Opal “Shagg” Courtney was a most talented Athlete at Gary Roosevelt, starring in track and field, football, basketball, and baseball. Many say that he was the greatest athlete to have played in Gary and ignored by the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA), and state sports groups because he attended an all-Black school during a time when Black schools could not participate in the IHSAA state championships. Therefore, Gary Froebel High School, a non-segregated school, tried to persuade him to attend but he was absolutely true to his high school and remained there.
Courtney and Roosevelt High School made the most of those years just after the great depression, traveling anywhere they could find competition. He alone won the United States All Negro Championships in track in 1931 at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, and runner-up in 1930 and in 1932 they were Midwestern Track Champions at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, after being runners-up in 1931.
The basketball team also did quite well, winning the Indiana state all black championship in 1930 and 1931. The football team won the 1932 championship at Lincoln High School in Evansville, Indiana.
Courtney held records at various Institutions: Lincoln University, high jump, pole vault, 120 yard 42” hurdles (16.2), broad jump and 220 hurdles, Hampton Institute high jump, board jump, pole vault, shot put (49’5”). Tuskegee Institute 120 42” hurdles (15.2). In fact, he won the high school high jump and broad jump at the Penn Relays.
He captained Roosevelt’s track, football, and basketball teams. Coach Tindolph Cooke stated “that no Black institution does anyone think of the name “Roosevelt” without associating it with “Shagg” and vice versa.
After attending Kansas State Teachers’ College and Virginia State, where he excelled as a collegiate fifteen-second-high hurdler, 6 foot plus high jumper and 24 foot broad jumper, the six foot two inch weighting 171 got his chance as a “Globetrotter”. Although he only had a brief career with the team, he is famously credited with creating the move of spinning the basketball on his index finger, then rolling the ball across the shoulders, and into his arms behind his back.
After three years (1934 -1936), “Shagg” left the Globetrotters making only fifty five dollars a week for a crane operator position at US Steel in Gary because he could double the salary to support his growing family.
Courtney and his wife Shellie of 69 years eventually had six boys and a daughter, all of which graduated from college.