University of San Francisco Athletics

Athlete All-American

Carl Boldt

Honors:
Men's Basketball (1955-1957)

Forward
NCAA Tournament title, 1956
NIBL All-Star Game MVP, 1959
All-WCAC Honorable Mention, 1956

USF Career Years: 1955-1957
Birthdate: October 22, 1932
Hometown: Los Angeles
High School: Verdugo Hills High School
Junior College: Glendale Community College

Carl Boldt was born on October 22, 1932 in Long Beach. He attended Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, CA. In 1951, he started his college career at Glendale Community College, and then enlisted in the United States Army. He was stationed at Fort Ord, and played on their basketball team. Boldt made the All-Star Armed Forces team and was honorably discharged at the end of his term.

In 1955, Boldt enrolled at USF. At 6’ 5”, he played forward on the basketball team. He earned All-American honors in his sophomore year 1950-1951, won MVP, and scored a total of 1024 points in his 63 USF career games (16.3 PPG). Boldt played his first season with Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, as a starting forward. After an undefeated season, the Dons went on to win their second back-to-back NCAA Tournament, with Boldt scoring 16 points against Iowa. He averaged 8.6 PPG and 5.0 RPG in the 1955-1956 season.

Boldt was part of a history-making starting team in 1955 and 1956. USF had made the ground-breaking decision to go against the gentlemen’s agreement, in effect during the early years of basketball, not to play more than two African-American players at a time. Under Head Coach Phil Woolpert, the starting team included three African-American players: Bill Russell, K.C. Jones and Hall Perry, along with Carl Boldt and Mike Farmer.

The Richmond Free Press reported in 2020 that it was not always easy for the team on the road. In Oklahoma City in 1954, the Africa-American members of the team were denied hotel lodging. In a show of unity, all the members of the team and the coaches spent the night in a nearby college dorm.

In 1956, his senior year, the Dons no longer had Russell, Jones, and other key players due to graduation, but the team went on to win the Western Conference Championship (WCAC). The Dons reached the Final Four of the 1957 NCAA Tournament that year and beat Michigan State in the third-place consolation game.

His final season, their 60-game winning streak was broken, and he was dropped from the team in January 1957, after a clash with the then Head Coach Phil Woolpert. He finished his USF career with a 60-7 record for his two seasons on the team. He was quoted in a Los Angeles Times interview in 1973, describing himself as the “team’s bad boy, doing wild things like mimicking Coach Woolpert and the writers. We were a great team, but so much came down to Russell. I used to laugh when I told the guys how the newspapers would play the story if our plane ever crashed. The headlines would have said ‘BILL RUSSELL KILLED’ and the rest of our names would be found under ‘also dead’ back on page 400.”

Boldt was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the Round 7 (50^th pick overall) of the NBA Draft in 1957, but he never played for the NBA. Instead, he joined the Buchan Bakers in the National Industrial Basketball League (NIBL), was a Western Conference All-Star in 1958-1959, and was named MVP for his defensive skills. In the 1970s, Boldt worked as a basketball scout and as an Assistant Coach for the Los Angeles Stars in the ABA. He began a business career, and in 1984, entered the coffee industry.

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