The Delaware Blue Coats continue their preparation for the NBA G League playoffs Friday night against the Fort Wayne Mad Ants at Wilmington’s Chase Fieldhouse.
But before and during that game, some of their distinguished predecessors will be recognized.
These Blue Coats would love to accomplish what they did when G League playoffs commence next week.
The Wilmington Blue Bombers were Eastern Professional Basketball League members from 1963-71, frequently filling the Salesianum School gym for games and prepping a slew of players for promotion to the NBA.
The Bombers won back-to-back league titles in 1966 and 1967, cementing their legacy as part of Delaware sports lore.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Nate Cloud, the former Conrad High and University of Delaware standout who played 118 games for the Blue Bombers after being drafted by the New York Knicks.
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That history will be recognized as part of Friday’s 7 p.m. game, which has been designated Wilmington Blue Bombers Tribute Night. About 10 former players plus others associated with the team will be recognized.
“It was fabulous,” said Lou Romanoli, who was general manager of the Blue Bombers during part of their existence. “Sunday night at Salesianum in those years was the place to be. The place was rocking. It was packed, sometimes turn-away crowds.”
The game played by those Blue Bombers was highly competitive. The NBA had just 8 to 10 teams during that period and used 10-man rosters.
Today, the NBA has 30 teams with 15-man rosters, meaning nearly every Eastern League player of the 1960s likely would have been on NBA squads today.
“The 100th or 101st best player was playing in Wilmington or Scranton or Wilkes-Barre,” Romanoli said. “On top of that, some of the guys in the NBA weren’t as good as the guys we had but they were in the NBA because they were white.”
NBA teams in the 1960s still had racial quotas limiting the number of Black players on teams, even though the league had Black players since the early 1950s and its stars included Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson.
“In contrast to the NBA, race did not seem to be a significant factor in determining who made it into the Eastern League,” Syl Obel and Jay Rosenstein wrote in “Boxed Out of the NBA,” their book on the league’s history published in 2021.
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Waite Bellamy, a product of historically Black Florida A&M and the star of those Blue Bombers title teams, told the authors that the NBA “didn’t give us so much of a chance.”
That was a boon to teams such as the Blue Bombers.
Bellamy averaged 30 points per game in the 1967 playoffs. He scored 53 when the Blue Bombers beat the Scranton Miners 143-110 in the deciding fifth game of the championship series in front of what The News Journal called a “standing-room only” crowd of 1,658 at Salesianum.
That crowd “cheered itself hoarse over the memorable triumph,” Matt Zabitka wrote.
Afterward, league president Harry Rudolph told Zabitka “The Bombers could have beaten almost any team in the NBA with the show they put on.”
In addition to the Miners, the Blue Bombers enjoyed other passionate rivalries with foes such as the Allentown Jets, Wilkes-Barre Barons, Sunbury Mercuries and Trenton Colonials.
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Players earned roughly $100 for each game playing on Saturdays and Sundays, with most working full-time jobs during the week. Cloud played for the Blue Bombers while starting a long career as a DuPont Co. engineer and also serving two years with the U.S. Army stationed in Washington, D.C.
“Life was simple in those days,” Cloud said. “I think I played my best at that time. It was great. I loved it.
“We had a few skirmishes at Salesianum. I used to get into with Walter Dukes and I was doing my best to keep him from getting under the basket.”
Dukes was a 7-footer who played in the NBA from 1955-63 and then completed his career with five Eastern League seasons.
Some players were striving to get to the NBA or had already been there and were trying to extend their careers. But the Eastern League was competitive enough, Cloud said, that many simply relished the opportunity to play and “wanted to put down some roots.”
The Blue Coats will don throwback uniforms with “Wilmington” across the front as an homage to those forerunners. The jerseys are being sold in an online auction with proceeds benefitting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Delaware.
“The game of basketball has a long and accomplished history in Wilmington,” Blue Coats president Larry Meli said. “Our Blue Coats in the NBA G League carry the legacy of those that came before them.”
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