The White Shadow was a television series which ran from 1978-81 starring Ken Howard as a former NBA player who takes over as coach for an inner city high school basketball team. Some of the feature characters on the team were James Hayward, Morris Thorpe, Milton Reese, Warren Coolidge, and Mario Pettrino aka Salami.

Like all real high school basketball teams, the characters were all referred to by their last names.

I am indebted to IMDB for informing the details of this writeup. I also notice, via IMDB, that several members of the cast later worked on the television series St. Elsewhere. Byron Stewart in fact became a regular on the show as an orderly named Warren Coolidge, the same name as his character on White Shadow. I remember one episode when Timothy Van Patten, who had played Salami, was also on the show, playing a patient a the hospital, or some goddamn thing; he's on a elevator, the door opens and Coolidge is passing by and sees him. "Hey, Salami! What's going on, man?" Van Patten's character says he's got him confused with someone else. "C'mon, man, don't you remember? Coach Reeves, the team," something like that. Salami shakes his head, utter lack of recognition. The door closes. I loved that shit.

Yeh, I know, this stuff isn't really important or anything, but it's good to know in case it's referenced in a Dennis Miller monologue or something.

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