Basketball King of England

First he came across the United States, then he went across the pond. Born and raised in San Francisco, Alton Byrd grew up a basketball player, and eventually became a basketball star .... on two continents, no less.

To get in touch with Byrd these days, you need to "ring" London, a place that Alton has called home since the early 1980s along with his wife Joni, and children Alana and Miles. Believe it or not, Byrd's latest venture and you will see that he's had a lot of them during his working life abroad has to do with that strange oval pigskin ball and not the round one that made him famous. But we digress, and starting at the beginning is always a good plan.

As a senior at Riordan High School, Alton Byrd was selected a fifth team All-American basketball player, earning the attentions of Division I programs such as Oklahoma State, Memphis State, California and UCLA. But there was also a school on the "right" coast that coveted the 5-foot-7-inch point guard as well.

"What are you going to do if you break an ankle, or rip your knee up?" was the question asked to him by his mother. "I just decided that if you had the opportunity to go to an Ivy League institution, that those opportunities don't grow on trees."

For Byrd the opportunity came on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the City of New York. At the time of Byrd's cross-country sojourn the fall of 1975 the Ivies still held their freshmen back from varsity play, a policy that finally changed when Byrd was a senior.

"I remember arriving in New York City and being completely daunted by the size of it all," said Byrd. "But I also remember looking at film and meeting Jim McMillian, and thinking this is tradition ... this is history."

You get the feeling the 1975-76 varsity Lions, who went 6-8 in Ivy play and 8-17 overall, might have had a much better season with the outstanding freshman class of Byrd, Ricky Free and Juan Mitchell among others. Better, indeed, as the 1976-77 team went 8-6 in the League and 16-10 overall. More improvement in 1977-78 when the League record shot to 11-3 just one game behind Pennsylvania for the championship and another great year in 1978-79 as Columbia went 17-9 overall and 10-4 in the Ivies.

With the team's success came individual honors. Byrd was three times a first team All-Ivy selection, one of only 12 players so honored in the League's history. Free and Mitchell were named to All-Ivy teams as well Free to the first unit in 1977 and '78, and both men to the second team in 1979. Byrd recalled many special moments of his collegiate career. Most were from his senior year, but he singled out two games in particular.

"The highlight was beating Princeton," said Byrd. "They were so well-drilled, so disciplined, and my senior year we beat them twice. They were nationally recognized as the nation's top defensive team, and that made it extra special."

The First Hint of Foreign Intervention Basketball continued to play an even bigger role in Byrd's life, and so did David Dubow, a 1956 graduate of Columbia Business School and a Londoner.

"At the time, David's company (IMS) was the largest international market research company in the world," said Byrd. "He had no mid-level managers, and he wanted to start an executive training program."

But Dubow also had another holding in which he knew Byrd would have some interest. Dubow was, in the words of Byrd, "the quiet backer" of a basketball club called Crystal Palace. Byrd took the first step by visiting England in 1979, and Dubow told Byrd that if he "fancied" playing basketball while in London that he had a team for him. There were only two problems. One was that Byrd had designs on playing basketball in that three-lettered league on the familiar side of the Atlantic. Drafted in the ninth round by the Boston Celtics, he suffered an unfortunate foot injury the night before rookie camp and never really had a chance to make the team. He had told Dubow that if he didn't make the NBA, he'd accept his offer, but that's where the second problem came in.

"I hated it," Byrd said of his initial feelings towards England. "I arrived here at the end of a Labor government. The country and the economy were in turmoil. And it was a comfort thing. But I have to say that David Dubow, the staff at IMS, and the people at Crystal Palace did their best to make me feel terribly comfortable ... so much so that I was only supposed to be here for a year and I ended up being here for 18.

Crystal Palace went 50-5 during Byrd's rookie year in England. He was Player of the Year in the British professional league in both 1979-80 and 1980-81. Not content to showcase his skills in England, he moved to Scotland following his three years with Palace.

Up north, he played and helped run a sports organization on behalf of David Murray, the owner of Glasgow Rangers (soccer). Murray's basketball team, with Byrd at the controls as player, coach and general manager became the best in the U.K.

In 1987, he crossed back into England for a one-year playing stint with Manchester and finished his career with Kingston. The playing rsum entries were three Player of the Year awards, six all-star team berths, and titles like "the mini-Magic of the U.K." that Sports Illustrated bestowed upon him in an early 1990s article.

Thanks to a shrinking world, courtesy of technology, and basketball's growth in popularity, Byrd feels the United Kingdom might now be about five years away from making the kind of impact on the court that teams from the European continent already have made. Only when pressed did he take some of the credit for that popularity growth.

"I'm happy that I had a chance to play, to teach the sport, to contribute something to it," he said. "We'd always like to have more good players over here, but that takes time. It's not indigenous to the public. But it's a global sport, and I think the people are starting to realize that."

As fascinating as his basketball odyssey is, Byrd's employment career has taken its share of interesting turns. From pharmaceutical research with David Dubow and IMS, he went to Scotland to run a host of different businesses on behalf of David Murray. Included was the opening of a multi-purpose "leisure center" that we might call simply a health club or gym.

"I then decided against all common sense that I wanted to become a broker," Byrd picked up the story. "We moved to Manchester, and I was a stock broker for the next few years in Manchester and then in London. And then I decided to go out on my own and start a sports marketing company."

Alton Byrd Associates now helps run sporting events in the U.K. on behalf of the NBA "Hoop-It-Up" and "NBA Jam 2000" and Major League Baseball "Fan Festival" among others. In the next year or so, Byrd hopes to brand something he calls "Sports America." For the last five years, that has been the title of his weekly radio show on BBC Radio 5, but he hopes to introduce a "Sports America" clothing line in 1999.

The radio gig is part of a 15-year broadcasting career that has included general sports talk and interviews, basketball and tennis commentary, and three Super Bowls. There, we told you we would get 'round to the subject of that oval ball.

The latest challenge in Byrd's business life comes in the position of general manager of the England Monarchs (formerly the London Monarchs) of the World League of American Football. Back in 1991, the Monarchs won the World League championship and, in Byrd's view, "owned London." In his current position since January, 1997, the goal, says Byrd, is to recapture the magic of the 1991 season. The 1998 season begins April 4 and lasts through June 7 with franchises in London, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Scotland.

"The World League has produced some great players," noted Byrd. "A guy by the name of Brad Johnson (now the starter for Minnesota Vikings) was the Monarchs' quarterback two years ago. We had 10 players who were the last cuts of an NFL team this year.

Through almost all of these experiences, Joni and the children have been by Alton's side. He met Joni 16 years ago and married her two years later. Alana soon will be 13, and Miles he was named for the late jazz trumpeter Miles Davis is seven and already says he wants to play basketball at North Carolina. "I told him he's not going to North Carolina, he's going to Columbia," said Byrd. "It's a no-brainer."

What will he tell his son about the Columbia and the Ivy League? "It is the quintessential merger of academia and athletics. There is a great deal of pressure to produce in the classroom. The fact that there are no [athletic] scholarships available makes it even more interesting. I hope that my son understands that it takes a great deal of commitment to succeed at an Ivy League school.

"You can't beat the three forms of education you get at a place like Columbia. One, you get obviously in your curriculum. Secondly, you get the benefit of living in New York City because that in itself is a different education. And thirdly, playing basketball in an inner city school ... you can't get any better pickup games than in New York City. I would say to him, `Here it is. This is the combination of education that you've always wanted.'

"I miss ESPN, and I miss the food and the entertainment," said Byrd of the United States. "On the other hand, I really enjoy the culture here and the opportunity to travel. Here, you're three hours by train from Paris . You're two hours by plane to Spain and Italy, completely different cultures. There's no greater educator than travel."

He says he would love to come back someday under the right set of circumstances. His kids are "beating my door down" to go live in the States. One gets the feeling that Alton Byrd's qualifications and experiences would get him very good luck from those in the colonies.

-- Charles Yrigoyen III

***Please note, this story was written for a previous Ivy League Black History Month celebration. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and has not been updated.***