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]

---

[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.

YMHA' continue the struggle to control basketball, by Arieh Sclar

Similar to the 92^nd Street YMHA, the structure of the Metropolitan League, formerly known as the YMHA League, evolved during the 1920s.  The original YMHA Athletic League had member institutions in Westchester (Mt. Vernon and Yonkers), Brooklyn, and New Jersey (Bayonne and Perth Amboy).  Re-named the Metropolitan League to represent non-YMHA members such as the Educational Alliance, the league’s expansion in the 1920s reflected the changing demographic patterns of New York Jews.  Economic prosperity allowed Jews to leave the lower East Side, and by 1925, only 15% of New York Jews remained in the immigrant neighborhood.[1]  The migration to the Bronx and Brooklyn made communal contact among Jews more difficult.  Jewish centers attempted to fill the void caused by the dispersal.  By the mid-1920s, sport served as the “principal means of establishing cordial relations between the members of the YMHA’s in the Metropolitan district.”  In 1925, the Metropolitan League existed as “solely an athletic group,” although officials hoped to “enlarge the scope of activity…to include debates, oratorical and music contests, etc.”  That same year, the league issued a report that asked the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB), a national organization that oversaw YMHA’s and JCC’s, to help stimulate “athletic competition on a larger scale.”[2]

In the mid-1920s, the league formed an Athletic Committee to control member behavior, standardize rules and regulations, and encourage league competition by awarding cups and trophies.  Minutes of the league’s various committees reveal an inordinate amount of time spent ruling on the validity of team protests, the suspension and reinstatement of players, the standardization of rules, referees decisions, and decisions regarding awards, trophies, and other minutia.[3]  The Metropolitan League also confronted gambling, which it banned at all events:

No man who has been found guilty of placing or attempting to place a bet or acted as an agent for others in betting on athletic contests in the Metropolitan League shall be eligible to represent a constituent organization in any League activity one year from the date of the occurrence of the act.  The Board of Directors of the organization of which he is a member is to be notified and requested to take similar action.[4]

The wording of the ban indicated the familiarity of such activity within YMHA sport and the mention of ‘agents’ meant players themselves may have gambled.  Jewish institutions outside of New York also confronted gambling.  A reader’s letter in the Baltimore Jewish Times commented that “open gambling is being conducted by Jewish young men.”  During YMHA games in the Baltimore Basketball League, “they flash their money in the open and call aloud for bettors.”  The Times’ columnist stated the gamblers “leave a bad taste in the mouth of the respectable Jewish young men.”[5]  Officials became concerned that incidents of gambling reflected poorly on the larger community.  They also remained concerned about professionalism at Jewish centers and sought to restrain the capitalistic behavior of their basketball champions.

During the early and mid-1920s, Metropolitan League officials had frequent discussions regarding the professional status of individual players.  The league’s Athletic Committee declared: “No man who has ever competed as a professional shall be eligible to play in this League.”  The committee generally gave Centers the benefit of the doubt regarding their ignorance of a players’ professional standing.  The sheer volume of incidents indicated, however, that institutional control and supervision was often lacking.  As a result, the Athletic Committee also “went on record disapproving any YMHA giving out free athletic membership as an inducement to enroll athletes.”[6]

---

[1] Beth S. Wenger, New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 83.

[2] “1925 – Its History, Aims, and Plans,” folder, 1922-26, Metropolitan League Records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Samuel Leff to Jack Nadel, April 29, 1925, Correspondence Files,  Metropolitan League, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  Metropolitan League, “Metropolitan League of YMHAs to Extend Activities,” press release, May 11, 1925.

[3] For minutes of the Athletic Committee, Presidents Committee, Administrative Council, and Physical Directors Society, see Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York at the 92^nd Street YMHA archives.

[4] Report on Minimum Standards of Health Education Recommended by the Metropolitan League, undated, Metropolitan League records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.

[5] “Thru Sportdom,” Baltimore Jewish Times, December 17, 1926.

[6] Report on Minimum Standards of Health Education Recommended by the Metropolitan League, no date, Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  A similar document titled “Athletic Committee Rules” was found in a miscellaneous folder titled ‘1922-26,’ Athletic Committee records, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Minutes of the Athletic Committee, September 22, 1924, Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Minutes of the Athletic Committee are located in the Metropolitan League records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. Though not complete, the minutes provide a good amount of detail regarding the internal workings of the league.  For examples of rulings on the professional status of players, see January 9, 1923.  In these minutes, the Committee ruled on establishing a reinstatement policy for professionals.

Nat Holman, Mr. Basketball - by Arieh Sclar

During the 1920s, many sports commentators considered Nat Holman the best player in professional basketball.  Born on the lower East Side to Jewish immigrant parents, Holman played in settlements and public schools before moving to a variety of Northeastern leagues in the late 1910s.  Unlike the majority of professional players of the era, Holman attended college and began his professional career while still at the Savage School of Physical Education.  After his first full season of professional basketball in 1918, Reach recognized his ability, and stated that he “is a natural-born basket ball player, has a wonderful physique, a good head, and there is every reason to believe that with a little experience, he will exceed in skill and cleverness the best man that ever stepped on the court.”[1] 

In 1920-21, Holman played with Barney Sedran and Marty Friedman for the New York Whirlwinds.  That season, the Whirlwinds scheduled a three-game series against the Original Celtics to determine basketball’s ‘world champion.’  The first two games drew thousands of fans in New York City.  They did not play the third game.  The reason remains unclear, although the Reach basketball guide indicated that gamblers attempted to fix the game.  Although the teams did not complete the series, it illustrated the popularity of professional basketball and helped launch the sport into a new era.[2]

The Celtics’ owners took advantage of the growing importance of spectators in America’s post-war athletic culture.  The Celtics offered exclusive contracts to players, and turned the former settlement house team into an all-star team.  For instance, two weeks after the 1921 series, Holman signed with the Celtics.  These contracts allowed the team to take long barnstorming tours to the Midwest and South, which increased the team’s popularity and profitability.[3]  The Celtics frequently played over 100 games in a single year, and rarely lost more than ten games in one season.  One basketball historian emphatically stated: “The Celtics were so superior to most of the teams they played that they were able to perfect their new theories under actual game conditions without much fear of losing.”[4]

During the early 1920s, the Celtics perfected a switching man-to-man defense, a give-and-go offense, and the pivot play, in which a player stood with his back to the basket and either passed to teammates cutting to the basket or pivoted and went to the basket himself.  Holman later explained that the Celtics “built its offense around it [the pivot play] with such startling success that it captivated the East and Middle West, where the Celtics flourished, and found its way into the offensive systems of a great many teams.”[5]  The Celtic players also used their free throw shooting acumen to their advantage. “Whenever the Celtics were involved in a tight game, Holman would handle the ball and invariably draw a foul, frequently as a result of imaginary contact that sent Holman careening and drew a sympathetic whistle from the official.”[6]

---

[1] For information on the Holman’s career, see Murry Nelson, The Originals: The New York Celtics Invent Modern Basketball (Bowling Green, OH.: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1999), 1, 5-6, 34-36.  Quote from “Norwalk, CT,” Reach Official Basketball Guide 1917-18 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1917).  Upon his retirement, Holman had become widely considered the greatest player in the history of the young game. In 1950, the Associated Press named Holman the third best basketball player of the first half of the twentieth century. 

[2] Peterson, From Cages to Jump Shots, 70-72; Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 86-88. The series attracted close to 10,000 fans, but was not mentioned in the New York Times.

[3] On the reaction of intellectuals to spectatorship in the 1920s, see Dyreson, “The Emergence of Consumer Culture and the Transformation of Physical Culture,” 262-279. On the importance of contracts, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 69-79.

[4] Zander Hollander, ed., The Modern Encyclopedia of Basketball (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1979), 274.

[5] Nat Holman, Winning Basketball (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), x.

[6] A. Hollander and A. Sachare, The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia (New York: Villard Books, 1989), 19.

Jewish basketball players in the Ivy League, by Arieh Sclar

In the early 1920s, Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell, a proponent of immigration restriction, expressed the opinion that his university had a Jewish problem.  He proposed a solution that would limit Jewish enrollment to 15%, which he believed had become necessary because “the anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews.  If their number should become 40% of the student body, the race feeling would become intense.”[1]  Lowell discussed the rude and crude manners of Harvard’s Jewish students and believed the quota would help them assimilate.  He declared that Jewish students did not “fit in” to Harvard’s social environment due to their interest in academic achievement rather than athletic participation.[2]

As other elite colleges followed Harvard’s lead in establishing Jewish quotas, American Jews celebrated college sports as reflective of Jewish modernity and integration.  American Jews believed college provided a gateway toward greater social opportunity and acceptance.  University of Michigan quarterback Benny Friedman became a Jewish race hero for his athletic and academic success and Harold Rigelman, a leader of the Jewish fraternity Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT), proposed the idea of ‘Pro-Semitism.’ Jews would “continuously and persistently, by their sportsmanship on the athletic field,” illustrate their “race appreciation” and positive contribution to society.[3]

The idea that athletic success could encourage acceptance and facilitate integration gained credence due to a controversy over Jewish basketball at Yale, which occurred at the same time that Harvard’s Lowell began publicly arguing for quotas.  After the Yale basketball team finished last in the Ivy League during the 1922 season, Yale alumni demanded an end to discriminatory practices against Jewish basketball players in order to field a winning team.  The school’s final defeat of the season occurred against the Atlas Athletic Club of New Haven, a Jewish club, as a fundraiser for the Jewish War Relief Campaign.[4]  Games between colleges and community teams occurred frequently in the early 1920s and some independent clubs proved superior to colleges who placed little emphasis on basketball.[5]  Yale’s marginal commitment to basketball proved disastrous when Sam Pite, a former Atlas player who had starred for both the New Haven and Hartford YMHA’s quit the Yale team during the 1922 season because he believed he had been “frozen out” by the anti-Semitic coach.  Rumors of this situation had existed for years, but Yale alumni did not oppose such behavior until the basketball team finished in last place in the Ivy League.[6]

Pite played the central role in both Yale’s decline in 1922 and its triumph in 1923.  Prior to the 1922-1923 season, Yale hired a new coach, Joe Fogarty, who told newspapers: “It makes no difference to me whether a player is black or white, Jew or Gentile, so long as he can play basketball.”  Fogarty’s tolerance directly contrasted his predecessor’s intolerance, but elite Jewish players like Pite did not depend on the whims of coaches.  “Basketball followers” considered Pite one of the “best players in the state,” while others “went farther” and called him “the best of the lot.”  Pite initially stated he would not return to the Yale team despite the coaching change.  He eventually did, and along with other Jewish players, led Yale to the conference championship in 1923.[7]

---

[1] “Lowell Tells Jews Limit at College Might Help Them,” New York Times, June 17, 1922, 3.

[2] On the quota controversy, see Feingold, A Time for Searching, 16-22; Marcia Graham Synnot, The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900-1970 (Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 1979). Harvard’s Jewish population increased from approximately 7% in 1900 to 21% in 1922.  See Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 86-109.  The result of the quota was the introduction of non-academic requirements, including ‘character.’  Harvard, Yale, and Princeton pushed for the use of standardized tests. 

[3] Marianne R. Sanua, “Here’s to Our Fraternity”: One Hundred Years if Zeta Beta Tau, 1898-1998 (Hanover, NH: Zeta Beta Tau Foundation, 1998), 70-72; Quote from Sanua, Going Greek, 144-145.

[4] “Yale Alumni Assail Heads of Athletics,” New York Times, June 17, 1922. On the Atlas-Yale game, see House Notes, Community News, March 1922. Also see Oren, Joining the Club, 78.  Oren explained that the game attracted three thousand fans, the largest basketball crowd in New Haven up to that point.  On other athletic clubs, such as the Brooklyn Dux, see Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbet’s Field, 30-34.  On the Brownsville Boys Club, see Gerald Sorin, The Nurturing Neighborhood: The Brownsville Boys Club and Jewish Community in Urban America, 1940-1990 (New York: New York University Press, 1990). 

[5] The Connecticut Hebrew Record relished the prominent role of three former YMHA stars in Yale’s title in 1922.  See “Yale: Joseph and his Brethren,” Connecticut Hebrew Record, April 6, 1923. The New Haven YM-YWHA simply published the American Hebrew’s article with no additional commentary, see Community News 4, no. 8 (August 1922); “Round the Town,” Community News 4, no. 11 (November 1922).

[6] Quote on ‘frozen out’ from “Sam Pite Decides to Play for Yale,” Hartford Courant, November 10, 1922; On Jewish basketball at Yale prior to the controversy, see Oren, Joining the Club, 79-80.

[7] “Nutmeg Boys May Star,” Hartford Courant, December 19, 1922. Fogarty played with Jewish professionals in the 1910s; Oren, Joining the Club, 78-80.

YMHAs and athletic competition, by Arieh Sclar

In the 1910s, both the YMHA League and its member institutions banned Saturday play, which indicated that officials believed Jewish athletic culture could function adequately on a six-day athletic week.  Some young Jews found the official separation of Jewish athleticism from mainstream sport unsatisfactory.  In a July 1915 letter to physical director George Schoening, 92^nd Street YMHA President Felix Warburg explained that a few members had ingeniously “formed themselves into the so-called Manhattan Club, making it appear by using the cut of our building, that the same was their club-house.”  They did this in order to “play in competition on Saturdays, which the Board had ruled should not be permitted.”[1]

Writing on behalf of the Board of Directors, Warburg communicated their concerns regarding “the attitude of our young men toward athletics.”  Besides the Sabbath incident, which officials never fully confronted in either private meetings or public declarations, he spelled out two other matters that needed to be addressed, gambling and professionalism.  Competition could be a healthy activity for “our young men, handicapped as a good many of them are by generations of ancestors who have been forced to live in unhealthy surrounding and crowded districts.”  The YMHA needed to refocus its efforts toward fair play and sportsmanship since “the desire to excel and to win prizes has led us to give an undue importance to those young men who may turn out to be the winners.”  Placing blame squarely on themselves, YMHA directors and officials “feel that we may have been guilty of driving them forward in these ambitions, rather than warning them to improve their standing all around and thus causing them to specialize to a dangerous degree to the detriment to other boys, whom they have crowded out.”  Warburg appealed to Schoening to teach and develop “the ethics of sport…rather than the muscles alone.”[2]

The Bulletin’s 1907 call for champions had not foreseen that problems would arise.  It assumed competitive sport would be easily incorporated into American Jewish culture.  Aggressive behavior, whether associated with professionalism, gambling, or disregard of Jewish tradition, illustrated that YMHA members had learned ‘American’ values, but potentially at the expense of ‘Jewish’ values.  Individualism and the pursuit of financial success were not the values Association officials sought to teach its “young men.”  The YMHA’s desire to develop strong and modern American Jewish men meant that Saturday competition would not be tolerated.  Neither would disreputable behavior that transgressed middle class norms.

When confronted with the consequences of competitive sport, YMHA officials became determined to reign in their champions.  The hierarchical structure of the YMHA League encouraged specialization and competition, which meant officials confronted the ultimate paradigm of American sport, elite or mass participation.  Yet, Warburg’s reference to Jews’ ghetto existence indicated that an additional burden influenced his perspective.  The perceived absence of sport in Jewish culture meant that despite concerns regarding the YMHA’s developing athletic culture, neither Warburg nor other YMHA officials ever contemplated abolishing competitive sport.[3]

In 1917, the YMHA formed an official Athletic Committee to replace an informal committee that possessed no authority to control members’ actions since it focused solely on financial matters.[4]  Both directors and members governed the new Committee.  Indeed, the first official committee to include members, it sought to protect the YMHA’s growing reputation in mainstream sport.  New YMHA President Irving Lehman placed the responsibility for developing “clean” sports in the hands of the members.  At the committee’s opening meeting, Lehman stated: “This is an experiment.  If this experiment fails it hurts the kind of work in which you are especially interested…pick out the kind of men [Committee members] who are going to stand for straight, clean athletics.”[5]

---

[1] Felix Warburg to George Schoening, July 26, 1915, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.

[2] Ibid. Warburg’s concerns regarding gambling had been caused by betting at various events, but specifically at baseball games.  The league cancelled the baseball season.

[3] The incident appears to have resulted solely in a Bulletin article that praised YMHA athletes for not competing on the Sabbath. The article was written by a member of the Board of Directors, the Reverend Dr. Samuel Schulman. See “The Opportunities for the Jewish Character,” Y Bulletin, May 1916.   Athletes guilty of gambling and professionalism were briefly suspended.

[4] An example of praise awarded on the basketball team is found in the 1917 YMHA Annual Report, which proudly reported the 32-1 record of the team.  The following year, the Bulletin editor and physical director picked an All-YMHA team from ‘in-house’ teams.  The existence of this all-star team is the best indication of a shifting ideology toward basketball as honored players were chosen solely for ‘playing ability,’ and ‘points scored,’ with no mention of sportsmanship, moral value, or other Progressive ideals.  On the formation of the initial committee in 1913, see “Committee on Athletics,” Y Bulletin, April 1913.

[5] For Lehman’s speech, see “Athletic Committee Re-Organized,” Y Bulletin, April 1917. Felix Warburg resigned as YMHA president in April 1916.  The Athletic Committee was the first committee at the Association to contain members.

Jews in early professional basketball, by Arieh Sclar

In 1913, the Reach Basketball Guide commented on the success of a group of Jewish players from the lower East Side without identifying them as Jews.  The Newburgh (NY) team received “a hard jolt when three of its best players jumped their contracts at the beginning of the season.”  To replace these players, the manager “was able to get the entire Clark House team together to represent Newburgh and they played grand ball.”  The guide made a seemingly minor mistake in its discussion of Newburgh’s new players.  Most of them had played at the University Settlement, not Clark House.  Though this illustrated bad reporting by the guide, it also indicated the significant step these players had to make into the world of professional basketball.[1]  They advanced into professional basketball at a time when it existed as a marginal and unstable sport.  In the process, they both helped construct a path from the street to college and professional basketball and transformed the professional game.

The Jewish players on Newburgh’s team had started formally to play professional basketball in the early 1910s.  Though many young Jews from the lower East Side played in professional games while in high school or college, they often did so under assumed names to keep their amateur status.  Among the most prominent and skilled players, former settlement and CCNY basketball players Barney Sedran and Harry Brill joined their friend Marty Friedman, who had not played in college, on an independent professional team in New York City called the Roosevelt Big Five.  The Jewish players also played in the newly formed Hudson River League, which had teams located in upstate New York towns such as Newburgh, Utica, and Kingston.[2]

In the 1910s, professional basketball existed as a chaotic sport.  The Hudson League existed alongside many other professional leagues that predominated in northeastern towns.  Teams often folded in the middle of a season.  Leagues struggled financially and occasionally disbanded after only a couple of seasons.  Players jumped from team to team for better pay and without fear of reprisal.  Sedran, Friedman, and the other Jewish players quickly adapted to the professional culture.  They too moved from team to team and league to league as players enjoyed a player-centered market system that allowed them to partially control their own labor.[3]

Jewish players adjusted to the tactics of the professional game.  In the 1900s and 1910s, professionals often played games in cages that made the game faster and rougher.  The ball remained in constant play with no out-of-bounds.  Players wore knee-pads and expected harsh treatment from opponents, fans, and sometimes even the referee.  The roughness and threat of violence influenced the style of play.  Barney Sedran remembered that two-handed set shots predominated.  “It was suicide to shoot for the basket with your feet off the ground because you’d be lucky to come down alive.”  While playing for a team in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, the 5’4” Sedran was being punched by an opponent.  His backcourt partner, Marty Friedman, the two became known as the ‘Heavenly Twins,’ remembered that he told “Barney to run at full speed past me and as the bully boy came alongside me I stepped in front of him and down he went.”  The move produced a near riot.[4]

Neither Friedman nor Sedran ever claimed the attack occurred because of anti-Semitism.  The early Jewish players experienced varying level of anti-Semitism during their careers.  Friedman claimed: “I ran into little anti-Semitism among the players,” although it occasionally emerged “in the Midwest among the fans.”  Ira Streusand’s experience differed: “I ran into anti-Semitism everywhere, from my first collegiate game until I retired from basketball.”[5]  Anti-Semitism did not restrict access to professional basketball for Friedman, Streusand, or other Jewish players, but the rough culture of the sport made it difficult to isolate incidents of anti-Semitism from the everyday occurrences of violence.

---

[1] Hudson River Basket Ball League, Reach Official Basketball Guide 1912-13 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach & Co., 1913).  A couple of the Jewish players in professional basketball did come from the Clark House, but most of the players – and the most recognized – had played at the University Settlement.

[2] Biographies of Marty Friedman and Barney Sedran in Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 82-84, 92-94. Also see folders of Barney Sedran, Marty Friedman, and Nat Holman in the Edward and Gena Hickox Library at the Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, MA.  A Picture of the Roosevelt Big Five in Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide 1912-13 (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1912).  Reach first mentioned the players, including Barney Sedran, Marty Friedman, William Cone (nee Cohen), Lou Sugarman, Ira Streusand, and others, in Hudson River League, Reach Official Basketball Guide 1910-11 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach & Co., 1911). 

[3] On early professional basketball, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 46-68.

[4] Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 83, 92-93.

[5] Ibid., 83, 96.

A champion model and basketball league, by Arieh Sclar

In April 1907, an editorial in the 92^nd Street YMHA’s Bulletin had elucidated what would become the dominant paradigm about Jewish athleticism during the first half of the twentieth century.  “The Jew as an Athlete” presented a familiar narrative: “Jews as a nation have never been actively identified with the manly sports, either in ancient or modern times.”  The Jews could be partially blamed for this absence.  “Had the manly sports been more indulged…the Jews might have been treated with greater respect by their enemies.”  In the United States, “more attention is being paid by the Jews to the harmonious development of the human form and as a result, we are gradually developing a number of promising Jewish athletes.”  The editorial praised the public school system for helping produce successful athletes, especially in the “game of basket-ball, [where] Jewish young men are acknowledged leaders.”  Sport needed to become more important to Jewish ‘peoplehood,’ but with one important caveat. “There is something in athletics which appeals to all manly men and if the Jews will pay more attention to it and through it develop a number of champions, it will do more to raise the status of the race in the eyes of the world than any other single achievement.”[1]

The editorial demanded change in the relationship between American Jewish culture and sport and constructed a new model of Jewish athleticism.  The Bulletin published the editorial the month before the Atlas Athletic Club left the YMHA and eight months before Eliot spoke before the Menorah Club.  It provided a model with which YMHA officials could respond to the Eliot controversy.  The absence of “manly sports” within Jewish culture had served as a barrier to Jewish integration.  Thus, individual Jews could benefit if Jewish culture moved closer to sport.  This model included a new concept of Jewish athleticism.  Mainstream society would accept Jews and provide a space for modern, and normal, manhood only if Jewish “champions” proved their worth in the athletic world.  The champion model encouraged the development of a communal athletic culture that served both an internal project of Jewish socialization and an external project of proving Jewish athleticism, and thus normality, to mainstream society.

In 1912, New York area YMHA’s formed the YMHA Athletic League.[2]  The league provided young Jews with competitive athletic opportunities, and the Bulletin explicitly connected the league’s public presence to an internal Jewish project.  Jews should socialize with, and play against, other Jews.  An article, “Jews in Athletics,” stated that the absence of a Jewish athletic club culture had forced Jews to join athletic clubs or even YMCA’s and their names became “linked with some Christian Association.”  As a result, the athlete “was not recognized as a Jew.  This league will have the tendency to bring these Jewish young men together.”[3]  YMHA officials also believed competitive sports were “splendid preparation for the duties and obligations of citizenship.”  The league’s initial mention in the Bulletin stated it had formed “to develop and encourage clean sport between the boys of the different Associations.”[4]

Commitment is needed for competitive structures to succeed.  Organized rules, governance, and scheduling meant the league supported elite specialization in sport over mass participation.  The league’s competitiveness encouraged member institutions to develop the hierarchical structures that would support an athletic club culture.  At the 92^nd Street YMHA, internal competitions and tournaments between house and club teams expanded the pool from which representative teams could draw talent.  Intra-association teams swelled from thirty in 1910 to more than fifty in 1915 and “representative” teams such as the Mohegans received attention in mainstream newspapers as they played against athletic clubs, public schools, YMCA’s, settlements, and even the occasional college team.[5]  All of this activity served the Association’s participation in the YMHA League, which limited participation to “only five regular players and a few substitutes [who] can represent us directly on the field.”  Members, however, could “represent us indirectly by their presence,” at games as attendance became a “duty” and “organized rooting” encouraged the team to victory.  At the end of the first season, the 92^nd Street YMHA captured the league title in front of “an average attendance of 150 visitors.”[6]

Soon after the formation of the league, YMHA basketball became a financial endeavor.  In 1914, the 92^nd Street YMHA’s Bulletin explained: “Athletics should be self-supporting.  We have the opportunity to make it so by attending the basketball games…every cent taken in at these games goes to encourage track and field sports and baseball, as well as basketball itself.”  During the 1910s, the physical department needed to fund itself in order to grow and survive, and basketball’s success allowed the YMHA to develop boxing, handball, and swimming programs.[7]  Athletic departments at other institutions also increased their commitment to competitive sport out of economic necessity.

The YMHA League provided a centralized location for Jewish athletes, their fans, and the media to find a Jewish presence in sport.  The success of the 92^nd Street YMHA basketball team led to expanded coverage in the Bulletin.  An “Athletic News” column reported on star players and representative teams as they competed against a vast array of amateur and college teams, succeeded in AAU tournaments, and won league championships.  The Bulletin also published articles such as “Clear the Floor for Basketball”, “Basketball and its Possibilities”, and “Play Fair,” that educated, informed, and entertained readers.[8]  Beginning in August 1912 and covering a number of months, the American Hebrew ran sporadic articles on the activities of the YMHA League, including swimming, cross-country, and basketball.[9]  The mainstream media also noticed the growth of Jewish basketball at the YMHA, thus confirming the notion that Jewish athletes would gain public recognition as Jews.

In the 1910s, Spalding published two articles on YMHA basketball.  The 1913-14 guide explained that New York’s large Jewish population supported a competitive league that “popularized the game more than ever” at YMHA’s.[10]  Three years later, Spalding published an article entitled “Basket Ball in YMHA’s” which included Associations in a variety of locations, including Portland (Oregon), Kansas City, Louisville, Richmond (Virginia), New Orleans, Syracuse, and of course, New York.  The author, Harry Henshel of the 92nd Street YMHA, explained that YMHA basketball existed in “various stages of development” comparable to the “difficult struggles which our Christian [YMCA’s] friends suffered for many years.”  Due to a lack of financial support, a number of Associations struggled to complete “successful” seasons.[11]  Many YMHA’s had not “developed to the point where they have big enough gymnasiums to encourage basket ball of high caliber.”  Both Spalding articles singled out the 92^nd Street YMHA for having a “splendidly equipped building, including a fine gymnasium and basket ball court.”[12]

Henshel based his Spalding article on a questionnaire issued by the Council of Young Men’s Hebrew and Kindred Association (CYMHKA).  Formed in 1913, the organization intended to merge settlements and YMHA’s into a national Jewish Center movement.  Officials believed the Jewish community center (JCC) would overcome the fragmentation of Jewish communal life based on religious, ‘ethnic,’ and class differences by providing social, cultural, and religious programs that unified “all members of the community.”[13]  An official CYMHKA publication stated: “Athletics are absolutely necessary and a gymnasium is an essential feature of the YMHA.”  The Council primarily promoted outdoor sports over basketball, which as an indoor game, was “perhaps the least to be recommended.”  The Council’s attitude toward basketball notwithstanding, Henshel stated that basketball had become “the feature indoor sport in YMHA’s throughout the country.”[14]

---

[1] “The Jew as an Athlete,” YMHA Bulletin, April 1907.

[2] The Athletic League was first proposed in April 1912.  See Minutes of the Board of Directors, April 3, 1912, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. The YMHA Athletic League was mentioned in Gym Notes, Y Bulletin, October 1912.  The section declared, “Our YMHA is looked to as the Mecca of all similar institutions and it was up to us to lead this undertaking and only with our guidance and active support could the league be assured of success.”

[3] Mike Taub, “Jews in Athletics,” Y Bulletin, January 1913. The league encouraged a number of Jews to transfer to the YMHA from prominent athletic clubs.  The year after the formation of the league, the American Hebrew covered a controversy over a Jewish youth’s desire to join the 23^rd Street YMCA in New York City.  The youth objected to the YMCA’s policy to restrict the number of Jews to 5% of its membership.  The Hebrew denounced the youth’s desire to join the YMCA rather than the restrictive policy and stated: “a Jewish youth man should become a member of the YMHA if he desires club privileges.”  See “Jews and the YMCA,” American Hebrew, December 5, 1913.

[4] Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Fortieth Annual Report, 1913 (New York: 1914); re-printed in the Y Bulletin, March 1913.  The report’s budget contained an “Athletics” column, probably in reference to the league. Also see “Athletic League,” Y Bulletin, October 1912.

[5] On the number of inter-association teams in 1910 as well as information on the Mohegans, see “Gymnastic Notes,” Y Bulletin, December 1909.  On the number of teams in 1915, see “Athletic News,” Y Bulletin, December 1915.  The YMHA used the term ‘representative’ to describe any team that competed against outside teams.  Most of the ‘representative’ teams in the early 1900s were club teams that also competed in inter-association tournaments.  The most successful team was the Mohegans, led by Lazarus Joseph, a player and coach at YMHA.  Joseph played at NYU prior to joining the 92^nd Street YMHA  and was the grandson of Rabbi Jacob Joseph. The Mohegans and other “representative” teams occasionally traveled to New Jersey to compete.  In 1912, the Mohegans had a record of 25-1.

[6] Editorial, Y Bulletin, November 1912.  Though competitive sport was intended to provide a wholesome environment and not deride the opposition, “organized rooting” was seen as providing an advantage to the home team.  On the championship season, see “YMHA Athletics,” Y Bulletin, March 1913.  The team defeated YWHA teams from Yonkers, Brooklyn, Brownsville, Perth Amboy (NJ), Mt. Vernon, Bayonne (NJ), and even Philadelphia in a post-season contest.

[7] Basketball, Y Bulletin, December 1914.  The statement regarding self-sufficiency indicates the desire that athletics not take funding away from other programming, and thus ensure the relative autonomy of the athletic department.

[8] “Clear the Floor for Basketball,” Y Bulletin, December 1912; “Basketball and its Possibilities,” Y Bulletin, October 1913; “Play Fair,” Y Bulletin, March 1915; The ‘Athletic News’ column began in December 1913.

[9] See “YMHA Athletic Games,” American Hebrew, August 16, 1912; “The YMHA Athletic League,” American Hebrew, November 8, 1912.

[10] “YMHA Athletic League, 1912-13,” Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide 1913-14 (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1913).  The YMHA League was not the first mention of a specific Jewish league, but it was the most extensive.  In the 1910-1911 Spalding Guide, under the section “Basket Ball in Detroit,” there was a brief mention of a four-team league in the local YMHA. No further mention of this specific league occurred. Spalding provided only a single article on the league compared to annual publication of various YMCA leagues. Also see “Local YMHA in the Lead,” New York Times, December 16, 1912 for a report on early results during the first year of the YMHA Basketball League.

[11] Harry Henshel, “Basket Ball in YMHA’s,” Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide 1916-17 (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1916).  Despite these struggles, YMHA’s had decided to go down the path that YMCA’s had determined not to go.  YMCA’s continued to play basketball, but refused to become full-fledged athletic clubs.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Kaufman, Shul with a Pool, 63.

[14] Quote from Harry Glucksman, The Boys’ Club in the YMHA (Publications of the Council of YMH and Kindred Associations, 1915); Coleman Silbert, Clubs for Jewish Work (Publications of the Council of the YMH and Kindred Associations, 1915).  On the Council, see Rabinowitz, The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 85-87.  Among the financial and ideological leaders of the Council were Louis Marshall, Judah Magnes, Julian Mack, and the 92^nd Street YMHA’s president, Felix Warburg.  Henshel, “Basket Ball in YMHA’s.”