Byrdsong grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, raised by his mother with his younger sister Marcia. He attended Frederick Douglass High School. Besides basketball, Byrdsong played the saxophone in the band, sang with the chorus and appeared in school plays. After graduation in 1974, Byrdsong accepted a basketball scholarship to Pratt Community College in Pratt, Kansas. Byrdsong then played his final two seasons of college basketball for Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa under Coach Lynn Nance from 1976-1978. He was named team captain, but played sparingly for the Cyclones averaging 0.9 points and 0.9 rebounds in his career. After graduating from Pratt, Byrdsong had been offered scholarships from many schools, before choosing Iowa State. He said, "Then I went there and I never played. I probably was the only non-playing captain in Iowa State history. Total all my minutes in two years and it might equal two games." However, after he graduated from Iowa State, Coach Nance asked Brydsong consider coaching and then asked him to stay with the Cyclones as a graduate assistant. He accepted the advice and began his coaching career in 1978.
On February 5, 1994, while coaching a game against Minnesota, Byrdsong abruptly left the game and joined the fans in the stands shaking hands, high-fiving the Minnesota Gopher mascot and taking an unticketed seat until removed by an usher. The team had started the season 9-0 but was at this point on a 9-game losing streak. After returning to Evanston, Byrdsong's wife requested a leave of absence for the coach, to which Byrdsong remarked, "My wife, after watching me, obviously got concerned, now, any time I'm going to take a walk on the wild side, I should let her know."
On July 2, 1999, while jogging near his Skokie, Illinois home with his son and daughter, ages 8 and 10, Byrdsong was shot by Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a member of the white supremacistCreativity Movement who went on a shooting spree, and died four hours later on July 3 at Evanston Hospital. Smith was a disciple of Mathew Hale and his shooting spree took place two days after Hale was denied a license to practice law in Illinois. Over a span of a few days, Smith killed a Korean American student at Indiana University, injured two African American men in Springfield, Illinois, a Taiwanese man in Urbana, an African American minister in Decatur, and six Orthodox Jews in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Smith also attempted to shoot, but missed 9 other potential victims. According to eyewitnesses, Smith pulled alongside Byrdsong and shot him multiple times. Smith was never brought to trial because he committed suicide on July 4, 1999, after he crashed his car into a metal post during a high-speed chase in Southern Illinois. Byrdsong and his wife, Sherialyn, had three children: Sabrina, Kelley and Ricky Jr.
Media coverage and public reaction
A fair amount of media coverage was centered on the events of Byrdsong's death and his achievements as a former Northwestern basketball coach. In 2000, an award was created in his honor by the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative. Anya Cordell, Byrdsong's neighbor, wrote the anti-hate crime book Race: An Open and Shut Case. Cordell said that she was inspired by the urge to combat the hate that fueled Benjamin Smith's deadly shooting rampage. Byrdsong's children also received college scholarships from the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, an organization which helps victims of families from hate crimes. In 2009, a documentary about Byrdsong, entitled Fly Like the Byrd, was created by Northwestern students from the Medill School of Journalism. The 25-minute documentary examines race relations and how his legacy has lived on, ten years later.
The Ricky Byrdsong Foundation
His widow established The Ricky Byrdsong Foundation. Its mission is to "arrest the growing epidemic of hate and violence in our society by and against our youth." The foundation holds a number of events in and around Evanston; the most well-known is the Race Against Hate, a 5K running race held annually in late June in Evanston. The Race Against Hate race draws several thousand runners. In 2009, a 10,000-meter running race was added in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Race Against Hate.
