Everyone knows the story of Jackie Robinson and the way he broke Major League Baseball's color barrier by becoming the first African-American player to appear in a game.
But when it comes to the National Basketball Association, not as many people know about that sport's pioneer, who was able to break through and become to professional basketball what Robinson is to baseball.
That man was Earl Lloyd, a former West Virginia State basketball player and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. Lloyd went on to not only become the first African-American NBA player but also was the league's first African-American champion before becoming the first African-American assistant coach and later the first bench head coach.
It's a story that needs to be told, and one that is going to be told thanks to the new documentary, "The First to Do It: The Life and Times of Earl Lloyd."
"It's been a long time coming for my father to start to get the recognition that he deserves - but it's better late than never," Lloyd's son, Kevin, said. "It's important to know who the predecessors in this game were. When my father played, he couldn't stay in the hotels, he couldn't eat with his teammates.
"There were extremely difficult places for someone who looked like him to play in where he'd walk in and would hear the N-word on the regular and would get spit on. That's the kind of stuff that he endured so that the NBA could be what it is now for today's players."
The film debuted Thursday in New Orleans to help kick off NBA All-Star Weekend, and there will also be a private screening in Detroit, where Lloyd - who died in 2015 at age 86 - played and coached with the Pistons.
West Virginia State will have a screening on Feb. 26 in honor of Earl Lloyd Day.
"For the people who got to meet Earl and got the chance to interact with Earl, you know what a special person he was and how much his story needed to be told," West Virginia State basketball coach Bryan Poore said. "That's what makes this so cool for me - just the fact that this is going to be made and will be there to carry on his legacy the way it deserves to be."
The film is directed by Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah, the team behind the ESPN documentary Benji, and will focus on Lloyd's journey from a child growing up in deeply segregated Virginia to the trailblazer he became in the NBA and the legacy he left behind that paved the way for today's superstars in the league.
Poore, who is credited as a producer of the documentary, said he was put in contact with Simmons and Ozah after running into Donnie Kirksey, who was a coach who knew the directors, while on the road recruiting for the Yellow Jackets. He told them the story of Lloyd and how not many people knew about the story of what he did or his importance to the NBA as we know it today.
"When I met Donnie Kirksey and told him about the story of Earl, he just said, 'I've got to call Coodie. This is a documentary,' " Poore said. "From there, we talked more and realized this is something we needed to get out there for more people."
Kevin Lloyd said he hadn't seen the film before its premiere on Thursday, telling the filmmakers he wanted to wait until he could see the finished product to get to see his father's life story told on the big screen. It's an emotional experience for a family that had been advocating for a long time for something like this to happen to continue to honor Lloyd.
"My father grew up dirt poor in Jim Crow-era Virginia and he worked until he got to the Hall of Fame," Kevin Lloyd said. "I can't wait to see it, just to get to watch the story of his life unfold in the way they're going to be telling it."
Current NBA stars like Kawhi Leonard and Carmelo Anthony, among others, have been involved in the making of the documentary.
Producer Arka Sengupta has been in talks with companies like Nike and Under Armour to discuss sponsoring the documentary and getting it distributed to movie theaters in major cities across the country, according to Poore, to have it shown for free to wider audiences.
"It's about getting this shown to as many people as we possibly can," Poore said. "My goal is to one day be able to go into a recruit's home and ask them who the first black player in the NBA was and they know who I'm talking about."
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.