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Dallas VideoFest entry explores how Spencer Haywood changed the face of the NBA 

Then-underage player Spencer Haywood went to the U.S. Supreme Court and won the right to play in the NBA.

Spencer Haywood was one of the best athletes of his generation. Coaches and teammates would marvel at the forward's ability to pick up a basketball like it was a grapefruit.

Those hands had another function in Silver City, Miss., where Haywood grew up. "Son, you're going to be the best cotton picker this county has ever seen because of the size of your hands.''

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These words are uttered early in Full Court: The Spencer Haywood Story. The documentary is one of five sports films that will be shown during the 29th annual Dallas VideoFest at the Angelika at Mockingbird Station this weekend.

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Hoop Dreams, the 1994 documentary that followed the professional aspirations of Chicago high school players William Gates and Arthur Agee over the span of five years, is also on the schedule.

Bart Weiss is the founder and director of the Dallas VideoFest.

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"To be honest, it's unusual for us,'' said Weiss, who also teaches film/video at UT Arlington. "I didn't set out to say let's do sports this year, but these films emerged and fit together very nicely.''

Full Court runs Sunday afternoon. Made in Dallas by AMS Pictures, the documentary follows Haywood's journey from the Jim Crow South to his induction in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. It's a compelling story that chronicles Haywood's antitrust lawsuit against the NBA, a challenge that changed the face of the NBA, the ruling's aftermath, his marriage to a supermodel, his addiction to cocaine and his ultimate redemption.

At 19, Spencer Haywood led the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal at the Olympics.
At 19, Spencer Haywood led the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal at the Olympics.((1968 File Photo / The Associated Press))

"It's so beautifully produced and so rich in so many ways,'' Weiss said. "And the third act, the person he became after basketball.

"What he went through was difficult and he came out the other end.''

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Haywood was born April 2, 1949, in a speck of a town with a population of 300. His father, a carpenter, died three weeks before Haywood was born, forcing his mother to pick cotton in addition to her job as a seamstress to support her 10 children.

Haywood picked cotton with his mother. His first basketball was made out of a burlap sack and cotton. Dribbling wasn't an option.

Basketball was his way out. He wound up in Detroit at Pershing High school and would lead the school to a state championship. But class work was a struggle. He was reading at a second-grade level his junior year and would often walk the halls with his head down because, "In Mississippi, if you looked a white man in the eye, he punched you in the face.''

In 1968, Haywood was named to the U.S. Olympic team after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — then Lew Alcindor — refused to go to Mexico City as part of the boycott movement. Four years after picking cotton in a field in Mississippi, he led the U.S. to a gold medal and set an Olympic scoring record that would stand for 44 years.

Only three years removed from high school Haywood signed with the Seattle SuperSonics. The NBA had a rule at the time that said a player must be four years removed from high school graduation before playing in the league. He filed an antitrust suit and sought an injunction that would allow him to play.

College basketball star Spencer Haywood leaves U.S District Court in Los Angeles with his...
College basketball star Spencer Haywood leaves U.S District Court in Los Angeles with his attorney Al Ross (left) and Sam Schulman, president of the Seattle SuperSonics. Spencer Haywood went to the U.S. Supreme Court and won the right to play in the NBA. Now, the poster child for the underage draft thinks there should be some restriction on the epidemic of teenagers in the league. (1971 File Photo/The Associated Press)

The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in Haywood's favor by a 7-2 vote in 1971, saying the league must allow a player early entry if he could prove a financial hardship. Thurgood Marshall, the court's first African-American justice, was one of those seven votes.

"I remember Thurgood Marshall telling me, 'Spencer, you're going to always be ostracized for this, so be prepared,''' Haywood says in the film. "You might have bright days of playing, but somebody is always going to bring this to your attention, and there is always going to be some anger.

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"So be prepared, young man. Be prepared.''

Haywood was a prolific scorer and rebounder during his NBA career. He married the model Iman and became a part of the New York party scene. That's where his relationship with cocaine began, a relationship that led to a dramatic and rapid decline in his skills.

The documentary goes into all of this, along with how Haywood put his life back together.

"The first time I met Mr. Haywood, he cussed me out,'' Hall of Fame center Shaquille O'Neal says in the film. "He went up to me and said, 'Do you know who I am?' I said no.

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'"Well, you need to know. I paved the way for you. If it wasn't for me being able to leave early, you wouldn't have been able to leave early.

"I'm like, my bad, brother.''

Spencer Haywood did change the face of the NBA. But that's only part of the story.

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Dallas VideoFest runs Oct. 18-23. 'Full Court' screens 5 p.m. at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas. For tickets and more information, visit videofest.org.

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More from the Dallas VideoFest: 

Twitter: @ DavidMooreDMN

New York Knicks' Spencer Haywood (42) grabs a rebound with no help in sight as several...
New York Knicks' Spencer Haywood (42) grabs a rebound with no help in sight as several Buffalo Braves defenders surround him in 1977. (File/The Associated Press)