Cheesy Grits: Granddad Ralston's Amateur Years: The Smart Set AC

Brooklyn's Smart Set Athletic Club was founded sometime around 1904, largely to promote a new game that was rapidly gaining ground among urban African Americans: basketball. According to the New York Age, Smart Set fielded its first basketball team in 1905, with their home court being the 14th Regiment Armory in South Slope. (The sport of basketball was introduced to African Americans in 1904 by Washington DC's Edwin Henderson, a physical education instructor who had learned the game as a student at Harvard.)

Smart Set AC was soon joined by other black athletic clubs, including Harlem's St. Christopher Club and Brooklyn's Marathon AC, to form New York's first black basketball league, the Olympian Athletic League,  in 1907. The first recorded game was played on 13 November 1907 between St. Christopher and Marathon at the Knickerbocker Court on Gates Avenue just off Knickerbocker.

Although the focus of the Smart Set AC was basketball, they also fielded track teams, as we have seen. Granddad Ralston wasn't particularly tall, but he was fast. The fact that he focused on track doesn't mean that he wasn't also interested in basketball, but he was first known as a track star.

In fact, on 13 July 1911 the New York Age reported on the Knights of St. Anthony games held on 9 July, identifying George Ralston as the "...new '100 yard find' of the Smart Set A.C...." Granddad George won his heat and came in 4th in the finals: he was clearly making a name for himself on one of New York City's premier track teams.

And here emerges a second interesting point: the meet I reported on in the previous post was held between black teams only. The Knights of St. Anthony AC in the above report appears to have been a white club fielding a white team—and indeed, reports of track meets in the New York Age regularly mention the presence of white teams such as the New York Athletic Club, the Irish Athletic Club, and so on.

The real coup for Smart Set AC was in February 1914 when they became the first African American club to be admitted to the New York's Metropolitan Association of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU).  The New York Age announced the news with a banner headline: "SMART SET ATHLETIC CLUB IS ADMITTED TO THE A.A.U." The article reproduced the full text of the acceptance letter:

It was truly a feather in Smart Set's cap and the Age spared few superlatives in congratulating the club.

Black athletes were competing so regularly and with such success against white athletes that the august New York Times took note of their performance in an article dated 18 Oct 1914, under the headline "Negro Athletes Win Many Honors." The article specifically mentions the role played by the Smart Set AC in fostering excellence in open competition.

Although the Times piece maintained a careful social reserve, the fact remains that track and field was leading the way toward integrated sports competition. Results of track meets were presented with no asterisks or parentheses identifying the race of the competitors. It was "Runner A came in first; Runner B, second; and Runner C, third." The aggregated teams results were presented the same way: the New York A.C. had so many points; Smart Set AC had so many, and the Irish-American AC had so many.

Granddad Ralston was of course a member of the Smart Set AC when this formal recognition occurred. In fact, he was not only a member, his organizational skills were already coming to the fore, as he had been elected manager of Smart Set's track team as early as 1913.

Granddad was re-elected track team manager in 1914, as was announced in the first paragraph of the report in the 3 Dec 1914 New York Age. The second paragraph of the announcement, which names the Board of directors, also turns out to be...interesting:

The Board of directors includes "Counselor Philip M. Thorne." Counselor Thorne was Granddad Ralston's mother's first cousin. Born in Charleston to Philip and Susan Thorne,  Counselor Thorne had gone off to Yale Law School after graduating from Charleston's Avery Institute. He graduated from Yale Law in 1909 and came to New York City to set up his practice. He seems to have lived with members of his Uncle Weston and Aunt Lettie Thorne's family in Brooklyn. He did some work for the NAACP Legal Committee, was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Alumni Association, and practiced general law as well. I don't know what became of Counselor Thorne: he simply drops off the map some time between 1916 and 1920, with not even a death certificate in the records. The influenza epidemic? Who knows?

There are two other names that caught my eye: Oscar A. Scottron and Edwin F. Horne, Sr. Both names are associated with one of the great names in American show biz: Miss Lena Horne. Edwin F. Horne, Sr., turns out to be Miss Horne's grandfather—although she didn't make her inaugural appearance in Brooklyn until 1917—and Oscar A. Scottron seems to be a cousin to Miss Horne's mother, Edna L. Scottron.

I don't doubt that the other names represent pillars of Brooklyn's African American community as well. That I don't know who they are is a barometer of what I know, not who they are.

But back to the Smart Set AC: although these athletic clubs were originally quite seriously dedicated to maintaining their amateur status, there were nevertheless bills to be paid: hall rentals, traveling expenses for themselves and sometimes for the opposing teams, and appearance fees, plus there were gate fees to be handled. Despite its successes in competition, Smart Set was never able to get itself onto solid financial footing. By 1915, it was on the rocks.

Granddad Ralston had made his choice about his future with Smart Set some time early that year: in a February 1915 report of a Brooklyn track meet, the New York Age noted his presence this way: "...George Ralston, late of Smart Set, now of St. Christopher...."

Just that quickly, the Smart Set Athletic Club was gone, and Granddad had moved on.


Notes:

Smart Set was of course known far more for its accomplishments in basketball than in track—in fact, they were so successful that their team was nicknamed "The Grave Diggers" because when they appeared on the court, you knew your team should get ready to be buried. The general outline of their story in basketball is available at the Black Fives Foundation website. The Black Fives Foundation is dedicated to preserving the pre-1950 history of African American basketball.

The best print treatment of Smart Set's basketball career (as well as the other early black basketball teams) is a book by Bob Kuska entitled Hot Potato: How Washington and New York Gave Birth to Black Basketball and Changed America's Game Forever. (University of Virginia Press: 2004) It is in print as of this writing and may be found through your local library.