Fred Leon Slaughter (March 13, 1942 – October 6, 2016)
was an American
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
player for the
UCLA Bruins
The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) ...
. He won a
national championship
A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, indi ...
with the Bruins in
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...
, and was later one of the early
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
s to become a
sports agent. He was inducted into the
UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame
The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). ...
in 2004.
Growing up in
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
, Slaughter was a dual-sport athlete in basketball and
track
Track or Tracks may refer to:
Routes or imprints
* Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity
* Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across
* Desire path, a line worn by people taking the short ...
before leaving home to attend
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
(UCLA). He continued in both sports in college, and he helped UCLA basketball coach
John Wooden
John Robert Wooden (October 14, 1910 – June 4, 2010) was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed the Wizard of Westwood, Los Angeles, Westwood, he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I men's basket ...
win the first of his 10 national championships in 12 seasons. In addition to his
undergraduate degree
An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher ...
, Slaughter also earned a
Master of Business Administration
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accou ...
(MBA) and a
law degree
A law degree is an academic degree conferred for studies in law. Such degrees are generally preparation for legal careers. But while their curricula may be reviewed by legal authority, they do not confer a license themselves. A legal license is gr ...
before becoming a sports agent in 1969. He spent almost a decade as an
administrator
Administrator or admin may refer to:
Job roles Computing and internet
* Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database
* Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum
* N ...
at the
UCLA School of Law
The UCLA School of Law is one of 12 professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA Law has been consistently ranked by '' U.S. News & World Report'' as one of the top 20 law schools in the United States since the inception ...
before leaving in 1980 to become a full-time agent. Slaughter represented professional basketball and
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...
players. He was also the
labor union leader for
referee
A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other tit ...
s in the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...
(NBA).
Early life
Slaughter grew up in
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city
A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat ...
.
He attended
Topeka High School
Topeka High School (THS) is a public secondary school in Topeka, Kansas, United States. It serves students in grades 9 to 12, and is one of five high schools operated by the Topeka USD 501 school district. In the 2010–2011 school year, there ...
, where he was the leading scorer on their basketball team, as well as the top player in Kansas. Despite a weight problem, he was also a state-champion
sprinter in the
100-yard dash
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...
.
[ He was timed at 9.9 seconds in the 100 and was sought after by multiple colleges as a track athlete.]
Slaughter was heavily recruited by universities, and received 104 athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...
offers. Instead of staying in-state and attending college at University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...
or Kansas State University
Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public insti ...
, Slaughter wanted to attend UCLA.[ He preferred the "better weather", and he wanted to go to a basketball program he "could help get on the map."][ Since UCLA's basketball coach, ]John Wooden
John Robert Wooden (October 14, 1910 – June 4, 2010) was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed the Wizard of Westwood, Los Angeles, Westwood, he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I men's basket ...
, did not recruit outside of California, Slaughter wrote Wooden and asked to join their team.[ Wooden had coached at UCLA for 12 years, where the Bruins were consistent winners but not yet a powerhouse.][ The school offered him a scholarship split between track and basketball.]
College career
Slaughter chose to attend UCLA, part of a trend their basketball team developed to build a strong nucleus of native California athletes along with a few African Americans from out of state. The school developed a reputation for fair treatment of blacks. In his first year, Slaughter led the freshman basketball team in scoring, a feat he also matched on the freshman track team.[ However, Slaughter did not excel in any particular track event. At , he was considered small for a ]center
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...
, and his scoring opportunities decreased as his career progressed; his role was reduced to setting screens
Screen or Screens may refer to:
Arts
* Screen printing (also called ''silkscreening''), a method of printing
* Big screen, a nickname associated with the motion picture industry
* Split screen (filmmaking), a film composition paradigm in which mul ...
and other less glamorous duties.[
Still, Slaughter was the tallest member of UCLA's 1963–64 team, but the Bruins outrebounded each of their opponents during their 30–0 season.] This included their championship game against the Duke Blue Devils
The Duke Blue Devils are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Duke University, located in Durham, North Carolina. Duke's athletics department features 27 varsity teams that all compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Associati ...
, who had two starters (Hack Tison and Jay Buckley), but the Bruins outrebounded them 51–44 and forced 29 turnovers in a 98–83 victory.[ It was Wooden's first championship,] and the beginning of a UCLA dynasty that would win nine of the next 11 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) titles.[ During the season, UCLA ran a 2-2-1 ]zone press
A full-court press is a basketball term for a defensive style in which the defense applies pressure to the offensive team the entire length of the court before and after the inbound pass. Pressure may be applied man-to-man, or via a zone press us ...
; it was fronted by Gail Goodrich
Gail Charles Goodrich Jr. (born April 23, 1943) is an American former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is best known for scoring a then record 42 points for UCLA in the 1965 NCAA championship game vs ...
and Slaughter, who was broad enough at to make breaking the press difficult for opponents, but fast enough to race back if they advanced the ball. In each of their 30 games, the Bruins used the press to produce at least one run of two or three minutes where they outscored the opposition by at least 10 points. Known as "Bruin Blitzes", these often occurred before halftime
In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...
.[ "There's nobody who doesn't want to score, and it took the edge off it for me," said Slaughter. "But how could I question it? It was successful."][ In 2004, Slaughter was inducted into the ]UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame
The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). ...
.[
]
Professional career
After he graduated with a bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in marketing,[ Slaughter earned an MBA at UCLA.][ Urged by friends such as former Bruins teammates Goodrich and ]Walt Hazzard
Mahdi Abdul-Rahman (born Walter Raphael Hazzard Jr.; April 15, 1942 – November 18, 2011) was an American professional basketball player and college basketball coach. He played in college for the UCLA Bruins and was a member of their first natio ...
, he also earned a law degree
A law degree is an academic degree conferred for studies in law. Such degrees are generally preparation for legal careers. But while their curricula may be reviewed by legal authority, they do not confer a license themselves. A legal license is gr ...
at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
.[ He became a sports agent in 1969, when there were few in the industry and he was virtually the lone African American.][ "People hadn't really realized that the professional athlete needed help," Slaughter said. ""I realized it and went to school and did everything I had to do to prepare for that."][
From 1972 to 1980, Slaughter served as assistant ]dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
of Admissions and Student Affairs for the UCLA School of Law
The UCLA School of Law is one of 12 professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA Law has been consistently ranked by '' U.S. News & World Report'' as one of the top 20 law schools in the United States since the inception ...
from 1972 to 1980.[ Afterwards, he became an agent full-time.][ During his career, Slaughter represented pro basketball and ]American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...
players.[ By 1989, he was the only black to have become a top agent for ]NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United ...
players. ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in 1995 called Slaughter the "dean of black sports attorneys."[ His clients included Hall of Fame basketball players ]Dennis Johnson
Dennis Wayne Johnson (September 18, 1954 – February 22, 2007), nicknamed "DJ", was an American professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Seattle SuperSonics, Phoenix Suns, and Boston Celtics. He was a coa ...
, Jamaal Wilkes
Jamaal Abdul-Lateef (born Jackson Keith Wilkes; May 2, 1953), better known as Jamaal Wilkes, is an American former basketball player who was a small forward in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A three-time NBA All-Star, he won four NBA ...
, and Clyde Drexler
Clyde Austin Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player and the commissioner of the Big3 3-on-3 basketball league. Nicknamed "Clyde the Glide", he played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association ...
.[
Slaughter was also leader of the National Basketball Referees Association (NBRA), the labor union for ]referees
A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other tit ...
in the NBA. In 1990, he sent a memo to referees advising them to "not to try to get cute with your receipts"; however, multiple referees were later found guilty of tax evasion
Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...
by the Internal Revenue Service for falsifying expense report
An expense is an item requiring an outflow of money, or any form of fortune in general, to another person or group as payment for an item, service, or other category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is ...
s on their airline tickets. He also represented the NBRA during their lockout
Lockout may refer to:
* Lockout (industry), a type of work stoppage
** Dublin Lockout, a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers 1913 - 1914
* Lockout (sports), lockout in sports leagues
**MLB lockout, loc ...
from the league in 1995.[
]
Personal life
Slaughter married his wife, Kay, who earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from UCLA and became a hospital nurse. They had two children, including Fred W. Slaughter, who became a judge.[
He died on October 6, 2016, at the age of 74 in ]Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...
.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slaughter, Fred
1942 births
2016 deaths
American men's basketball players
American sports agents
Basketball players from Kansas
Centers (basketball)
Columbia Law School alumni
Sports labor leaders
Sportspeople from Topeka, Kansas
UCLA Anderson School of Management alumni
UCLA Bruins men's basketball players
University of California, Los Angeles faculty