Allen Searson was a basketball standout at Atlantic Christian College (now Barton) in the 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons after transferring from Wingate Junior College. He was twice selected NAIA All-District, All-Carolinas Conference and team MVP. He was an Honorable Mention NAIA All-American his junior season and was a pivotal inside presence when the Bulldogs pulled off one of the biggest upsets in school history by knocking off defending NAIA National Champion Guilford in the Carolinas Conference Tournament. Guilford was led by future NBA star Lloyd “World B.” Free.
He played high school basketball in Columbia, S.C., alongside former NBA great Alex English and suited up on the same team as N.C. State great David Thompson in the Portsmouth Invitational.
Searson, named AC’s Kiwanis Male Athlete of the Year in 1975, lives in Savannah, Ga., where he has enjoyed an award-winning career with Colonial Life.
Sports was not a priority for Searson early on, and when he was cut from his 7th and 8th-grade basketball teams, he turned to baseball. An arm injury his freshman year led him back to basketball, where he began to use his tall frame.
Searson played at Dreher High with NBA legend Alex English. Their senior season, the 6-7 Searson, English and others went 26-1, losing in the state 4A championship. He grew up honing his basketball skills at Mays Park, where tons of basketball wannabes would duke it out in half-court games.
He credits AC head coach Ben Pomeroy for giving him the fundamentals to become a very good collegiate player, despite his wiry 200-pound frame.
Searson was recruited by 25-30 schools after two years at Wingate, but chose AC because he liked Pomeroy. Ironically, his roommate at Wingate, Greg Killingsworth, also transferred to play for AC. Some of his other teammates were Robbie Cooke, Jimmy Nixon, Russell Eaves, Richard Battle and Larry Tyson.
He recalls that Atlantic Christian didn’t have a deep team, noting “it was a whole different ball park back then. There was the NCAA and the NAIA. You had a lot of guys who had talent, but not grades, so they ended up at the smaller schools.”
Searson said it was something special to line up against players like M.L. Carr, Free, Greg Jackson and others.
Searson, who played with “his back to the basket,” averaged 14 points and 11 rebounds for his AC career and shot 68 percent from the floor his junior year (6th-best nationally).
Searson says he was an even better player after college. “I actually peaked in my basketball prowess at age 30 or 31,” he said. “I played AAU ball in South Carolina and all over the Southeast Region. I played actually until I was 43, which is when my knees got bad.”
He may have been a self-proclaimed “late bloomer,” but Searson has certainly hit many a court in his day, and he made his presence felt not only there, but in the communities of Columbia, S.C., and Savannah, Ga.
