To know Larry “Gator” Rivers ’73 is to know basketball.
From the time he was an eighth-grader playing on a high school varsity team, to a college standout, to a 16-year career with the Harlem Globetrotters, to serving as a coach and a mentor; for Rivers, it’s always been about basketball.
“I play every day,” the 64-year-old said. “When God blesses you with a beautiful talent, you give it back.”
“One of the best ball handlers he’s ever seen”
Rivers, a native of Savannah, Ga., was a 14 year-old outstanding ball handler (already known as “Gator”) when he caught the attention of Russell Ellington, Savannah’s Alfred Ely Beach High School coach. He wanted Rivers to play on his high school team, but Rivers had other ideas. “I was just as good at pool as I was at basketball, so I quit school and was running a pool room,” he said with a laugh.
The coach convinced Rivers’ mom to let the youth live with him for his high school years, and Ellington got him back in school and on the basketball team. “He changed my life,” Rivers says today.
Rivers was a star player at Moberly Junior College in Moberly, Mo., a national basketball championship contender, when Gary Filbert was hired as men’s basketball coach for the new four-year Missouri Western. The coach wanted to make a name for the new college and thought Rivers would be a good addition to the team.
But again, Rivers had other ideas. “I did not want to go to Missouri Western; in my mind it was still a junior college,” he said. “If I got something in the mail from Missouri Western, I threw it away.”
Filbert didn’t give up. He found out that, from the time Rivers saw the Harlem Globetrotters perform when he was 7 years old, his dream was to play for the team. When Rivers finally came for a campus visit, Filbert introduced him to the man who promoted the Harlem Globetrotters in the Midwest. “He told me, ‘Gary (Filbert) tells me you’re one of the best ball handlers he’s ever seen. If you come to Missouri Western, I’ll do everything in my power to get you a tryout with the Harlem Globetrotters,’” Rivers said.
He transferred to Missouri Western in the spring of 1971 and got invited to the Globetrotters summer camp before he had even dribbled a basketball for the Griffons. But Rivers had two more years of college eligibility and he wanted to use them, so he stayed and helped the Griffons make a name for the new four-year college.
The team went 27-2 in the 1972-73 season. “It was fun experience. We all got along extremely well,” Rivers says. “We had a tremendous team – the tallest team in the nation.”
Rivers says the sweetest victory in his Missouri Western career was beating Loyola University in Chicago by one point.
“I will always hold Missouri Western in my heart,” he said. “It helped me reach my goals.”
The Harlem Globetrotters
Rivers played two years at Missouri Western, although the Globetrotters again invited him to try out after his first year as a Griffon. He finally joined the famous team in 1973.
After two years, he was cut from the Globetrotters and returned to Missouri Western to work. Then the Globetrotters called again, and Rivers played with them another 14 years.
“It was the greatest experience I ever had; it was a dream come true,” he says. “There’s no greater education than touring the world. God blessed me with that opportunity.”
He traveled all over the United States, including Madison Square Garden in New York City and even to China; and he appeared on several television shows with the team.
Rivers moved back to St. Joseph after he retired from the Globetrotters and coached at area high schools for several years before moving to his hometown in 2008.
While in St. Joseph, he began Gatorball Academy, where he gave lessons in both basketball and life. He continues to mentor and coach youth at Gatorball Academy in Savannah, Ga. today. Rivers says he does it to keep himself sharp in ball handling, but he also enjoys being a mentor for the youth.
“Legacy Forgotten”
His love of the game led him to his latest project – he is executive producer of a documentary about his high school, Alfred Ely Beach High School, a black high school that opened its doors in 1867. Rivers is working with Miller Bargeron Jr., of We Came to Conquer Entertainment and also an alumnus of Beach, on the film that has a working title of “Legacy Forgotten.”
Bargeron said they wanted to tell the story of Beach because of all the prominent alumni, including the last two mayors of Savannah, a university president, and several doctors, lawyers and ministers. Throughout most of its history, the school was the center of the Black community, and many of the teachers there were alumni.
The documentary is about the school environment that produced the successful alumni, and Bargeron and Rivers decided that its basketball history made a great focal point for the film. “At the heart of it, is the basketball story,” Bargeron said.
And what a story it is.
Beach had always had great basketball teams, even making it to the black high schools’ national tournament many years. But in the 1966-67 school year, the white high school state basketball tournament in Georgia became integrated, and black high schools now competed for the championship with the white high schools.
When the state tournament was down to the championship game, the two teams playing were from black high schools, both from Savannah. One was Beach, and Rivers was a sophomore on the team. The Beach team that year, which Rivers calls “the greatest high school team in Georgia history,” finished with a 29-1 record and took home the trophy with a 39-point win over the second-place team.
It was the first time in 20 years that a team from Savannah had won the state championship. Beach was even featured in a “Sports Illustrated” article.
“This was a great place to start the documentary,” Bargeron said. “Gator’s team stood on the shoulders of all teams before them.”
The documentary is scheduled for release this summer. “It’s been great working with Gator,” Bargeron said. “He has so many stories, and he has turned his life experiences into helping others.”
And Rivers’ plans for the future? He hopes to open a Gullah restaurant and continue to expand the community garden that was started several years ago. He is also involved in a neighborhood renovation project. Oh, and play basketball. Every day.
After our interview, Rivers walked me to my car and we visited a little more. Then he turned around and walked back to his office. Dribbling and handlin’ the round ball the entire way.
Gary Filbert: Four-year Missouri Western’s First Basketball Coach
When Gary Filbert was hired as the first basketball coach for the four-year Missouri Western College, he had to work extra hard to make Missouri Western known.
“No one knew who we were and we had to recruit,” said Athletic Director Charlie Burri ’55. “Even the conferences didn’t know us.”
So Burri hired Filbert, a St. Joseph native who had played basketball for the University of Missouri-Columbia and was currently coaching high school basketball in Mexico, Mo. “He was well known in the state, active in basketball organizations, and we knew he could recruit in the area and the state,” Burri said.
At the end of the first season as a four-year college, 1969-70, the team had compiled an 11-14 record, but the next season, the team finished 14-13 and earned a berth in the NAIA regional.
Filbert coached at Missouri Western until he was hired as assistant coach at University of Missouri-Columbia in 1981. He compiled a 196-174 record.
“Gary did a tremendous job; he was a good coach,” Burri said. “He was our first coach at the four-year level, and that is a tough row to hoe.”
After leaving Missouri Western, Filbert became known for his role in starting the Show-Me State Games and the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association. He also helped start the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, and he was inducted into the Hall and has an award named in his honor.
Larry “Gator” Rivers, who played for Filbert in the early 1970s, said one of the things the coach taught him was that basketball could be a lifetime sport. Indeed, Filbert played the game his entire life, even being named Senior All-American in 2000. He passed away in April 2011 at the age of 81.
“Coach Filbert did a lot for us,” Rivers said. “He worked hard to get Missouri Western on the map.”
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