Just days after celebrating his 14th birthday in March of 1972, Scott Black attended his first Minnesota boys’ state high school basketball tournament with his dad.

As Scott watched the players on teams who “made it to state” playing at Williams Arena on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he dreamed that someday he could play for his high school team—the Columbia Heights Hylanders—in the state tournament. While Scott would go on to play for the Hylanders and serve as co-captain of a team that won the North Suburban Conference in 1976 (Scott also received honorable mention on the all-conference squad that year), the second-seeded Hylanders were upset in the regional semifinal round.

But that disappointing loss didn’t stop Scott from attending the boys’ state basketball tournament. In fact, that  ...