Leroy Chollet

Leroy Chollet was born to Olga and Alfred Chollet on March 5, 1925.[1] His paternal great-grandmother was black, making Chollet and his siblings one-eighth black.[2] By the standards of the time this meant that Leroy Chollet and his family, could be subject to racial segregation laws in the South. The family moved from New Roads to New Orleans where they passed as white. The Chollet brothers—Leroy, Al, and Hillary—all attended Holy Cross, which refused admission to black students.[3] The brothers excelled at sports, and Leroy Chollet led the basketball team to consecutive state titles.[4]

Brothers Leroy and Hillary Chollet played for Canisius and Cornell respectively, after they "were run out of" 1940s New Orleans for racial reasons.[3]

There is no telling how far Leroy Chollet could have taken Loyola, if not all of New Orleans, in his soph, junior or senior seasons. But New Orleans didn’t wait to find out, because Leroy Chollet’s family was part black – and regrettably, shamefully, maddeningly, in this city, in those days that was unacceptable.[3]

— Ramon Vargas, Fight, Grin, & Squarely Play the Game (2013)

Leroy Chollet served eleven months in the U.S. Navy before being discharged and moving on to college.[5] He attended Loyola University New Orleans from 1944 to 1945.[1] The season played out against the backdrop of World War II. Loyola alums followed the team from overseas, writing battlefield letters back to the current players,[6] and the school held Mass in memory of former students who were killed.[7] The team played against both traditional Dixie Conference opponents and armed forces teams from across the Southern United States.[8][9]

During his freshman year, Chollet led the Loyola Wolf Pack to Louisiana's first national basketball championship.[10] After a quiet start, he became the team's leading scorer.[11] In the low-scoring semifinals of the 1945 NAIA basketball tournament, Loyola fell behind 30–21, before Chollet and team captain John Casteix led the Wolf Pack on a late-game scoring run; they beat Southern Illinois by a single basket.[12] In their final game, Loyola defeated Pepperdine University with Chollet scoring a game-high eighteen points.[13]

His younger brother Hillary Chollet had become a high school football star, recruited by rival colleges Louisiana State University (LSU) and Tulane. After Hillary chose Tulane, the family's genealogy came under increased scrutiny. Louisiana colleges were segregated, and neither Tulane nor Loyola accepted black students.[3] Chollet's Wolf Pack teammates wanted him to stay at Loyola but could not influence the unfolding events.[14] Amidst public rumors of their African ancestry, the Chollet parents endured harassment, the family was ostracized socially, and the children were pushed out of New Orleans' white universities.[15] Hillary went out of state to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Leroy transferred to Canisius, a private Jesuit college in New York. Older brother Al and their parents also moved to New York State after an experience the family described as "being run out of town."[16][3]

Chollet played three seasons for Canisius and became their first player to total 1,000 points.[17] While Chollet was on the team, LSU traveled to New York twice to play against Canisius and lost both times.[3] In the final game of his senior season, Chollet scored 14 to push the school record to 1,117 total points.[18] Chollet was inducted into the Canisius Hall of Fame in 1964,[19] and the Loyola Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993.[1]

Leroy Chollet (center) contesting a shot from Danny Finn in the ABL

Chollet signed with the Syracuse Nationals during the NBA's inaugural season after the BAA and NBL merger.[3][20] In the NBA's early days, the most successful and popular franchises were the smaller Midwest teams that had originated in the NBL.[21] Syracuse was one of the league's smallest markets. One of Chollet's teammates remarked that the State Fair Coliseum, the team's home venue, would get so "smoky you often had real trouble seeing through the haze."[22] The NBA was ostensibly a white league at the beginning, with Wataru Misaka the only openly non-white player.[23][24]

In the NBA, Chollet was a reserve guard tasked with facilitating. No longer a primary scoring option, his role was to set up plays and distribute the ball to the teams' vets.[25] The Nationals were led by future Basketball Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes, all-star Billy Gabor, and player-coach Al "The Digger" Cervi. They made it to the first NBA Finals but fell to the Lakers in six games.[26]

During his time with the Nationals, Chollet feuded with player-coach Al Cervi over playing time.[22][3] Chollet told Cervi that he would make a better coach during an argument. When Cervi responded by making Chollet coach for a game, the rookie benched his own coach.[27] According to teammate Alex Hannum, "Chollet did not send Cervi in until the last 30 seconds or so—about the usual time Cervi sent in Leroy."[22]

For a season, Chollet was player-coach of the Utica Pros, an American Basketball League team that farmed players to larger NBA teams including Syracuse and the New York Knicks.[28] Chollet became a top-scorer in the ABL and was recalled by Syracuse but barely played after an early ankle injury.[29] His last season of professional basketball was with another ABL team, the Elmira Colonels.[30] He announced during the season that he was retiring from professional basketball and hoping to find a stable coaching position.[31][1]

After his professional basketball career, Chollet moved to his wife's hometown, Lakewood, Ohio.[3] Upon learning of the new Catholic high school being built for the area, St. Edward High School, Chollet got a construction job there. He later worked at St. Edwards as a teacher and coach. He was the varsity head coach from 1956 to 1960 and retired in 1985.[32] He was an administrator for community sports programs at the Lakewood Recreation Department from 1960 to 1980 and tended bar at local landmark Kluck's.[33] Chollet died in 1998 and was buried at Milan Cemetery.[34]

Archival photographs
High resolution photographs from the Canisius College Archives
Canisius president, Father Raymond Schouten, presents an award.
Chollet steals the ball from Notre Dame.
Chollet grabs a rebound near the basket.

• ABL statistics from Stats Crew
• Career statistics and player information from NBA.com  and Basketball-Reference.com