Coach Reeves

If you’ve read through this blog at all you’ve probably picked up my affinity for The White Shadow. It’s my favorite-favorite. I kicked off this blog with a post about some of my first Ken Howard cards. It was just instinctual that if I’m messing around with making my own trading cards I’m going to make some White Shadow cards.

When I first started making custom trading cards I made a template that was inspired by the 1985 Topps baseball cards. Then I would just plug in the right image and make the colors match the theme. That was fun for awhile but being as detail oriented as I fancy myself it wasn’t good enough. I wanted to coordinate the subject of the card I was making to a trading card design of the same vintage. So, a card of Ken Reeves, for example, doesn’t make much sense as a baseball card from 1985 when The White Shadow was a TV show centered around basketball that ran from late 1978 to 1981. I decided to revisit my Ken Reeves Bulls card in order to do it the justice it so rightly deserves.

1977-78 Topps basketball

I went with a design inspired by the 1977-78 Topps basketball card set. I figured this would make good sense. If Ken Reeves is accepting his old college teammate’s offer to take up the head coaching position at Los Angeles’ fictional Carver High School in the fall of 1978, then this card would serve as his last card as a pro ball player.

The image is a screen capture from the show’s Season One opening credits. Just seeing it I can hear that funky saxophone theme song.

I’m very happy with the end result, and it instantly became one of my favorites I’ve done. I wish Ken was still with us I would have loved to have sent him a copy because I think he’d get a kick out of it.

This is not the last time Kenny Reeves will be featured on one of my cards as I’m still working on adding on to The White Shadow set I’ve started.

Jon Gries

This TTM autograph success you see here is a pretty big deal to me. I may of may have not mentioned in the past that The White Shadow is absolutely my favorite television show of all-time.

I love The White Shadow for a number of reasons. For one, it mashed ahead-of-its-time subject matter with relateable humor. Secondly, my favorite sport is basketball. The cast was super talented. I actually didn't know about the show until the early 2000's when I just happened to catch it on ESPN Classic. I instantly fell in love with the show. I think I wrote about this before but there was a point in time when I was younger and my family lived in Detroit. This made me really cling to Timothy Van Patten's "Salami" character while watching seeing I was one of the only white kids in a predominately black group of friends. Basketball is what bonded us like "Salami" to his Carver teammates.

This card is signed by Mr. Jon Gries. You most likely know him as "Uncle Rico" from Napoleon Dynamite. I, like most, love that movie and the "Uncle Rico" character. But, I really geek out to Mr. Gries as "Uri Kongenski" from the "The Russians Are Coming" episode of The White Shadow. The episode is about Russian high school basketball team that was doing a goodwill tour of the United States and Los Angeles' Carver High was the their last scheduled stop. Relations with the Soviet Union was a very topical issue when this episode came out during the Cold War between the United States and Russia. Carver and the Russian squad play a spirited exhibition game following which one of the Russians, played by Chris Mulkey, attempts to defect by hiding out at one of the Carver player's home whom he had befriended during the visit. In my note requesting the autograph I asked Mr. Gries if he had any interesting memories of working on this episode. He said he didn't remember much since it was so long ago but he did say it was between he and Chris Mulkey to play the lead Russian.

Since I've been messing around with making custom trading cards I've done a couple of different White Shadow designs. This is by far and away my favorite. I wanted to do justice to a show that I feel doesn't get near the recognition it deserves in the annals of great television shows, sports themed or otherwise. Even for a relatively short run, 3 seasons, this show was outstanding and groundbreaking TV. I wanted to give the show a great card and what better way than with a 1980-81 Topps basketball inspired design made iconic by the three-paneled perforated #6 card that features Dr. J and rookies cards of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

1980-81 Topps basketball

I had the idea for The White Shadow in this design for a very long time.  But, for whatever reason, I was a bit intimidated by the design. Maybe because it's like 3 cards in one? Plus, I just wanted it to be pretty good if I was going to use it for Shadow. After getting some custom card reps under I belt I went for it. Turns out I fretted for nothing. It came together pretty smoothly. I found a groovy font that I believe is passable for the design and just took my time with the rest and I made something I'm really proud of. I even added some perforation marks, though purely aesthetic.

I want to make many more of these cards so it'll be an ongoing search for the right images.

Ken Howard

 When I first started making my custom cards my main goal was to get on card autographs of the cast of The White Shadow, my all-time favorite television show.  If you're reading this and are unfamiliar with the show it was produced by Bruce Paltrow and aired on CBS from 1978 to 1981.  It starred Ken Howard as a retired NBA player that takes a job at an intercity Los Angeles high school as their basketball coach.   It was a groundbreaking show in that it was the first to feature a predominately minority cast and it dealt with real societal issues that had seldom been broached prior. It predates me a bit, but in the early '00s I happen to catch it on ESPN Classics and it was love at first watch.

Since no cards existed I decided to make some of my own.  I'd never really done this before.  The design is inspired by the 1985 Topps baseball card set, as it was pretty simple to reproduce.  I also like the fact that I could fill the team name block white to create a perfect autograph box.

I made three "Ken Reeves" cards.  One as a Chicago Bull, the NBA team Ken Reeves was drafted by.  One as a Chicago Cub, due to the character frequently sporting the cap.  And one as the coach of Carver High.  Carver didn't really have a logo, so I had to create one.