The now defunct Phillip Schuyler High School of Albany has had many outstanding basketball players, and there’s one who briefly made it to the big time—the NBA.
He was Luther “Ticky” Burden, a 1972 graduate of Schuyler High. Where did Ticky go to college? The University of Utah, where he averaged 28.7 points per game and was a first team college All-American selection in 1975.
How good was he? Here’s an example: In a 1975 collegiate basketball game against the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, coached by the famed Dean Smith, Ticky burned the nets for 44 points.
Ticky gets his nickname from his high school days, where his friends and classmates coined a name that relates to the sound that the ball makes coming through the net, as a “tick.”
Burden was a 6-foot 2-inch jumping machine, who played guard, had a 42-inch vertical jump, and was pouring in points at Schuyler High School before there was a 3-point arc.
Phillip Schuyler High School was in the now defunct Class A League, during the Burden era, and a few years later the league was restructured and renamed The Big Ten. In a game, at Schuyler High School, Ticky had 50 points against Mount Pleasant, of Schenectady, another Section II defunct school. Ticky managed to make 23 out of 27 field goal attempts against Pleasant.
There’s a story that Ticky tells, how he and the great Dr. J. (Julius Erving) played one-on-one in a Long Island gym. They played multiple games to 21, and took turns beating each other with scores like: Dr. J. 21, Ticky 17 and Ticky 21, Dr. J. 19—swapping victories, one after another. Yes, he was that good!
Burden’s time in the NBA (after initially playing, in 1975 with the Virginia Squires of the ABA) was as a New York Knick from 1976-78.
Ticky’s career was cut short because he was accused of robbing The New City Guardian Bank of North America. The NYPD recovered $18,000 of marked bills in Burden’s Hempstead home. His car, which was a tricked-out “Super Fly”-style Cadillac, with hardly discreet vanity plates of “Ticky15,” was spotted at the scene of the crime.
Ticky claims he was framed and that he was in Albany at the time of the crime, tending to his thriving nightclub The Falcon’s Nest. His longtime childhood friend, Mike Elem, also from Albany, was arrested as an accomplice and turned state’s evidence by claiming Burden was the ringleader. Elem gave Burden some $400, part of the stolen marked bills, to pay off some debt he owed Ticky.
Burden said of Elem, “The only thing I was guilty of was poor judgment. I should have known better than trusting him.”
He goes on talking about how Elem was a coke addict. In 1980, Burden was sentenced for six to 18 years at the upstate maximum-security prison at Auburn, New York. On January 29, 1984, an appellate judge overturned Burden’s conviction, because the police did not have a warrant to search Burden’s Hempstead house.
Now at 61 years of age, Luther Burden is dealing with another conviction, a sentence from mother nature. Burden, a father of 10 (five adopted children), a grandfather and great grandfather, has been battling a disease called ATTR amyloidosis, which is when the body produces abnormal forms of antibodies.
He is being treated every three weeks at New York City’s Presbyterian Hospital, coming up from his home in Winston Salem, North Carolina. To make matters worse, Ticky’s wife, Cynthia, is battling for her life with stage 4 breast cancer. He admits that they’re having a difficult time paying for Cynthia’s continuing chemotherapy treatments.
Burden, during his two years of incarceration, turned to God by becoming a born-again Christian. He says he has forgiven those people who have hindered and interrupted his life, especially as a professional basketball player.
“I read my Bible at night and pray for a miracle for my wife,” he said. “I'm just happy to be able to teach basketball to kids. I relive some of my glories and help them reach their potential.”
Burden runs basketball clinics in Winston Salem for area youth. This information comes from an article written by Paul Grondahl, in September of 2012, a writer for the Albany Times Union.
Just recently, on July 25, there was a fundraiser at Albany High School to help the Burdens pay their medical bills.
Ticky is also shopping for a screenplay based on his life.
“It’s a story of redemption,” said his manager, William Dabbs.
I would like to thank Don Young, who gave me a clipping of an article from the July 20, 2014 edition of the New York Post, written by the Post's Gary Buiso, as part of an interview with Burden.
And with further research, I was able to get more information concerning the Burden dilemma. In the early ’70s, Ticky was one of the late Bob McNamara's (the former Channel 13 sports anchorman) favorite high school basketball stars. In 1972, Ticky was a unanimous choice as a Channel 13 All Star.
