Kendall to honor Bouie on Wednesday

Contributed Photo – Roosevelt Bouie, shown here during his scholastic days at Kendall, will be honored by his alma mater this coming Wednesday following the recent retirement of his uniform number by Syracuse University.

Kendall High basketball legend Roosevelt Bouie was recently honored by Syracuse University with the retirement of his uniform number (No. 50) and now his hometown community and alma mater are set to add their congratulations to him for receiving this special honor.

Bouie will be honored at the high school this coming Wednesday evening in ceremonies being held in conjunction with the annual Kendall vs. Holley faculty basketball game.

Scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. the ceremony will include a video tribute to Bouie who will address the crowd. The faculty game is slated to follow at 6:45 p.m. with proceeds going to the Kendall and Holley community food pantries.

Bouie helped key a run of what turned out to be five straight sectional titles for Kendall during the mid 1970’s and then starred for four years at Syracuse.

During his scholastic days at Kendall his Eagle squads compiled a overall record of 65-1 during his sophomore, junior and senior years, including registering 55 straight wins during one stretch.

The Eagles went 21-1 his sophomore year of 1974 and then 22-0 during both his junior (1975) and senior (1976) years capturing the Section V Class C title each time.

Bouie in fact was named the Class C tournament MVP each of those three years.

Kendall capped off the perfect back-to-back 22-0 seasons by defeating Mt. Morris 64-51 in the 1975 title contest and by downing H-A-C 73-55 in the 1976 finale.

In all, the Eagles ended up capturing the Section V Class C title five straight years from 1973-1977.

Bouie went on to Syracuse University where he teamed up with Louis Orr (who also had his number 55 retired) to form what became known as the “Louie and Bouie Show.” They led Syracuse to four straight NCAA Tournament appearances (1977-80), the inaugural Big East Conference championship in 1980 and the first 100 wins of Syracuse legendary Coach Jim Boeheim’s career.

Bouie, who scored 1,560 points for the Orange, still ranks No. 2 on the Syracuse all-time list in blocks with 327 and is 7th in rebounds with 987.