The Rise of LIU - Ari Sclar

Bolstered by CCNY’s success, New York sportswriters increased their boosterism in 1934 and presented New York as “the college basketball center of the East.”  Other schools contributed to notions of New York superiority.  St. John’s remained an excellent program after the 1931 scandal and NYU defeated Yale, Temple, and St. John’s over a five day span in February 1934.  Stanley Frank declared that NYU’s 47-30 “whaling” of St. John’s was “the most impressive display of power shown this year.”[1]  The strength of CCNY, NYU, and other city schools during the 1934 season led sportswriters to discuss the possible formation of a Metropolitan League, made up of the ‘Big Six.’  If Columbia could not leave the Ivy League, sportswriters begrudgingly decided that it would be replaced by Long Island University (LIU), which had only started its basketball program in the late 1920s.[2]

Considered “small-time” in the early 1930s, LIU found itself denigrated by other New York schools.  Unlike the city’s top programs, this latecomer to New York basketball allowed freshmen to play and had not been included in the first charity triple-header at the Garden.  The program slowly increased its prestige after Claire Bee became the head coach and recruited top high school players from New York.  Bee’s acumen at recruiting had brought some of the best Jewish players to LIU, which became the fourth ‘Jewish’ basketball school in New York, joining NYU, CCNY, and St. John’s.  Yet, its invitation to play in the 1933 charity ‘carnival’ did not mean that sportswriters or fans considered LIU to be in the class of NYU or CCNY.  In 1934, the school announced it would no longer allow freshmen to play on the varsity, but sportswriters belittled LIU’s 20-game winning streak against “second-class competition.”  Ironically, a 33-28 loss to St. John’s provided the school legitimacy as “a new basketball power.”[3]

The 1934 LIU-St. John’s game illustrated the intense passion that basketball could produce.  Thirteen hundred spectators “formed the most rabidly partisan gathering of the campaign,” and watched a “tense, thrilling battle that was worthy of its setting.”  During the game, “the players kept remarkable control of themselves until just 35 seconds before the final gun” when St. John’s Rip Kaplinsky slammed into LIU’s Bill Schwartz.  “Fists started to fly and in an instant one end of the court was a mass of fighting players.”  Eventually, “the constabulary arrived in time to stop a few zealous spectators from throwing sucker punches in the players’ private fight.”[4]   

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[1] Stanley Frank, “Court Chatter,” New York Evening Post, February 19, 1934.

[2] Claire Hare, “How About It?” New York Evening Post, January 20, 1934.

[3] “LIU Joins Court Leaders,” New York Evening Post, February 15, 1934.

[4] “St. John’s Topples LIU Five, 33-28,” New York Times, February 15, 1934.