The late-great Julius Berry is pretty widely accepted as one of the all-time greats to play basketball in Lexington and the 11th Region. He played for the Lexington Dunbar Bearcats from 1955-1959, and then went on to play college basketball at the University of Dayton and Kentucky State College.

In his freshman year, the 1955-1956 basketball season, the KHSAA had not yet integrated basketball across the state, nor had it integrated its Sweet 16 basketball tournament. The African-American high schools competed among themselves and their season culminated with the Kentucky High School Athletic League Tournament, played between teams coming from the five regions of African-American KHSAL member schools. After advancing through sectional play, the Dunbar Bearcats earned a birth to the 1956 KHSAL Tournament, beating the Knob City Trojans in the quarterfinals, falling to Louisville Central in the semifinals, and finishing with a loss to the Lynch Pirates in the consolation game. Freshman "pivot man" Julius Berry had 55 points in the tournament.

As a sophomore, the KHSAA began a trial year for integration, allowing limited regular season competition between African-American high schools and its segregated member-schools, and selecting from the top African-American high school teams across the commonwealth to admit into post-season play. Berry missed six games of that season to illness. However, in the opening round of the 43rd District Tournament, sophomore Julius Berry paced Dunbar with 22 points as they beat the University High Purples, holding U-High star Herky Rupp to a mere 6 points. (Herky Rupp was son of Kentucky Wildcats head coach Adolph Rupp, who was then 27 years into his long-standing policy of fielding all-white basketball teams at UK.) The Bearcats' season came to an end two nights later with a loss to the Lafayette Generals in the 43rd District finals. Berry's performance that notice earned him some conversation as an all-stater, but the honor did not materialize.

In his junior year, Berry was a recognized star. Dunbar was invited to the Louisville Invitational Tournament, losing to the St. Xavier Tigers in the second round. Averaging 18.5 points in Dunbar's two tournament games, Berry was named to the 1958 All-L.I.T. team. The Bearcats' run in the 43rd District Tournament ended victoriously, with a 49-44 win over the Lafayette Generals. In the 11th Region Tournament, Dunbar won a re-match against the Generals, who used stall-ball tactics to try and cop the region title. Despite reprimands from the officials to actually play basketball instead of just dribbling and passing in circles, Lafayette slowed the game to a grind by maintaining possession of the ball for 20 minutes and 45 seconds of the total 24 minutes of the first three quarters. The game was tied 0-0 at the end of 1Q, and was tied 2-2 at the half. Lafayette led 5-4 after 3 quarters and Julius Berry hook-shot in the final minute forced an 8-8 tie at the end of regulation. Dunbar won 16-12 in overtime, and Berry finished with a game-leading 10 points. Advancing to the Sweet 16 with their first-ever 11th Region title, Dunbar beat the Meade Memorial Red Devils in the opening round of the tournament. For a second time that season, though, they were bounced from a tournament by St. Xavier. The eventual 1958 Sweet 16 champion Tigers beat the Bearcats 44-25 in the quarterfinals. Berry was named an All-State center at the season's end.

Berry's 1958-1959 senior season was again hampered by infirmity as he battled with a fallen arch in one of his feet, but even still he was well known for coming off the bench in several games and scoring north of 20 points. Invited for a second year in a row to play in the Louisville Invitational Tournament, Dunbar beat Louisville Flaget, Central and Male to reach the tournament finals, but they lost 71-58 to top-ranked DuPont Manual in the championship game. Averaging 19.25 points per game in the tournament, Berry repeated as a member of the All-L.I.T. team. The Bearcats repeated as 43rd District Champs with a repeat-win over Lafayette, and went on to win the 11th Region title with wins over Madison-Model, Lafayette, and Frankfort. Berry averaged 17.3 points per game in the district tournament, and 26 points per game in the regional bracket. With a second-straight appearance in the Sweet 16, Dunbar won their first-round game against the Sacramento Blue Jays, and beat the Monticello Trojans in the quarterfinals, but their tournament run was ended in the semifinals with a 52-50 loss to DuPont Manual. Dunbar finished third in the 1959 Sweet 16 after beating the Olive Hill Comets 88-45 in the consolation game. Berry was once again named to the All-State team in addition to being named to the Sweet 16's 1959 All-Tournament team.

In post-season all-star game action, Julius Berry was named to play for Kentucky in the 1959 home and away Kentucky-Indiana All-Star Games. Leading the Kentucky All-Stars to a 86-81 win in the first game, played at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Berry's 20 points and 17 rebounds earned him "Star of Stars" MVP honors for the Kentucky Team. A week later when Indiana hosted at the Butler Field House in Indianapolis, the Kentucky All-Stars fell to Indiana 88-77. Berry tallied 17 points and 7 rebounds, coming away as the top scorer and rebounder from the combined games. Also named to the East team in Kentucky's East-West All-Star Game, Berry finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds in the East All-Stars' 74-63 win over the West.

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Due to incomplete scoring records (or non-existent, perhaps), the KHSAA does not have an official career score tally for Julius Berry. In June of 1995 when the KHSAA announced their upcoming 1996 inductees to the Dawahares/KHSAA Hall of Fame, their citation for Berry stated, "This former Lexington Dunbar basketball AII-American scored over 3,000 points in his career…He was an all-state selection two consecutive years and was the star of stars in the 1959 Kentucky-Indiana AII-Star game." The June 12 Hall of Fame press release, and the subsequent newspaper articles quoting it, are the earliest mentions I have been able to locate for the points scored in Berry's career. Everything I've ever found, including the KHSAA record book, either credits him with 3,000 points even, or "over 3,000 points."

Last month, Bryan Station's Amari Owens passed Paul Laurence Dunbar's Taveion Hollingsworth (2,495) to take the 3rd-place spot on the all-time scoring list in Lexington. Prior to tonight's opening game in the 11th Region Tournament, Owens has 2,594 points, putting him in 2nd-place ahead of Lexington Christian Academy's Kyle Rode (2,517).

With the convention of the searchable Newspapers.com archives, which now includes the the majority of significant newspapers published in Kentucky, I got a little curious after Bryan Station's most recent game on February 27th and started searching to see what I could find for game-by-game scores from Berry's career at Dunbar. I was pretty surprised by what I found. I was able to come up with individual scoring results from what I believe are all but 1 of the 122 games that Dunbar competed in during Julius Berry's 4 years of high school basketball as a Bearcat. Berry was listed to have played in 113 of those games, and by year, I show him with 372 points as a freshman, 319 points as a sophomore, 609 points as a junior, and 805 points as a senior for a career total of 2,105 points. Deducting the 1 game where I don't have individual scoring results (a 78-58 Dunbar win over Paris Western on March 10, 1956), that gives Berry a career average of 18.8 points per game. Impressive....but not 3,000 points.

So where does the 3,000 point total come from? And who is actually the all-time career points leader in Lexington?

Julius Berry Point Total
1955-1956

Julius Berry Point Total
1956-1957

Julius Berry Point Total
1957-1958

Julius Berry Point Total
1958-1959