Early years
Robertson was born in poverty in Charlotte, Tennessee and grew up in a segregated housing project in Indianapolis. In contrast to many other boys who preferred to play baseball, he was drawn to basketball because it was "a poor kids' game." Because his family could not afford a basketball, he learned how to shoot by tossing tennis balls and rags bound with rubber bands into a peach basket behind his family's home.[3] Robertson attended Crispus Attucks High School, a segregated all-black high school.
High school career
At Crispus Attucks, Robertson's coach was Ray Crowe, whose emphasis on a fundamentally sound game had a positive effect on Robertson's style of play. In 1954, as a sophomore, he starred on an Attucks team that lost in the semi-state finals (state quarterfinals) to eventual state champions Milan, whose story would later be the basis of the classic 1986 movie Hoosiers. When Robertson was a junior, Crispus Attucks dominated its opposition, going 31–1 and winning the 1955 state championship, the first for any all-black school in the nation. The following year the team finished with a perfect 31–0 record and won a second straight Indiana state title, becoming the first team in Indiana to secure a perfect season and compiling a state-record 45 straight victories. The state championships were also the first ever by an Indianapolis team in the Hoosier tourney. After their championship game wins, the team was paraded through town in a regular tradition, but they were then taken to a park outside downtown to continue their celebration, unlike other teams. Robertson stated, "[Officials] thought the blacks were going to tear the town up, and they thought the whites wouldn't like it."[9] Robertson scored 24.0 points per game in his senior season and was named Indiana "Mr. Basketball" in 1956.[3]After his graduation that year, Robertson enrolled at the University of Cincinnati.
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