Jewish Professionals in the 1920s, by Arieh Sclar

In the mid-1920s, Nat Holman received recognition as the coach of CCNY, a star for the Original Celtics, and as a prominent Jewish athlete.  The multi-ethnic identity of the Celtics contributed to the team’s popularity, and reflected the interwar sport culture that brought people of various backgrounds together.  Irish and German players joined Holman and Davey Banks, the team’s Jewish representatives.[1]  The Celtics’ barnstorming trips served as a unique attraction in places where few locals had seen quality basketball or had opportunities to identify with specific players.  Fan loyalties and identifications frequently crossed geographic boundaries and young American Jews who participated in the American sport culture had a strong desire to cheer for Jewish athletes.  Conscious of his status as a Jewish player on the Celtics, Holman explained that during barnstorming trips, “I was very much aware of the Jewish following that supported me in a number of cities on the circuit.  While I always played at my very best, I tried even harder when I knew the Jewish community was rooting for me.”[2]

Commentators had nominally noted basketball’s ethnic presence during the Progressive era, but the importance of group identification intensified as spectators gained more power in the 1920s consumer culture.  Reach noted that a Jewish team called the Danbury Separatists “enjoyed a prosperous season” in 1923 as “one of best attractions” in northeastern basketball.  The basketball guide believed that “the coming season is sure to find them supplanting that great old Roosevelt team that harbored players like Sedran and Friedman years ago in the hearts of Hebrew basketball lovers.”[3]  Danbury’s name did not identify it as a Jewish team, but knowledgeable basketball fans would have been aware of the team’s makeup.

Basketball’s growth in urban areas and among immigrant groups attracted both Jewish and non-Jewish entrepreneurs who sought to expand the sport’s scope.  Basketball promoters and commentators had discussed forming a ‘national’ basketball league in the 1910s and a national commission failed to control the various professional leagues of the northeast in the early 1920s.  In the middle of the decade, however, promoters formed the American Basketball League (ABL) as a ‘national’ league and attempted to reconstruct professional basketball into a mass, commercialized sport.[4]

The ABL attempted to turn basketball into a respectable sport.  The league banned profanity, used amateur rules, abandoned the ‘cage,’ and played its games in large urban arenas.  Moral condemnations of professional basketball declined as outright violence occurred less frequently.[5]  The ABL became the first league to serve as the pinnacle of a linear, though unstable, basketball hierarchy as a younger generation of former college players entered professional basketball.  Media attention remained fairly sparse, however, until the Celtics joined the league during its second season in 1926-27.[6]

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[1] On the Celtics, see Nelson, The Originals.  Neighborhoods, ethnic, racial, and religious groups, unions, department stores, and virtually every other type of organization developed athletic teams in order to participate in the broader athletic culture. Communal and ethnic identification during a fractious and anxious decade likely contributed to the situation.  Lizabeth Cohen explained that historians assumed consumption encouraged assimilation into mainstream society, but have provided little evidence.  She explained that there is evidence that during the Depression, mass culture united previously fractured ethnic and racial groups.  See Lizabeth Cohen, “Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots,” in Glickman, Consumer Society in American History, 147-162.

[2] Quote in Nelson, The Originals, 15-16.

[3] “Interborough Professional Basketball League of New York,” Reach Official Basketball Guide 1923-24 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1924).

[4] For information on the national commission and discussion of the need for a national league, which would standardize rules of professional basketball, see Introduction, Reach Official Basketball Guide 1921-22 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1922);  Applin, “From Muscular Christianity to the Marketplace,” 194-196; Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 55. 

[5] As a ‘national’ league, the ABL had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Washington D.C., Rochester (N.Y.), Fort Wayne, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo. On the ban against profanity, see “’Oh, Pshaw,’ Limit in Epithets for Pro Fives; $10 a violation,” New York Times, December 31, 1927. For sporadic incidents of violence during basketball games, see “Celtics Win from Rosenblum Five, “New York Times, April 15, 1924; “Fist Fights as Jewels Defeat Celtics,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 26, 1932. Jewish players were involved in both fights as Marty Friedman and Nat Holman squared off in 1924 during a game played for U.S. Olympic fund under the auspices of the Mayor’s Committee on Municipal Athletic Activity.  The 1932 fight occurred during another fundraiser, this time for a retired player.

[6] “Youngsters Crowding Cage Pros,” Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1927.  The article describes the generational transfer within the professional game as “college-trained youngsters” began to replace “old-timers.”