Weldon Bradshaw: Remembering Clyde 'The Glide' Austin
On a cold Friday night in January 1975, Jack Berninger, who at the time oversaw prep coverage for the Richmond News Leader, dispatched me to George Wythe High School to cover the Bulldogs’ boys basketball game with Maggie Walker.
Though I’d learned never to predetermine the story line, my instructions were clear: write about somebody other than the Green Dragons’ 6-2 superstar guard Clyde “The Glide” Austin.
A junior that season, Austin was very much a household name among sports aficionados in Central Virginia. He was an uncannily quick, prodigiously talented human highlight reel who could do pretty much everything: shoot (and, man, could he shoot!), play defense, deal assists, energize his team, and bring the fans, even those partisan to Maggie Walker’s opponents, to their feet every time he worked his magic, which was often.
We’ve written plenty about him, Jack reminded me. There’re other players on that team. Do your best to write about some of them.
Always eager to find the story behind the story or take an unconventional approach, I readily agreed. I was fired up and ready for the challenge.
Richmond Free Press
The Wythe gym was already rocking when I arrived around halftime of the JV game. There wasn’t an empty seat in the bleachers. Fans were lined up outside waiting to get in. This will be the fire marshal’s nightmare, I recall thinking.
Once I copied the rosters out of the scorebook, Dick Ernsberger, Wythe’s athletic director, pointed me toward a spot against the wall along the baseline on the side of the court opposite the team benches.
For the next 90 minutes or so, that’s where I would stand, shoulder-to-shoulder with a couple of big guys in this crammed-in-like-sardines throng. How will I keep a play-by-play and take notes while being jostled from both sides? I wondered.
The atmosphere was nothing short of electric, and the teams were still warming up.
Back in the ‘70’s, high school basketball was a slower, more deliberate game than the pedal-to-the-metal, baseline-to-baseline version that’s prevalent now. This game, though, began at a furious pace, which was no surprise considering the players’ competitive drive and talent, the high decibel level, and the passion and emotion palpable amongst both squads’ faithful supporters.
As the game unfolded, it was clear that Coach Pierce Callaham’s guys from Maggie Walker were on fire. Seriously on fire, actually.
Austin scored the Green Dragons’ first five points. The first two came on a steal near midcourt and an uncontested layup. Another steal seconds later resulted in another layup. This time, he drew a foul and deftly converted the and-one.
He scored 13 points in the first quarter enabling the Dragons to take a 26-19 lead into the second. He added 14 more by the half to propel his guys to a 48-37 lead.
Early on, the Bulldogs tried to match up man-to-man but switched to a 3-2 zone in the second period in hopes of somehow containing Austin, who was letting it fly quite successfully from (literally) the 25- to 30-foot range. This, of course, was more than a decade before the 3-point line became standard in high school basketball.
The Bulldogs also applied some 2-2-1 full court pressure in an attempt to force turnovers and create quick transition buckets, but to no avail.
“All you have to do against a man-to-man is move around a lot, and you’ll get open all the time,” Austin said in the post-game interview. “And that zone: I wish they’d played it the whole night.”
Focusing on setting up teammates, he scored “just” seven points in the third period. Though Walker entered the fourth up 69-56, the Bulldogs still had a shot.
“When he stops shooting, our offense goes dead,” said his coach, Pierce Callaham. “He had to shoot the ball. The other kids want him to shoot.”
Austin scored 17 in the fourth quarter to finish with 51 points. The final two came when he received a pass near midcourt following a deflection, headed toward the basket, faked left to evade two defenders, drove right, and from just inside the foul line began his ascent and eased a soft, two-handed layup over the rim.
Though the Dragons shot an otherworldly 44-for-58 and Rudy “Reject” Cunningham, their 6-9 center, contributed 16 points, 13 rebound, and nine blocks, Austin was the story.
When the News Leader published the next afternoon, the first line of the headline read “Super Glide” and the second, “Clyde in Overdrive for 51 Points.”
On this night of nights, Austin connected on 22 of 27 field goal attempts. He was also credited with five steals and 11 assists.
“He doesn’t want to shoot,” said Callaham. “He’s just so nice. He has a great attitude. He’d rather pass the ball. I have to keep telling him, ‘Shoot the ball! Shoot the ball!’ I don’t believe he touched the rim on most of his shots. Man, he can shoot that basketball.”
The Richmonder is powered by your donations. For just $9.99 a month, you can join the 1,000+ donors who are keeping quality local journalism alive in Richmond.
