It's a name that is virtually unknown to basketball fans today. Yet in the mid-1950's, there may not have been a more prolific scorer in Eastern basketball than Jack Sullivan.

The son of a Washington police inspector, Sullivan was raised in Northeast Washington in the racially mixed Brookland neighborhood. While integrated basketball was still against the law, Sullivan could be seen playing in unauthorized pick up games alongside that of Elgin Baylor and Earl Lloyd.

"They ignored the segregation rules to find the best pick-up games," said his son Edward in 2010. "Dad's home court was Turkey Thicket Recreation Center but he took the trolley and other city playgrounds to play and win."

Sullivan could have been a Interhigh legend had he played at McKinley Tech, the top team in the District in the early 1950's, but enrolled at nearby St. Anthony's HS instead, the school where John Thompson got his start as a high school coach in the 1960's. As a junior, Sullivan led the Tonies to an upset of McKinley Tech, ending the Trainers' 39 game win streak with a driving layup in the final seconds, 56-55. Averaging 24 points a game over two and a half seasons, Sullivan was a two-time All-Metro League honoree and the school's first ever All-Met selection, yet found no interest among Georgetown or the other local schools.

As noted elsewhere in this series, the Georgetown recruiting of the early 1950's failed to focus on talent in Washington. Diocesan high schools such as St. Anthony's were judged to be insufficient for producing men capable of Georgetown work, even as GU accepted well over 60 percent of its applicants. During a period of athletic deemphasis following the dropping of major college football in 1951, the remaining men's coaches (basketball, track, baseball) were left to recruit among Jesuit high schools in the Northeast, and largely ignored local boys who could not earn favor with the dean of admissions, Lawrence R. McHugh, S.J.

In a mammoth 11-man basketball recruiting class in the spring of 1953, only two players were selected from the Washington area, both from Gonzaga College High School, combining for 26 points in their college careers. Seventy miles away from Georgetown, Jack Sullivan would score over 2,600 points on his own.

Sullivan enrolled at Mount St. Mary's College in the fall of 1953, then a school of just 500. He led the Mounties with a 17 point average in 1953 as a freshman and the school's first conference championship in 10 years, but it wasn't until his sophomore season that his game took off. The Mount had hired 25 year old Jim Phelan, an ex-Marine who had played basketball at LaSalle in 1951, to serve as the school's new coach. Young enough to go toe-to-toe with his best player in practices, Phelan saw a star in the making.

"Here was this big Irish kid who stood 6-4, and we'd work out together," Phelan told the Baltimore Sun. "Jack was one of those people or simply worked hard in all that he did. He was tremendously strong willed. He was always the first guy to practice and the last to leave."

Over his four years at the Mount (earning an extra year of eligibility available during the Korean War), Jack Sullivan obliterated the record books at at that school. An alert outside scorer who mastered the hook shot inside the paint, Sullivan still holds 11 scoring records at the school, including eight of the top 10 for scoring in a single game: 55 versus Baltimore, 51 versus Washington College, 48 versus North-Carolina Central, and 44 in a rare Mount St. Mary's win over Georgetown.

Yet, as late as 1956, Sullivan had never been to the post-season, despite three consecutive Mason-Dixon Conference championships, because small colleges were routinely passed over for the 24 team NCAA tournament. With as few as six Eastern schools selected a year, a small school like Mount St. Mary's stood little chance amidst selecting teams such as the champions of the Ivy League, the ACC, or perennial powers such as Holy Cross, Temple, or West Virginia. The NCAA then split the schools into the University Division (aka Division I) and the College Division (Division II), with separate tournaments for each. During the first year of the College Division, Sullivan was second in the nation in scoring (33 points a game), leading the Mountaineers to a 21 game win streak en route to a fourth Mason-Dixon Conference title, the school's first NCAA tournament berth, and the 1957 College Division Final Four where, playing their seventh game in 11 days, Mount St. Mary's lost in the national semifinal, 99-81.

The 14th selection in the 1957 NBA draft, Sullivan's pro career was put on hold by his military service, where according to the Baltimore Sun, he became "the most valuable hoopster in the Marine Corps." Consecutive Corps basketball titles at Quantico led one general to transfer him to Camp Lejeune, whereupon that base won the title the following year. Despite playing in the military, Sullivan was selected an alternate for the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, a team that included the likes of future Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, and Jerry Lucas.

Sullivan's NBA rights were traded by the Philadelphia Warriors to the New York Knickerbockers, but by 1961 Sullivan opted to stay closer to home, playing for the Washington Tapers in the short-lived American Basketball League. He then served in the Secret Service, and was stationed to protect the Kennedy family in Hyannisport, MA when the President died in 1963. Sullivan later moved into private life, serving as director of government relations for two national labor unions and as a coach at Gonzaga, Holy Name Academy, and finally the women's coach at Catholic University from 1989 to 1996.

Passing away in 2010, Sullivan received a unique honor by Mount St. Mary's, as he was laid to rest on the grounds of the college. His son remarked, "He'll be buried on a hill overlooking the gym where he had played."

Jack Sullivan's 2,672 career points remain the second most points scored by any Washington DC area player in the history of college basketball. The next three on the record book are David Robinson (Navy), Austin Carr (Notre Dame), and Johnny Dawkins (Duke).