Joe Fulks

Joseph Franklin "Jumping Joe" Fulks (October 26, 1921 – March 21, 1976) was an American professional basketball player who became the NBA's first scoring champion and was sometimes called "the first of the high-scoring forwards."

Fulks was born on a farm outside of Birmingham, Kentucky, a small town in the state's far-western Purchase region. Because of his family's low income, he did not own a real basketball as a child, instead practicing with a tin can or a stuffed sock until a local high school coach gave him a used ball. He began his high school career at Birmingham High School, where he became a star player. After his junior season, he moved with his family to Kuttawa, Kentucky, a move that preempted the Tennessee Valley Authority's damming of the Tennessee River, which flooded Birmingham under Kentucky Lake. Kuttawa was accused of recruiting Fulks to its basketball team by securing his father a job at the local prison, but an investigation by the Kentucky High School Association Board of Control did not find enough evidence to punish the school.

Fulks was posthumously enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978.