed the lives of generations of Blacks in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.
 
Smith settled in the Pittsburgh area shortly after being discharged from the Army. He began to work for the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the War on Poverty, in Wilkinsburg and Hazelwood where he represented a community of over 25,000. He also worked closely with the Opportunities Industrialization Center, especially on redevelopment projects in Hazelwood.
 
He helped organize various protests and pickets in the area. At that time Blacks were not allowed to join unions, but he was instrumental in breaking the color barrier of some of the biggest unions around, including the Ironworkers and Terrazos. He then helped many Blacks learn trades and pass the apprenticeship tests to get these newly obtainable positions. 
 
"During those days I was like his bail bondsman," said his widow, Mary Harris-Betsill. "He was constantly getting arrested because he was picketing at the headquarters of unions and at various construction jobs. And the fact that he was leading protests wasn't popular. We received countless death threats, bomb threats and burning house threats. Jim was a hero of sorts to the people in the community."
 
He also was a calming influence in Hazelwood when riots broke out in Pittsburgh in 1969.
"Every day during those riots, Jim would get up early and walk the streets and encourage people to stay calm," said Harris-Betsill. "Some days, he'd have a lot of people walk with him; others he'd be by himself. It was tense at that point, but he was determined to make sure that the neighborhood stayed intact."
Mr. Smith-Betsill's willingness to step in and help anyone who needed assistance had an impact on thousands of people, but it nearly cost him his life in the fall of 1976. He was at a Howard Johnson's restaurant in Oakland watching the Steelers play when another patron became drunk, got loud and began harassing other customers. Mr. Smith-Betsill stepped in and tried to calm the man down, but the man pulled a gun and shot him in the face.
"That was the first time I fully realized how many people's lives he touched," said Harris-Betsill, "because so many people came to visit him at the hospital that they moved him to a bigger room and there was still a number of people who couldn't get in to see him."
                                                                                                Paul Ziese, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
Smith's career path took another shift in 1972, as he moved to Harrisburg to take the position of Western Regional Director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Corrections Education. He continued to mold and change lives in this role, a trend that played out throughout his entire life. He developed a curriculum that could take someone who was illiterate to successfully acquire their GED. He attended and spoke at numerous inmate graduation ceremonies, to further instill hope and belief in what they could become.
 
Jim Smith-Betsill was diagnosed with leukemia in February 2002 and passed away in May of that year, at the age of 67.
 
Smith was the solo member of the inaugural Baron Hall of Fame in 1978. The Franciscan University Athletic Department is proud to announce the decision to add him to our new All- American Wall in Finnegan Fieldhouse this year. He will join the three Division III All-Americans in Franciscan History: Leo Herrmann, Grace Galligan and William Jones.  Smith was named an All-American twice in 1957 and 1958 by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Also, the men's basketball program, led by Coach Joe Wallace, has decided to retire his number at the start of next season. We hope to host some of Jim's family and have a ceremony in the near future.
 

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