Johnny Harold "Sky" High (April 25, 1957 – June 13, 1987) was an American professional
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
player for the
Phoenix Suns
The Phoenix Suns are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Suns are the only team in t ...
of the
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 St ...
. He spent four seasons with Phoenix and missed only one game in his first three years.
["Johnny High."]
''www.basketballreference.com.'' Retrieved May 29, 2014.
Born in
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...
, High attended high school at Birmingham's Jones Valley High School. He went on to play
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 ...
at
Lawson State Community College
Lawson State Community College (Lawson State, Lawson, LSCC) is a public, historically black community college with campuses in Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama. The technical division of the college was founded as Wenonah State Technical Instit ...
and
University of Nevada
The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant ...
and was selected by Phoenix in the second round of the
1979 NBA draft. As of February 2018, he is the last Nevada Wolf Pack player to achieve a triple double in a game. During an NBA game against
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
on January 28, 1981, High recorded nine
steals.
High died in an early-morning automobile accident on June 13, 1987 in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...
.
SPORTS PEOPLE; Death of Key Witness
''New York Times''
See also
*
Notes
External links
www.basketball-reference.com
Player Profile
@ ''thedraftreview.com''
1957 births
1987 deaths
African-American basketball players
American men's basketball players
Baltimore Lightning players
Basketball players from Birmingham, Alabama
Cincinnati Slammers players
Junior college men's basketball players in the United States
Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball players
Phoenix Suns draft picks
Phoenix Suns players
Road incident deaths in Arizona
Shooting guards
Wyoming Wildcatters players
20th-century African-American sportspeople
{{1950s-US-basketball-bio-stub