From left to right: Joe Pace, former championship pro basketball player, Pat Corning, Director, and KOMO TV's
Newsman Ken Schram at the SHARE
auction for Tent City.
Topics
My Path to the NBA
Harlem's Rucker
Playground Tournament
The 1978 Championship
Game Against the
Seattle SuperSonics
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My Path to the NBA Joe towered over everyone he knew in high school as he shot up to 6’11” while his siblings remained small of stature. He recalls going to parties and the girls did not want to dance with him because he was too tall. So, he hung around the snack table and just watched everyone else.
His high school basketball coach knew that Joe's height and skills could get him a college scholarship. After his junior year at Franklin High School in Somerset, New Jersey, he was enrolled in the Outward Bound Program. This experience expanded his horizons and he realized that he could perhaps get more out of life than what he had.
The civil rights movement came to Somerset and, fearing that Joe would sideline his opportunities, his high school transcript reflected that he graduated and, equipped with a third grade reading level, Joe received a full basketball scholarship to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. He quickly became one of their star players. The Baltimore Sun covered his college basketball feats extensively.
Joe was inducted into the University of Maryland Eastern Shore's Hall of Fame in 2004.
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Harlem's Rucker Playground Tournament
Harlem's Rucker Playground is a magnet for some of the black youth of America who aspire to basketball careers. College and professional talent scouts looking for that perfect player surround the playground and watch for the next star athlete to recruit.Joe played in the tournament. He had transferred to Coppin College his junior year to play ball and some of the basketball players were recruited by a Harlem numbers man to play as a team. Joe felt as if they were really stylin' as they were picked up and transported to Rucker Playground in a limousine. They won the tournament and the man who recruited them gave them five star hotel accommodations and fabulous dinners out. Joe figures that he had made a lot of money taking bets on them. Joe's stories of that time are memorable and should be heard by every basketball history fan.The 1978 Championship
Game Against The Seattle SuperSonicsThe Washington Bullets reached the NBA Finals four times in the 1970s. In 1978 they won the NBA title with a team that featured center Wes Unseld and forward Elvin Hayes.In the 1974-75 season the team began playing as the Washington Bullets in Washington, D.C. That year, Unseld and Elvin Hayes, who was acquired from the San Diego Rockets, led the team to the division title as the Bullets put together a 60-22 record. They advanced to the NBA Finals, where they were swept by the Golden State Warriors.Dick Motta, who had previously coached the Chicago Bulls, replaced Jones for the 1976-77 season. A year later, the club signed forward Bob Dandridge. In the 1978 playoffs the Bullets defeated the Atlanta Hawks, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Philadelphia 76ers to advance to the finals. There they played the Seattle SuperSonics, falling behind three games to two and then coming back to win the seven-game series and capture the 1978 NBA title.
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