CCNY makes history in 1950, by Ari Sclar

In 1950, the CCNY team included a class of sophomores that sportswriters considered the best recruiting class in school history.  Jewish starters, 6’3” sophomore guard Al ‘Fats’ Roth, 6’6” sophomore center Ed Roman, and 6’4” senior forward Irwin Dambrot played alongside two African-American starters, sophomores 6’3” guard Floyd Layne and 6’4” forward Ed Warner.  Basketball historian Neil Isaacs described the team as “taller than a typical Holman squad and more versatile.”  The team played well early in the year, rose to a No. 7 ranking in the Associated Press (AP) poll, and finished the season with a record of 17-5.  The team went undefeated against Metropolitan opponents and earned an invitation to the NIT.[1]  Many believed the team would again lose in the first round.  Instead, over an 18 day span, CCNY achieved one of the greatest feats in college basketball history.

On March 12, 1950, CCNY defeated San Francisco, the twelfth ranked team in the country, in the first round of the NIT.  The team then triumphed over the two-time defending NCAA champion, No. 3 Kentucky by a score of 89-50.  CCNY defeated No. 6 Duquesne in the semifinals before beating No. 1 Bradley in the championship game.  CCNY then played in the NCAA tournament, which began four days after the NIT final.  CCNY proceeded to defeat No. 2 Ohio State and No. 5 North Carolina State to set up a rematch with Bradley in the final.  The game began with Holman absent due to a 103 degree temperature and became a thrilling affair that came down to the final seconds.  With a one point lead, CCNY’s ‘super sub’ Norm Mager stole the ball from Bradley’s star Gene Melchiorre and scored a final basket to complete CCNY’s 71-68 victory.[2]

CCNY became the only school in basketball history to win both the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same season, considered the ‘Grand Slam.’  After winning both tournaments, the school cancelled classes and parades honored the team.  Sport magazine named Holman its “Man of the Year.”  According to historian Edward Shapiro, Holman also “received invitations to speak at Congregation Rodeph Shalom and the Ramaz School, an Orthodox day school” in Manhattan.  New York newspapers hailed the coach and the players, who the New York Herald Tribune called “our boys.”  When asked about his players’ “exceptional gifts,” however, Holman downplayed their talent and “insisted that the 14 players – all of them products of a teeming city’s public schools – were essentially ‘just a group of intelligent boys in excellent physical condition.’”[3]

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[1] Isaacs, All the Moves, 95.

[2] On the CCNY championships, see Isaacs, All the Moves, 97-100; Bjarkman, Hoopla, 63-68; Stanley Cohen, The Game They Played (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1977).  Many believed Mechiorre was fouled, which was not called because the game was held in New York City.

[3] See Edward Shapiro, “The Shame of the City: CCNY Basketball, 1950-51,” in Kugelmass, Jews, Sports, and the Rites of Citizenship,  181-183. “Basketball: Bradley Weardown,” Newsweek, April 10, 1950.  Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbet’s Field, 78-81.  In the early twentieth century, it became common to hail the coaches for their ability to turn players, including those not considered athletics, into winning teams.  See Overman, The Influence of the Protestant Ethic on Sport and Recreation, 166-169.