Al Sharpton pushes for TSU team's inclusion in hall of fame

• The TSU 1957-1959 men's basketball team was the first college team to ever win three national titles back-to back%2C according to the university.

Civil rights advocate the Rev. Al Sharpton encouraged students to follow their dreams and called for wider recognition of a championship Tennessee State University basketball team during a speech Thursday at the university.

Sharpton's appearance was part of a push to get TSU's 1957-1959 men's basketball team inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. It was the first collegiate team to win three national titles back to back, according to the university. The team also was the first from a historically black college to win a title, officials said.

Sharpton said the players broke barriers.

"At a time when blacks were still sitting at the back of the bus, at a time when blacks couldn't use a public restroom … they were winning and beating teams and making champions," Sharpton said.

Earlier, he told reporters: "I think that it is a story that needs to be told. Not only put in the hall of fame, but put in the minds and in the living rooms of all Americans."

Sharpton spoke to a crowd of more than 500 people in Kean Hall. He was joined by Richard "Dick" Barnett, a member of all three championship teams. Barnett went on to play for the NBA.

Barnett drew laughs when he recalled how Kean Hall was locked on weekends, but he loved basketball so much that he used to sneak in through the building's windows, turn on the lights and shoot hoops. After six or seven weeks, he was finally given a set of keys to the building.

Sharpton said what Barnett and his teammates accomplished is the "antithesis" of a massive cheating schedule involving student athletes that is currently unfolding at the University of North Carolina.

Sharpton encouraged students to have self-respect and confidence. He rallied against the use in music of a racial epithet and derogatory terms used to describe women.

"How you define yourself is how you confine yourself," he said.

Sharpton told students they should aspire to greatness.

"If I walk on this platform and walk over to where you sit and knock you off your seat, it's on me," he said. "If we come back in here next Thursday and you're still laying on the ground, that's on you.

"What I mean by that is even if you're not responsible for being down, you're responsible for getting up. … Don't accept being down."

Alexis Morris, a 22-year-old TSU student, said she liked Sharpton's message of encouragement and positivity for black youth.

"We are the future," she said. "If we say it's OK for rappers and other celebrities to say bad things about us, then other people will think it's OK, too."