Dick and Gloria Black
Dick and Gloria Black
Dick Black was a high school basketball star in Reliance, South Dakota, and totally focused on practice, practice, practice…until one day when practice in the gym was suddenly interrupted. The word spread that girls from a nearby town were ice skating nearby! A “time-out” was called and the boys forgot about practice and abandoned the gym. Dick spent a lot of time that day talking to a cute cheerleader from a rival school and something clicked. That was the day that lucky future athletes and even luckier future campers got a second set of loving parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Black (“Coach” Dick Black and Gloria) have been a part of Camp Flying Eagle since 1960! Dick and Gloria met Alex and Tess in the 1950’s when they all lived in the same apartment complex in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Dick was a high school history teacher and basketball and track coach at Lakeview High School. Alex was a high school English teacher and swimming coach at Grosse Point High School. Gloria and Tess were stay-at-home moms, each with two young children: Rick and Terry for the Blacks and Debbie and Jeff for the Canjas. The two young couples swapped baby-sitting until the Canjas moved away.
One summer a couple of years later the Black family were on their way to Minneapolis when they decided to take a side trip to visit “that camp” Tess and Alex bought in Northern Michigan. “We just showed up,” says Dick.
No one was around when they drove up the narrow two-rut road through the trees. They parked their car near the dormitory and followed voices down to the beach and then back behind the lake to the swale. This was a wetland, sometimes dry when the water level was low, and sometimes so filled with water that it connected to the lake. As the Blacks approached, they found the entire camp at a very dry swale. Alex was flipping hamburgers when he looked up and saw them all – Dick, Gloria, six-year-old Rick and four-year-old Terry. We’re having a cook-out!” he hollered. “Lots of food! Come join us!”
The Blacks stayed the night. “We really liked what we saw,” Dick says. “Before we left I told Alex, ‘If you ever need someone, keep us in mind!’” Alex did! The very next February he called and the rest is history!
South Dakota Beginnings
Dick Black was born in 1930 on a Lyman County farm not far from the banks of the Missouri River in Reliance, South Dakota. He showed athletic promise at an early age and early on experienced the positive benefits a boy receives from the right kind of coaching. The lessons he learned helped shape his future as an outstanding high school coach and mentor, and as Program Director at Camp Flying Eagle.
“When I was in grade school the coach of the high school team was Hank Sattler. I played for him when I was a freshman before he left coaching. He had a big influence on my life,” he says. That coaching helped him star as a freshman en route to becoming a four-year standout at Reliance High.
Despite being only 5-foot11, in two memorable games in 1949, he scored 44 points against Ft. Thompson, and 28 points in a win over
Chamberlain High School, a nearby town and basketball rival. Reliance went on that year to become the undefeated champion of the Medicine Creek Conference. With an average of 25 points per game, a total especially impressive because of the low-scoring era, and because he was also one of the few players in South Dakota to shoot the then-revolutionary “one-handed” jump shot, his play for the Reliance Longhorns captured the attention of Kansas State Coach, Jack Gardner.
He received a basketball scholarship to Kansas State University, but faced a daunting decision: should he stay close to home (and Gloria) and play at a school in South Dakota? Or should he leave the state and accept a major-college scholarship.
At that time Kansas State was building the momentum that would soon make it a national powerhouse. Dick decided to join the Wildcats. In the 1950 season, when Dick was a freshman, Kansas State was Big Seven Conference tri-champion with Kansas and Nebraska. Because freshman were not eligible for varsityh basketball competition in the fall of 1949, Dick played on the Wildcats freshman team. His coach was Tex Winter, destined to become part of multiple NBA championships as an assistant to Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls and later the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I learned a lot of backetball from Tex Winter,” says Black. The things I learned at Kansas State helped me a great deal later on when I became a coach.But the lure of home convinced him to leave Kansas State to return to South Dakota. After one season, he transferred to the University of South Dakota playing three seasons for the Coyotes.
“I was a little homesick while I was at Kansas State,” he remembers. “And there was a girlfriend back home.”
That girlfriend was Chamberlain High School cheerleader, Gloria Beaudin.
A Match Meant To Be
Dick Black was well known as a young phenom on the basketball court in Reliance, South Dakota, who loved to practice, practice and practice. He was driven and had goals to achieve. One afternoon, while Dick and a friend where shooting hoops in the Reliance gym, a friend stopped by to announce that there were “some Chamberlain girls ice skating” at the pond behind Fletcher’s, near the dam.
Say no more! A “time-out” was called and the boys went over to the pond to see the school girls from Chamberlain. Dick knew of Gloria, but that day something clicked and
Afterward he wrote her a letter, inviting her to go on a date to a movie. Back then, the mail typically took a day to be delivered across the Missouri River, but due to a storm, this letter took 5 days! But Gloria said yes and got ready for date night.
That Saturday afternoon, while Gloria was helping her mom in the kitchen with her hair up in rollers, Dick showed up early! In training for the basketball team, Dick had planned on going to a matinee movie as he went to bed early each day to be ready for more training the next day. Gloria naturally thought the date would be in the evening, but she said, “Give me a few minutes.”
In a sign of things to come, while waiting, Dick noticed that there was an outdoor basketball court next to the house and soon he was quickly on the court playing basketball with Gloria’s brothers. Gloria’s “few minutes” turned into a lot longer as she waited for him to finish his game before they could leave for the movie!
After that date, Dick could be often found in Chamberlain at Gloria’s home playing basketball with her brothers and neighbors.
It was the perfect set up for the dedicated basketball player who went on to play for the University of South Dakota on a scholarship and the beautiful girl who came with a basketball court and a family of basketball brothers!
From South Dakota to Michigan
Dick and Gloria were married on September 1, 1951. Dick graduated college in 1953 with a bachelor of science degree in physical education. He took a faculty position at Java High School in South Dakota, but after a year at Java he joined the U.S. Army. During his military service he befriended a fellow lieutenant who was a Michigan native and had attended Lakeview High School. “When I was leaving the Army he told me Lakeview was looking for a coach.” Dick completed his two years in the Army and then accepted a coaching position at Lakeview High School!
From 1956-1982, Coach Black served as the Lakeview Huskies Head Basketball Coach and teacher with an incredible record of 386 wins and 184 losses, a .612 winning percentage and an average of 13 wins each year – incredible stats for a high school basketball coach! The Huskies won 12 bi-county and district championships. In 1961, Dick was promoted to Athletic Director and held that position until 1993. As Athletic Director, Dick expanded Lakeview’s athletics options from 6 to 22 competitive teams, including many new options for female athletes. He was known as a leading advocate of girl’s athletics. On top of that, Coach Black attended all Lakeview home games and supported every Lakeview team competing on a given day. “I like to see the kids compete,” he says.
During it all, Gloria was at his side, the quintessential “Team Mom,” ever-present parent volunteer and Super Mom to Rick, Terry and Susie.
A Legacy to Remember
With a steady hand and unwavering loyalty to youth and sports, Coach Black earned the respect of his athletes, the entire student body and his peers. He won numerous honors including:
- Macomb County Coach of the year – 1956 and 1986
- Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame – 1985
- Macomb County Coaches Hall of Fame
- Conference championships in four decades -50s, 60s, 70s and 80s
- Lyman County Athletic Hall of Fame
- Southeastern Michigan Economics Teacher of the Year – 1988-89
- University of South Dakota Distinguished Graduate Award – 1993
- Michigan Athletic Directors 30-Year Award
- South Dakota Basketball Players Hall of Fame
- St. Clair Shores Athletics Hall of Fame – 2016
Dick retired from Lakeview after 37 years at the school. In honor of his many years of dedication to the school’s youth, the Lakeview athletic complex was named the Richard D. Black Complex.
And even today, Dick and Gloria spend their summers on Crooked Lake.
