After earning Louisiana MVP honors at Booker T. Washington High School, Bruce Seals became an NAIA men’s basketball All-American in 1971-72 and 1972-73 and one of the leaders of the renaissance of Xavier University of Louisiana men’s basketball in the 1970s. The 6-8, 210-pound forward played five seasons in the ABA and the NBA. He had his start in basketball at the Rosenwald Recreation Center.

During Seals' junior season, Booker T. Washington won the Louisiana Interscholastic Athletic and Literary Association state championship, the last year of the governing body for Black high schools. As a senior in 1970-71, Seals led BTW’s Lions to the LHSAA Class 4A semifinals and was selected as the state’s Most Valuable Player. The Lions lost to eventual state champion Woodlawn in the semifinals – Woodlawn was led by future Boston Celtics star Robert Parish.
 
Although he had offers from more publicized schools, Seals opted to stay home and attend XULA with BTW teammates Greg Berniard, James Williams and Ames Growe.
 
“Bruce was quiet as a child,” said Berniard, who grew up with Seals in the Calliope Projects. “When he got to Booker T., an assistant coach, Robert Anderson, saw something in him and helped make him who he came to be. Bruce was dedicated and worked at his craft and became a very, very good ballplayer.”
 
As a freshman at XULA, Seals averaged 18.7 points and 12.2 rebounds in 26 games for a team that was 22-5, won the NAIA District 30 championship and reached the second round in its first-ever appearance at NAIA nationals.
 
The next year Seals averaged 25.6 points and 13.7 rebounds in 27 games for a 21-6 team that repeated as District 30 champion and reached the NAIA’s national quarterfinals. In a 67-60 upset of top-seeded and unbeaten Sam Houston State in the second round on March 14, 1973, in Kansas City, Mo., Seals produced the program’s first triple-double: 32 points, 10 rebounds and 12 blocked shots, the latter still a XULA record.
 
"Bruce wasn't the biggest thing out there, but he was the biggest thing out there," said teammate Victor Duvernay, Jr. "He blocked more shots and shot the ball so well and got so many second and third shots. You had to be there to see it. He was unreal."
 
His two-season totals at XULA included 22.2 points per game in 53 contests. Seals shot 52 percent from the floor (486-of-934) and 61.7 percent from the line (206-of-334). He scored 1,178 points and grabbed 688 rebounds.
 
Entering the 2020-21 season, Seals still held six XULA records, including rebounds per game in a career, 13.0.
 
After two seasons, Seals departed XULA to play professionally. He was drafted by the Utah Stars in the first round of the 1973 ABA Draft and played two seasons in Salt Lake City, helping the Stars to the Western Division title and a trip to the ABA finals, where they lost to the New York Nets.
 
He joined the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics from 1975-78, playing for two years for NBA legend Bill Russell. Seals averaged in double figures in scoring twice (1975-76 and 1976-77) with the Sonics. In Seattle he was reunited with guard Donald “Slick” Watts, who starred for XULA from 1970-73.
 
“Every night was an adventure,” Seals remembered. “One night I guarded [John] Havlicek, one night I guarded Doc [Julius Erving], Rick Barry, Jamal Wilkes.
 
“I remember I blocked a shot; I knocked it into the fifth row. And he [Bill Russell] called timeout and said, ‘Son, whatcha doing?’ I said, ‘Coach, I was sending a message.’ And he looks at me and he says, ‘All you did was give them the ball back.’ For a minute I stood there and thought about it, and then I said, ‘You’re right Coach.’ And I never did it again.”
 
Seals averaged 8.9 points and 4.2 rebounds in 348 combined ABA-NBA games.
 
Seals followed his NBA career with a stint in the Italian professional league.
 
Seals later moved to the Boston area with his wife Shirley and his children, Bruce Jr. and Denitra, and spent many years as athletic director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester, Mass. (1991-2020). He also served as a basketball assistant coach at Boston’s Emerson College for 17 years (1994-2011).
 
“Coach Seals was a person of tremendous knowledge and humility. He had great impact and influence on all of the Emerson players that he mentored and coached throughout the years,” said Sam Presti, a longtime NBA executive who played for Seals at Emerson. “We would often marvel about the fact that someone like Coach Seals, with his experience and resume, would be volunteering his time to help us. Coach had a true love of the game, but as one can see through his role with the Boys and Girls Club for all of those years, he had an equally deep love for supporting young, aspiring people.”
 
“Bruce Seals gave his heart and soul to every men’s basketball student-athlete to help them develop on and off the court,” said Stanford Nance, senior associate director of athletics, who came to Emerson in 2003. “A master tactician, Bruce was also known to incorporate his life skills, which help them be successful after the ball stops bouncing.”
 
Born June 18, 1953, Seals was inducted into the Louisiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. He died on December 15, 2020, at the age of 67.
 
Bill Forry, a writer for the Dorchester Reporter, wrote about Seals following his death, “Bruce helped to create the club’s signature program of the 1990s— Safe Summer Streets— and much of it revolved around basketball. This was Bruce’s passion: teaching kids and teens the game of basketball. Many went on to play college ball and can thank Coach Seals for the degrees on their walls. Thousands more simply learned how to have fun, secure in the fact that they were safe in Bruce’s house…There’ll never be another Bruce Seals.”
 
XULA records still held by Bruce Seals
Game
•  Blocked shots: 12 vs. Sam Houston State, March 14, 1973
Season
•  Rebounds: 370 in 1972-73
•  Field-goal attempts: 571 in 1972-73
•  Field goals made: 294 in 1972-73
Career (1971-73)
•  Rebounds per game: 13.0 (688 rebounds in 53 games)
•  Field-goal attempts per game: 17.62 (934 field-goal attempts in 53 games)
 
MORE READING: Obituary from Xavier University.