Basketball pioneer Earl Lloyd, the first African American to play in the National Basketball Association, says he’s “in a reminiscing stage” and “extremely retired.”

Dear Mr. Johnson: I currently serve with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). As an agency, ATF descended from the Bureau of Prohibition. Along with 184 other ATF agents, Prohibition Agent Major A. Hart is memorialized both at ATF’s National Headquarters Building in Washington, D.C. and on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. We are writing an article about him for ATF’s newsletter as well as for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement (NOBLE) 2010 conference in Baltimore, MD. I have joined the Black Fives website and collected the pieces written about Agent Hart which I am using for the article. I am looking for more information on him, and perhaps even a quote from you to deepen our understanding of who he was. With your help, I would also like to include a photograph of him; unfortunately, there is no photograph of him in his service file. Please contact us at your earliest convenience either by phone or email. Thanks in advance.

I’ve obtained a draft version of the A.T.F.’s soon-to-be-published article, and here below is its

The Smart Set Athletic Club, featuring Edwin “Teddy” Horne (seated, far right).

Did you know that Lena Horne was the daughter of Edwin “Teddy” Horne, who played basketball for the Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn? Did you know that the Smart Set basketball team was run by a man named J. Hoffman Woods, who worked as a messenger in New York’s financial district? Did you know that Woods had a co-worker named Will Anthony Madden who became the manager of the St. Christopher Club basketball team that played against Horne and his Smart Set team? Did you know that Madden left the St. Christopher team to form the New York Incorporators, whose a star player was a man named Walter Cooper?

At the time, George Crowe didn’t think too much about. After all, the award was new, and he had other things on his mind.

Arguably the finest athlete in Johnson County history, Crowe had just led Franklin High School to the cusp of a state basketball championship.

Moreover, he was preparing to continue his remarkable athletics career in college.

As a result, he doesn’t remember how or when he learned that he had been selected Indiana’s first-ever Mr. Basketball.

The year was 1939.

Only later, much later, would Crowe fully appreciate the significance of being the first recipient of the state’s highest individual basketball award.

“It’s still an honor for me,” said Crowe, 89, who at the time was more thrilled about playing in the state finals than being named Mr. Basketball. “The runner-up (finish in) the state championship was an honor for all of us.”

Seventy-one years after winning the Mr. Basketball award, Crowe still thinks of it in team terms as opposed to an individual accomplishment.

Then again, he’s never been comfortable talking about his athletic achievements, of which there are many.

Before the NBA was desegregated, there were the Black Fives.

There’s a good 50-year gap in the story of basketball’s evolution. We go from the game’s invention late in the 19th century and fast forward to the NBA’s late-1940s inception. In the interim, though, there were the Black Fives (teams were called “fives” in reference to their five starters).

The team and its players on this vintage photograph of an African American basketball team from 1931 remain unidentified in history, other than speculation about what “N.C.T.S.” stand for — perhaps “North Carolina Training School.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMY49jJBbnc

It’s at the corner of Knickerbocker and Woodbine Avenues in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York. On the next block,

I thought yesterday’s feature about the Black Fives Era, which aired on the ESPN show “Outside The Lines” was really great.