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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Drama
    Drama TV Shows - 1970s TV Shows - 1980s 2 Mins Read

    White Shadow, The

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    1 9 7 8 – 1 9 8 1 (USA)

    This drama series focused on Ken Reeves (Ken Howard), a one-time professional basketball player with the Chicago Bulls.

    A succession of knee injuries had forced him out of the game, and he took up a job as basketball coach at Carver High School in Los Angeles.

    Carver High was an inner-city school with lots of problems, not just among the kids. It was a hard job, especially for someone unfamiliar with street-wise kids and coaching them in a game he knew best as a player.

    Ken could have earned more doing something else – as his sister Katie (Robin Rose) kept reminding him – but he found greater satisfaction working with these teenagers.

    Ken’s old friend Jim Willis (Ed Bernard) was Carver’s principal, and Sybil Buchanan (Joan Pringle) was the vice principal (and occasional thorn in Ken’s side) who became principal in 1980.

    The show focused mainly on members of Ken’s basketball team, although The White Shadow was more than just a basketball show. It was also the story of young people and their adjustments to life in an often hostile world.

    Within the framework of a high school basketball team were stories of personal conflict, drug problems, teenage crime, and the dangers in a tough area – in the spring of 1980 one of Ken’s players, Curtis Jackson (Eric Kilpatrick), was shot to death while witnessing a liquor store hold-up.

    As in real life, students moved on, and in the spring of 1980, after the team won the LA City Basketball Championship, several players graduated from Carver and were replaced by new players in the fall.

    The series treated its subjects sympathetically and with a high degree of realism, and was lauded by educational organisations although its audience size remained marginal throughout its run.

    Ken Reeves 
    Ken Howard
    Jim Willis 

    Ed Bernard
    Sybil Buchanan 

    Joan Pringle
    James Hayward 

    Thomas Carter
    Morris Thorpe 

    Kevin Hooks
    Katie Donahue 

    Robin Rose
    Bill Donahue 

    Jerry Fogel
    Curtis Jackson 

    Eric Kilpatrick
    Milton Reese 

    Nathan Cook
    Ricky ‘Go-Go’ Gomez 

    Ira Augustain
    Warren ‘Cool’ Coolidge 

    Byron Stewart
    Mario ‘Salami’ Pettrino: 

    Timothy Van Patten
    Ezra Davis

    Roosevelt Grier
    Eddie Franklin

    Art Holliday
    Jesse Mitchell
    Stoney Jackson
    Wardell Stone

    Larry Flash Jenkins
    Paddy Falahey

    John Laughlin
    Nick Vatalgia

    John Mengatti
    Abner Goldstein

    Ken Michelman
    Teddy Rutherford

    Wolfe Perry
    Phil Jefferson

    Russell Phillip Robinson
    Katie Donahue

    Robin Pearson Rose

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