Earl Francis Lloyd was born on April 3rd, 1928 in Alexandria, Virginia. He was a great man, and a great basketball player, too. He was such a great player that he had over 200 scholarship offers from around the country. But, from all the offers he had to chose from, he decided to go to West Virginia State. There was only one other player on the team that was his color. Earl had never interacted with another person who did not look like him until he was an adult. Not many people respected him, but the coach at WVS certainly did. Coach treated Earl no different than any other player on his team. Throughout Lloyd's years in college, as he progressed, he became a great enough player to play in the pros, but a black player was never considered to be an athlete. Everything changed when he got drafted to the Syracuse Nationals, becoming the first African American to ever play in an NBA game. Not only was he the first African American to play in an NBA game, he was also the first African American Assistant Coach for the Detroit Pistons. Earl Lloyd currently lives in Fairfield Glade, Tennessee with his wife, Charlita.