Raymond Anthony Townsend (born December 20, 1955) is an American retired 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. He played three seasons 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) with the

Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 194 ...

and the

Indiana Pacers The Indiana Pacers are an American professional basketball team based in Indianapolis. The Pacers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The Pacers were first estab ...

. Townsend played

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 ...

with 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) ...

, earning all-conference honors in the Pacific-8 (known later as the

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Divisi ...

). He was selected by the Warriors in the first round of the 1978 NBA draft, with the 22nd overall pick, and became the first

Filipino-American Filipino Americans ( fil, Mga Pilipinong Amerikano) are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipinos and other Asian ethnicities in North America were first documented in the 16th century as slaves and prisoners on ships sailing to and from New ...

to play in the NBA. During his playing career, he was listed at 6'3" (1.91 m) tall and 175 lbs. (79 kg). He played at the

point guard The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position. Point guards are expected to run the team's offense by ...

position.

High school career

Townsend attended Camden High School and

Archbishop Mitty High School Archbishop Mitty High School (commonly known as Mitty) is a private, Roman Catholic high school located in San Jose, California, United States. The school is named for the late John Joseph Mitty, the fourth Archbishop of San Francisco. It was the ...

, in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

, where he played high school basketball. As a high school senior, he averaged close to 28 points a game for the Camden High Cougars. This was prior to the 3 point shot line being regulated years later. After graduating from high school, he played

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

College career

Townsend played

, with the

. He was a member of the 1975 UCLA National Basketball Championship team, which was the 10th and final NCAA championship team of the school's

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in asso ...

John Wooden John Robert Wooden (October 14, 1910 – June 4, 2010) was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed the Wizard of Westwood, he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships in a 12-year period as hea ...

. He earned first-team All-Pac-8 honors as a senior, in 1978.

Professional career

Townsend was selected with the last pick in the first round (22nd overall), of the 1978 NBA draft, by the

. He was the first Filipino-American to play in the NBA. He concluded his NBA career in

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C ...

, as a member of the

. He also played in Italy's LBA with

Banco Roma Pallacanestro Virtus Roma, commonly known as Virtus Roma, was an Italian professional basketball club based in Rome, Lazio. It competed in the first division of Italian basketball, the LBA, for the last time in the 2020–21 season. It was form ...

, during the 1984–85 season.Ray Townsend .
/ref> With Roma, he won the 1984 edition of the

FIBA Intercontinental Cup The FIBA Intercontinental Cup, also commonly referred to as the FIBA World Cup for Champion Clubs, or the FIBA Club World Cup, is a professional basketball clubs competition that is endorsed by FIBA and the NBA. Historically, its purpose has b ...

Personal life

Townsend was born in

. He is half-Filipino through his mother. A 1976

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence tw ...

issue featured Townsend's father, Ray Sr., in its "Faces in the Crowd" section. He was recognized as "the oldest junior college basketball player in history." At age 39, he was the second man off the bench.KUSports.com: Fathers’ examples still guide Kansas coaches
/ref> Townsend's brother, Kurtis, is an assistant coach for the

Kansas Jayhawks The Kansas Jayhawks, commonly referred to as simply KU or Kansas, are the athletic teams that represent the University of Kansas. KU is one of three schools in the state of Kansas that participate in NCAA Division I. The Jayhawks are also a mem ...

team that won the

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

NCAA Championships The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...

. After his basketball playing career, Townsend worked as youth sports development coordinator in

References

External links

*
Italian League Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Townsend, Raymond 1955 births Living people Alberta Dusters players American expatriate basketball people in Brazil American expatriate basketball people in Canada American expatriate basketball people in Italy American men's basketball players American sportspeople of Filipino descent Basketball players from San Jose, California Clube Atlético Monte Líbano basketball players Dallas Mavericks expansion draft picks Esporte Clube Sírio basketball players Golden State Warriors draft picks Golden State Warriors players Indiana Pacers players Montana Golden Nuggets players Pallacanestro Virtus Roma players Point guards Shooting guards UCLA Bruins men's basketball players