FORT SMITH — For all of his accolades on the basketball court, Almer Eugene Lee may have received the ultimate honor off the court five years ago when Fort Smith city officials placed a plaque at Martin Luther King Jr. Park naming the courts after “Godfather of Fort Smith Basketball.”
Lee died in 2014 at the age of 63.
But his lasting legacy within Fort Smith and the surrounding area affects kids some 50 years after he took his last jump shot for the Northside Grizzlies.
Longtime Northside girls basketball coach Rickey Smith believes Lee’s impact is felt beyond his native Sebastian County as well.
“He really bridged gaps for the entire state of Arkansas,” Smith said. “For me, his impact is still felt daily in Fort Smith. He was (one of) the first to start the transition (from Lincoln to Northside); he did it smoothly. I got to know him a little bit through Houston Nutt. Everyone loved him from the way he dressed, too.”
For Eric Burnett, the Northside alum who now coaches at his alma mater, Lee is considered a pioneer who paved the road for others when Fort Smith schools were integrated.
“He and Jerry Jennings really changed the game for people like me,” Burnett said. “They were the ones that integrated to Northside. I have a great deal of respect for those guys. Going by some of the stuff of legend and how deadly his jumper was, had there been a 3-point shot he might have been the all-time leading scorer at Northside.”
By the time Burnett rolled through Northside, where he himself created his own winning legacy, Lee’s exploits had become the stuff of legend.
No one knew or loved Almer Lee more than Jennings.
“He and I were friends from the third grade until the day he died,” Jennings said. “He was a great guy and a tremendous athlete. The only time we were ever apart was when he was over in Amsterdam (Netherlands) playing professionally.”
Lee and Jennings were sophomore phenoms at Fort Smith Lincoln High School, the city’s black school, when the late Gayle Kaundart approached the duo about coming to Fort Smith when integration first started.
Lee At a Glance
SPORT Basketball
SCHOOL Fort Smith Northside
CREDENTIALS Was among the first student-athletes to transfer from Fort Smith Lincoln (the city’s all-black high school) to Northside in December of 1965. … He and Lincoln teammate Jerry Jennings lettered for three seasons with coach Gayle Kaundart’s Grizzlies. … Led Fort Smith Northside to the 1968 state championship. … Became the first black player to play for the University of Arkansas. … Lee averaged 17 points a game as a sophomore and was named SWC Sophomore of the Year. … Averaged 19.2 points per game as a junior in 1971. … Was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.
QUOTABLE “He and I were friends from the third grade until the day he died. He was a great guy and a tremendous athlete. The only time we were apart was when he was over in Amsterdam (Netherlands) playing professionally,” said former teammate Jerry Jennings.
Editor's Note
The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is looking back at the greatest high school athletes in its 12-county coverage area.
Lincoln High closed at the end of the 1965-66 academic school year.
“We liked it where we were; we loved it,” Jennings said. “Coach Kaundart told us that Lincoln High would be closing down, so it kind of expedited things. We thought we would get acclimated a lot quicker.”
The pair had an immediate impact.
Kaundart later coached at Westark College, now the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, where he led the team to the 1981 Junior College National Championship. Kaundart was a stickler for doing things the old-school way, focusing intently on the fundamentals.
He didn’t initially mesh with Lee. Dribbling behind your back or bounce passes were taboo in Kaundart’s world.
“What was defined as flashy from coach Kaundart was commonplace everywhere else,” Jennings said. “Coach Kaundart was stuck in his old ways. Dribbling behind your back wasn’t showboating, it was to give you an advantage. They were doing it elsewhere, they just weren’t doing it where coach Kaundart worked.”
To his credit, Kaundart adapted and changed with the times. Lee and Jennings led the way.
“He didn’t like bounce passes, too much either,” Jennings said. “But he came around eventually.”
Burnett, who has multiple state titles to his resume at Northside, said Kaundart was able to recognize that he needed to adapt to the new wave of player Northside was getting.
“You have to give guys like that (Kaundart) credit,” Burnett said. “He adjusted to the way basketball was being played at that time, especially the black players.”
Not everyone was on board, however.
“Some players couldn’t adhere to his way and left, and they were tremendous ballplayers,” Jennings said. “We wanted to wear low cut tennis shoes. He (Kaundart) thought you couldn’t wear them without ankle injuries. He bought pants (warm-ups) that we suggested, too.”
After graduating from Northside in 1968, Lee played one season at Phillips College before being reunited with Jennings at Arkansas.
It wasn’t easy, but it was a start.
“Athletics has a way of being an equalizer. You can look at our country now; we need an equal playing field,” Jennings said. “If you can play, you are accepted. We got there (Arkansas) and knew there were some difficulties, but we didn’t experience them. The guys in the dorm, some of them are still lifelong friends. We were a little bit ahead of our time, but somebody had to start.
“Sports is the common denominator.”
Lee found success at Arkansas. He flourished in coach Larry Van Eman’s offense, leading the team in scoring. He earned Southwest Conference Sophomore of the Year honors in 1969-70.
In 2016, Lee was honored with a memorial on the Martin Luther King basketball courts where he and other Fort Smith greats like Ron Brewer, honed his skills.
Fort Smith Mayor George McGill, at the time a state representative, secured $3,000 worth of state General Improvement Funds toward the construction of the memorial.
“Almer was one of the greatest basketball players ever to come from Fort Smith,” McGill wrote in a letter to the city. “His family lived in the Elm Grove housing development when he was a child. Almer honed his basketball skills on the MLK basketball courts.”
Burnett, who was a star forward at Arkansas Tech in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, never missed an opportunity to talk with Lee.
“Talking to him over the years, he was a really funny guy,” said Burnett. “I would just sit there and soak everything in and listen to him talk about Northside and the University of Arkansas.”