The White Shadow was a U.S. drama television series that ran on the CBS network from November 27, 1978 to March 16, 1981. It starred Ken Howard as a White ex-NBA basketball player (per the storyline, previously with the Chicago Bulls) who was hired as head basketball coach at Carver Higher School, a mostly Black and Hispanic urban high school in South Central Los Angeles. Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... Dramatic programming is television content that is scripted and (normally) fictional. ... CBS Broadcasting, Inc. ... is the 331st day of the year (332nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar). ... March 16 is the 75th day of the year (76th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... For the British artist, see Ken Howard (artist). ... The National Basketball Association of the United States and Canada, commonly known as the NBA, is the premier professional basketball league in North America. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Produced by Bruce Paltrow for MTM Enterprises, the show stood alongside Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere for their humorous and full treatment of characters. It was a sophisticated forerunner to shows such as Homicide: Life on the Street, The Sopranos, Boomtown and Six Feet Under. On November 8, 2005, this series' first season was released on DVD, with the second season following on March 7, 2006. Television and film producer Bruce Paltrow (November 26, 1943 - October 3, 2002) was born in Brooklyn, New York and studied at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. ... The MTM logo, featuring Mimsie the Cat. ... Hill Street Blues was a serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. ... St. ... Homicide: Life on the Street is an American television drama series chronicling the life of a fictional Baltimore police homicide unit. ... The Sopranos was an American television drama series created by David Chase and originally broadcast on the HBO network. ... Boomtown is a U.S. television action/drama series produced by NBC. Created by Graham Yost, the shows title is a nickname for its setting, Los Angeles. ... Six Feet Under is a critically acclaimed American television drama created by Alan Ball that was originally broadcast from 2001 to 2005. ... is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Size comparison: A 12 cm Sony DVD+RW and a 19 cm Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. ... is the 66th day of the year (67th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The White Shadow was the first ensemble drama on prime-time television with a predominantly African-American cast. Having aired 54 episodes, it is the second-longest running drama with a predominantly African-American cast in the history of American prime-time television. Only Soul Food aired more episodes (although The Wire is expected to pass The White Shadow in March 2008, with the fifth episode of its fifth season). For the type of cuisine, see soul food. ... The Wire is an American television drama set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland. ...

Cast

• Ken Howard - Coach Ken Reeves
• Joan Pringle - Vice Principal (later Principal) Sybil Buchanan
• Jason Bernard - Principal James Willis (pilot episode)
• Ed Bernard - Principal James Willis (Seasons 1 and 2)
• Thomas Carter - James Hayward (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
• Kevin Hooks - Morris Thorpe
• Nathan Cook - Milton Reese (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
• Erik Kilpatrick - Curtis Jackson (Seasons 1 and 2)
• Byron Stewart - Warren Coolidge
• Josiah Schlatter - Fran Dickerson (Season 2)
• Ken Michelman - Abner Goldstein (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
• Timothy Van Patten - Mario "Salami" Pettrino
• Ira Angustain - Ricardo "Go-Go" Gomez (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
• Russell Phillip Robinson - Team Manager Phil Jeffers
• Robin Pearson Rose - Katie Reeves Donahue (Seasons 1 and 2)
• Jerry Fogel - Bill Donahue (Seasons 1 and 2)
• John Mengatti - Nick Vitaglia (Seasons 2 and 3)
• Larry Flash Jenkins - Wardell Stone (Season 3)
• Stoney Jackson - Jesse B. Mitchell (Season 3)
• Wolfe Perry - Teddy Rutherford (Season 3)
• Art Holliday - Eddie Franklin (Season 3)
• John Laughlin - Paddy Falahey (Season 3)
• Roosevelt Grier - Wrestling Coach Ezra Davis (Season 3)

For the British artist, see Ken Howard (artist). ... Jason Bernard (b. ... Thomas Carter is an African-American film and television director known for Swing Kids, Save the Last Dance with Julia Stiles, and Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson. ... Kevin Hooks is an actor, and a televison and film director; he is notable from his roles in Sounder and The White Shadow. ... Nathan Cook (born April 9, 1950, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died June 11, 1988, in Santa Monica, California) was an African-American actor. ... Tim Van Patten (born June 10, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American film director. ... Stonewall W. Jackson (February 27, 1961) is an African-American character actor. ... John Bell Laughlin (December 21, 1879 — 1941) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. ... Roosevelt Rosey Grier (born July 14, 1932 in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Cuthbert, Georgia), a star athlete at Roselle High School(NJ), is an American football player, actor, and Christian minister. ...

Coach Reeves' NBA career

As entertaining as The White Shadow was, the show had its issues with continuity, one of which was Ken Reeves' supposed NBA career. Some examples include:

• In the first season episode "The Offer", Reeves tells Sally Adams, a TV sports reporter, that he was drafted 16th in the NBA Draft out of Boston College by the Chicago Bulls and spent 10 seasons in the starting line-up.
• In another first season episode, "Wanna Bet?", Reeves meets a street-hustling basketball player named Bobby (played by Michael Warren), who seems to recognize him, having followed his whole NBA career. Bobby recites the facts that Reeves played eight years with Chicago, Denver, and Milwaukee, and averaged "a paltry six points per game." Reeves replies that he also played with Detroit. Bobby replies that 'Rick Barry lived off you, man.'
• Several former Chicago Bulls players are mentioned alluding to being teammates of Reeves, and they would fit in with the time frame before the show debuted. Mentioned are Chet Walker, Bob Love, Tom Boerwinkle, and Artis Gilmore.
• In "That Old Gang of Mine", Reeves meets a police lieutenant named Diaz while trying to stop a gang fight that Gomez is involved in. Lt. Diaz says Reeves played with Chicago and Denver and reminds Reeves he lost money betting on the Bulls when he played.
• In "Little Orphan Abner", Reeves tells Goldstein's grandparents that he spent 12 seasons with the Bulls.
• In the second season episode "Links", Reeves tells Bob Beardsley, the owner of the country club, that he spent the last six years of his career with the Bulls.

Michael Warren (Born Gorey, Co. ... Image:Http://www. ... Robert “Butterbean” Love (born December 8, 1942, in Bastrop, Louisiana) is a former professional basketball player who spent the prime of his career with the NBAs Chicago Bulls. ... Thomas F. Boerwinkle (b. ... Artis Gilmore (born September 21, 1948, in Chipley, Florida) is a former professional basketball player in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). ...

Trivia

• The show's title is derived from a statement by Reeves in the last scene of the pilot episode, where he told the members of the team that he would support them and be right behind them, to quote Thorpe, "like a white shadow".
• Reeves graduated from Boston College, where his roommate and best friend was Jim Willis.
• Jason Bernard, who played Jim Willis in the pilot episode and Ed Bernard, who played Jim Willis for the remainder of Season 1 and all of Season 2 are not related.
• Reeves played as a forward for the Chicago Bulls in the less-than-stellar, pre-Michael Jordan years, until knee problems forced his retirement.
• Salami and Vitaglia were cousins.
• Salami's car -- a 1963 Oldsmobile Cutlass -- was nicknamed "The Motel California", probably in tribute to the Eagles' classic 1976 album Hotel California.
• Although the opening credits implied otherwise, Thorpe discarded his eyeglasses at the beginning of Season 2, and began wearing contact lenses.
• John Mengatti had a walk-on role early in Season 2 before debuting as Nick Vitaglia.
• Despite the fact that Carver High was located in South Central (presumably in Watts), there was a level of ethnic diversity among the team:

- Hayward, Thorpe, Reese, Jackson, Coolidge, Stone, Mitchell, Rutherford, Franklin, and team manager Jeffers were African-American

- Salami and Vitaglia were Italian

- Goldstein was Jewish

- Gomez was Mexican

- Falahey was Irish

• During the first two seasons, the original eight players were frequently shown singing in the shower after practice, usually with Reese as the lead singer. Eventually, with the help of the music teacher, they formally organized themselves into a group, singing in harmony reminiscent of 50s and 60s R&B groups. They were known simply as "The Team". While their vocal ranges seemed to change slightly from episode to episode, the first season finale -- "LeGrand Finale" -- firmly established the following:

- Falsetto: Reese (although it is almost certain that his actual range made him a tenor)

- 1st Tenor: Thorpe

- 2nd Tenor: Hayward, Salami, Goldstein

- Baritone: Jackson

- Bass: Coolidge

Gomez was apparently tone deaf, as he was advised to simply lip-synch or play the tambourine.

• Unlike The Partridge Family, the cast of The White Shadow did their own singing during the shower scenes. According to commentary by former cast members on the Season 2 DVD, Nathan Cook (Reese) was clearly the best singer.
• Hayward was apparently the only member of the team to successfully enroll in college (although Coolidge's St. Elsewhere career as an orderly suggests post-high school training of some sort).
• Only Thorpe, Coolidge, and Salami were on the team for the entire series.
• For six seasons, Byron Stewart brought his character to the drama St. Elsewhere, where Coolidge worked as an orderly in a Boston hospital.
• Thomas Carter (Hayward), Kevin Hooks (Thorpe), and Timonty Van Patten (Salami) all became successful directors in film and television.
  • Carter directed the pilot episode for Miami Vice, and has won 3 Emmy awards. His films include Coach Carter (about a high school basketball team), and Save the Last Dance.
  • Hooks, also an Emmy award winner, has an extensive resume, including directorial work on 21 Jump Street, Homicide: Life on the Street, 24, Lost, and the film Passenger 57.
  • Van Patten directed multiple episodes of The Sopranos and Sex and the City. He is also a co-writer of the acclaimed "Pine Barrens" episode from Season 3 of The Sopranos.
• Future film director Carl Franklin (Devil in a Blue Dress, Out of Time) appears in the second season finale as a musician involved in an altercation with Reese and Hayward.
• Angustain bears a strong resemblance to Freddie Prinze, and portrayed the comedian/actor in the 1979 TV movie Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze, co-starring Kevin Hooks.
• Kevin Hooks and Erik Kilpatrick were friends long before The White Shadow, due to the friendship of their fathers, actors Robert Hooks and Lincoln Kilpatrick.
• When the series premiered in 1978, Nathan Cook (Reese) was 28 years old, while Timothy Van Patten (Salami) was 19.
• Although he was in almost every episode, Russell Phillip Robinson (Jeffers) rarely spoke, as high school basketball team managers are usually seen and not heard.
• While the team flirted with drug use in one episode, it was clearly established in others that Jackson was a recovering alcoholic, and that Jeffers had been recovering from drug addiction since age 12.
• Nearly two decades before schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau seduced her student Vili Fualaau, history teacher Ellen Jensen seduced Salami in the second-season episode "Salami's Affair".
• Stoney Jackson (Mitchell) is a part of pop music history. In 1983, he was one of the dancers (gang members) in Michael Jackson's Beat It, one of the most popular music videos of all time.
• In 1988, Nathan Cook died from an allergic reaction to penicillin. Prior to that, he appeared in the entire run of the Aaron Spelling drama Hotel.
• Wolfe Perry (Rutherford) was a star basketball player at Stanford University in the late 1970s.
• Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier (Coach Davis) played professional football in the NFL from 1955 to 1966. He was serving as a bodyguard for his friend presidential candidate Robert Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968. Grier and Olympic gold medalist Rafer Johnson subdued the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, with Grier jamming his thumb behind the trigger of the gun to prevent further shots from being fired.
• Hill Street Blues actor Michael Warren appeared in the first-season episode "Wanna Bet?" as a basketball street hustler. Warren was an excellent basketball player, having been an All-American at UCLA, where he was a teammate of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and won two NCAA championship titles.
• Also making a brief appearance in the episode "Wanna Bet" is Dennis Haysbert, who gets hustled on the court by Mike Warren.
• In Season 1's "Spare the Rod", future Broadway superstar Brian Stokes Mitchell (in his first credited acting role) portrays a troublemaking student, in an episode depicting both student-on-teacher abuse and attempted rape.
• In the early 2000s, Ken Howard and Byron Stewart appeared as Reeves and Coolidge in a TV commercial for ESPN.
• The Season 3 replacement of Hayward, Reese, Goldstein, Gomez, and Jackson with newcomers Stone, Mitchell, Rutherford, Franklin, and Falahey is considered to be the series' "jump the shark" moment.
• Arguably, Coolidge's sustained presence on St. Elsewhere places The White Shadow firmly within the Tommy Westphall universe.
• Uniform numbers worn by the players:

- Coolidge-45

- Thorpe-11

- Hayward-21

- Reese-24 in most episodes, 12 in some

- Jackson/Wardell Stone-34

- Goldstein/Eddie Franklin-31

- Gomez/Paddy Falahey-15

- Salami-3

- Vitaglia-51

• Players' mothers names:

- Coolidge-Elizabeth

- Hayward-Roberta

- Reese-Reba

- Goldstein-Ida (grandmother)

- Thorpe-Wanda

• The show was one of the first MTM shows to use a variant of its Mimise the MTM Kitten logo, showing a black-and-white cat dribbling a basketball. However, the logo has been cut out of the show since Twentieth Century Fox acquired the rights to the MTM video library.

For similarly-named academic institutions, see Boston (disambiguation). ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... For other persons named Michael Jordan, see Michael Jordan (disambiguation). ... Retirement is the point where a person stops employment. ... 1963 Oldsmobile The Oldsmobile Cutlass was an automobile made by the Oldsmobile division of General Motors. ... “The Eagles” redirects here. ... This article is about the album. ... Watts is a residential district in southern Los Angeles, California. ... Bathroom singing, also known as singing in the bathroom, singing in the bath, or singing in the shower is a widespread phenomenon. ... Rhythm and blues (or R & B) is a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Billboard magazine. ... Falsetto is a singing technique that produces sounds that are pitched higher than the singers normal range, in the treble range. ... A tenor is a singer with a voice range from approximately C3 (one octave below middle C) to A4 (above middle C) in choral music, or to tenor C (C5, one octave above middle C) or higher in operatic music (see voice type). ... A tenor is a singer with a voice range from approximately C3 (one octave below middle C) to A4 (above middle C) in choral music, or to tenor C (C5, one octave above middle C) or higher in operatic music (see voice type). ... Baritone (French: ; German: ; Italian: ) is most commonly the type of male voice that lies between bass and tenor. ... A bass (or basso in Italian) is a male singer who sings in the deepest vocal range of the human voice. ... A person who is tone deaf lacks relative pitch, the ability to discriminate between notes. ... Lip synchronization is the synchronization of audio signals (sometimes with corresponding video signals) so that there is no noticeable lack of simultaneity between them. ... The Partridge Family was an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children living in San Pueblo, a small fictional town in Northern California, originally broadcast on ABC from 1970 to 1974. ... St. ... For the 2006 movie, see Miami Vice (film). ... Coach Carter is a 2005 film, directed by Thomas Carter. ... Save the Last Dance is a motion picture produced by MTV Films, directed by Thomas Carter, written by Duane Adler, and released by Paramount Pictures on January 12, 2001. ... 21 Jump Street was an hour long police drama television series, developed by Fox Television Network. ... Homicide: Life on the Street is an American television drama series chronicling the life of a fictional Baltimore police homicide unit. ... For other uses, see 24 (disambiguation). ... Lost is an Emmy Award and Golden Globe-winning American serial drama television series that follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a passenger jet flying between Australia and the United States crashes somewhere in the South Pacific. ... Passenger 57 is a 1992 action film starring Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne. ... The Sopranos was an American television drama series created by David Chase and originally broadcast on the HBO network. ... Sex and the City is a popular American cable television program. ... Episode chronology Pine Barrens is the 37th episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos. ... Carl Franklin (born April 11, 1949 in Richmond, California) is an African-American film director and actor. ... Devil in a Blue Dress is a 1995 neo-noir film directed by Carl Franklin. ... Out of Time is a 2003 thriller film, directed by Carl Franklin. ... Frederick Karl Pruetzel (22 June 1954 – 29 January 1977), better known as “Freddie Prinze” was an American stand-up comedian and actor. ... Robert Dean Hooks (April 18, 1937 in Washington, DC) is an African American actor. ... Letourneaus photo from the Washington State Sex Offender Information Center, taken upon her release from prison, August 4, 2004. ... Vili Fualaau (born June 26, 1983), of Samoan-American descent became famous when at the age of 13 he repeatedly gave simple consent to sexual intercourse with his then-33-year-old teacher Mary Kay Letourneau. ... Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958), commonly known as MJ as well as the King of Pop, is an American musician, entertainer, and pop icon whose successful career and controversial personal life have been a part of pop culture for the last three decades. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Aaron Spelling (April 22, 1923 – June 23, 2006) was an American film and television producer. ... The television drama Hotel aired on ABC from 1983 to 1988. ... “Stanford” redirects here. ... NFL redirects here. ... Robert Kennedy Robert Francis Bobby Kennedy, also called RFK (November 20, 1925&#8211;June 6, 1968) was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, and was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration. ... Rafer Lewis Johnson (born August 18, 1935) is a former American decathlete. ... This article is about Robert F. Kennedys assassin. ... Hill Street Blues was a serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. ... Michael Warren (born March 5, 1946 in South Bend, Indiana) is an American TV actor and former college basketball player, best known for playing Officer Bobby Hill on the NBC television series Hill Street Blues. ... An All-America team is a sports team composed of star players. ... The University of California, Los Angeles (generally known as UCLA) is a public university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. ... For the football player, see Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar. ... The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA, often pronounced N-C-Double-A or N-C-Two-A ) is a voluntary association of about 1,200 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States. ... Dennis Dexter Haysbert (born June 2, 1954) is an American film and television actor. ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ... Brian Stokes Mitchell (b. ... ESPN/ESPN-DT, formerly an acronym for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, is an [[United States|Amer<nowiki>Insert non-formatted text here--68. ... The infamous moment when Fonzie jumps over a shark while on water skis. ... St. ... Tommy Westphall, portrayed by Chad Allen, is a minor character from the television series, St. ...

External links

• Carver Chat - White Shadow fan message board
• The White Shadow at the Internet Movie Database
• The White Shadow - episode guide
• Tim's TV Showcase - THE WHITE SHADOW
• The White Shadow TV Show - The White Shadow Television Show - TV.com