WHEN EAST HIGH PLAYED NASHVILLE BUSINESS COLLEGE AND NERA WHITE

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 When I was a student at East Nashville High School classes were dismissed early one day and I was sent, along with the whole student body, to witness a very unusual basketball game in our gymnasium. I can't remember if it was advertised in advance or even what year it happened. It had to be sometime between 1965 when I started my sophomore year and 1968, the year I graduated. I will never forget the basketball game. Our boys varsity basketball team played a women's basketball team sponsored by Nashville Business College. Although I have never been a basketball fan I was familiar with this team. It had a national reputation for being the elite of women's basketball. I only remember two things about that game. Our team won by a slim margin after a hard fought game and I remember the star  player for Nashville Business College. Her name was Nera White and she was phenomenal. The New York's Times obituary after her death in April 2016 called her the first female superstar and one of the first two women to be inducted into the Basketball Hall Of Fame. 

Nera White was a farm girl born and raised in Macon County Tennessee in 1935. She was tall for a girl at six foot one inches. Nera was a 15-time AAU All-American and led Nashville Business College to 10 AAU national championships between 1955-1969, garnered the Most Valuable Player at the AAU national tournament 10 times, and led the USA to a gold medal in the 1957 World Championships. James Naismith invented basketball in 1891 and Senda Berenson organized the first female basketball team at Smith College in Massachusetts. By the 1920's Tennessee was one of the first states in the Union with interscholastic basketball for girls. Nera White played at Macon County High School and was recruited by Nashville Business College in 1954.  Hall of Fame Coach Harley Redin stated that “She’s the only woman who can do everything – rebound, defense, handle the ball, and score.” In the words of the Naismith Basketball Hall Of Fame “Nera White was one of the most complete female players of her era and a pioneer during the early days of women’s basketball. Film clips replay her extraordinary talents, with her overall ability far exceeding other players of her era. She was quite simply faster, quicker, and stronger than most women of that generation…. A player whose skill and athleticism were before her time, White was one of the best woman players in the world.” Nera White accomplished all of this before the passage of Title IX in 1972. She was the oldest of seven kids born in 1935 and attributed her strength to farm work. Nera White died of pneumonia in her hometown of Lafayette Tennessee at the age of 80. 








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