William Falls, who last coached boys on local basketball courts more than 45 years ago, has been inducted posthumously into the Kentucky Basketball Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony Saturday at Elizabethtown recognizes Falls’ record – 663 wins to 233 loses – as head coach at Attucks High School and his enduring influence even now in the lives of his players. The Attucks Wolves won two state titles in the Kentucky High School Athletic League Championships and four times advanced to a national tournament for black schools during segregation.
“Within the African-American circle, Coach Falls was a giant among coaches, and there were many giants,” said Wendell Lynch. “He was iconic. The support (for him) never waned.”
Falls was the head coach at Attucks from 1935-1967, and when the African-American school closed and local schools were integrated, he was assigned to be an assistant coach at Hopkinsville High School.
On Dec. 13, 1973, Falls and one of his players died when a train hit his car on the LaFayette Road tracks near Country Club Lane. He was driving three students home from school.
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The Associated Press reported his death, and the story ran in papers across Kentucky.
“That was his trademark, taking them home,” then-Hopkinsville High athletic director Fleming Thornton said in the wire story. “Young kids that didn’t have transportation, he’d take them home. He’d do anything to help young people.”
Falls, whose players called him “Chief,” often had several boys packed into his station wagon after practice, Lynch recalled.
Some of those players, including Lynch, his brother Larry Lynch, and Otis Diuguid, attended the induction ceremony Saturday.
A hall of fame ring was presented to members of Pioneers, the African American men’s service organization in Hopkinsville. Falls was a founding member of the Pioneers. Lynch said the group plans to give the hall of fame ring to the Museum of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County so it will stay with other artifacts from Attucks.
In addition to Falls, the 2019 class of the Kentucky Basketball Hall of Fame includes: Charles Hurt (Shelby County, 1976-1979), Charles Thomas (Harlan, 1991-1995), Steve Miller (Henry Clay, 1982-1984), Scott Draud (Highlands, 1982-1986), Sammy Moore (Central, 1949-1952), Nell Fookes (Boone County, 1988-2018), Curtis Turley (Henderson County, 1976-2011), Robin Harmon (Sheldon Clark, 1974-1978), Irene Moore (Breathitt County, 1974-1978), Doug Schloemer (Covington Holmes, 1974-1978), Rick Jones (Scott County, 1995-1999).
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
