The continued struggle, by Arieh Sclar

The Metropolitan League limited the ability of New York institutions to circumvent the code of amateur sport, but other YMHA’s felt less external pressure to establish rigid standards regarding professional behavior.  In the early 1920s, the Hartford YMHA participated primarily in citywide competitions and won three consecutive city championships.  In December 1923, a game against the Original Celtics caused some YMHA officials to question the commercialism and rumored professionalism of the basketball team.  With pressure to decrease their commercial activity, the ‘representative’ team declared its intention to break off from the institution and call themselves ‘City Champs’ as an independent team.  Not surprisingly, YMHA officials opposed this development and insisted that the title belonged to the Association, not the players.  The rift appeared irreconcilable until a local businessman offered the YMHA $5,000 if the team again captured the city championship.  Upon this news, the players returned to the YMHA, supposedly on a ‘pure’ amateur standing.[1]

The reconciliation did not alleviate the concerns of some YMHA officials regarding the team’s activities.  Rumors grew that the manager would pay the players.  The YMHA Advisory Board left the team’s fate in the hands of the president, who told the Hartford Courant that the YMHA paid the team’s expenses on out-of-town trips, but “that is all.”  When the Courant reported that statement, YMHA board members explained that strictly paying expenses was a “new” arrangement and that players had previously “split the money [profits] amongst themselves.”  This new arrangement, however, did not stop the team’s professionalism.  The Courant also reported that the team had “three players who live in other cities,” all of whom the manager “paid by means of padded expense allowances.”  The controversy resulted in the resignation of the Hartford YMHA’s executive secretary because of “numerous clashes” with the institution’s president over the status of the basketball team.[2] 

The Hartford team’s recruitment and compensation of star players indicated a complexity not often associated with YMHA sport.  Among the players on Hartford’s team was Sam Pite, the central player in the 1922 Yale controversy.  Considering his New Haven origins, Pite’s presence indicated that a dissatisfaction with members’ talent led YMHA management to search outside the institution’s local area to find players. The Courant also reported that the YMHA team had a neighborhood following of over one thousand fans, including non-members.  To remedy this situation, and end the competitive and commercial pressures that had caused the problems during the 1924 season, YMHA officials declared at the end of the season that they would no longer allow “non-membership players” on the team.[3]

New York’s Metropolitan League also contained player movement that indicated the league did not exist as a local endeavor.  A report on the 92^nd Street YMHA basketball team in 1931 revealed that only one of nine varsity players lived near the Association on the upper East Side.  In contrast, five players lived in Brooklyn at a time when fewer than ten percent of the Association’s membership came from the borough.[4]

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[1] See the Hartford Courant, December 25, 1923; January 10, 1924; January 13, 1924.  In 1921, Hartford joined a YMHA state league. Five YMHA’s (Springfield, Hartford, New Haven, New London, Bridgeport) met to organize a state league, “along three lines: athletic, educational, and camp and miscellaneous.” A basketball league was not initially formed because “most organizations…made up their schedules.” See “House Notes: YMHA League is Organized,” Community News, December 1921. 

[2] “Only Remote Possibility that YMHA will have City Series Team Next Year,” Hartford Courant, March 13, 1924.

[3] The Connecticut Hebrew Record simply commented on the initial fracture between the YMHA and the players over the commercialization of basketball. “Hartford Sports,” Connecticut Hebrew Record, January 10, 1924.

[4] Nat Beckelman to Nat Holman, April 6, 1931, Correspondence files “Young Men’s Hebrew Association,” Executive Director records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  According to the letter, the roster included one player from Manhattan, three players from the Bronx, and five players from Brooklyn.  In a separate letter, an Association official indicated to Charles Bernheimer of the JWB that 39.46% of the total membership was from Manhattan, 46.73% was from the Bronx, and only 9.28% was from Brooklyn.  The sender of the letter is unknown, though most likely was YMHA executive director, Jack Nadel, September 5, 1931, miscellaneous folder, Jewish Welfare Board records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. For information on player movement, which generally did not occur during a season, see the Y Bulletin in the 1920s and 1930s.  According to historian Beth Wenger, the Jewish population in the YMHA’s Yorkville neighborhood was only 4%.  It is therefore not surprising that the YMHA sought players from other boroughs, though it is odd that one player traveled from Coney Island to play for the YMHA.