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.

'The New York Massacre,' by Ari Sclar

Despite the reemergence of Holman’s CCNY teams in 1946 and 1947, New York basketball, and its connection to Jewish basketball, seemed to have suffered in the post-war era.  The New York and Jewish presence in the NIT declined during and immediately following the war.  Three New York City teams played in the NIT in 1943 and two teams played in 1947, but only one city school appeared in 1944, 1945, 1946, and 1948.  The declining number of schools inevitably impacted the success of New York and Jewish basketball.  Between 1945-1948, no New York school won the NIT, and only one school, NYU in 1948, even reached the championship game.[1]  In 1949, the NIT expanded its field to 12 teams in order to include more city schools.  The result brought the entire culture of New York and Jewish basketball into question.

In 1949, four New York teams received invitations to the NIT because tournament officials did not want to decide between them for the eighth, and final, spot.  New York sportswriters had argued prior to the tournament that “New York rated no representative in the tourney,” and the result seemed to prove that “none of the local quintets justified its presence on the court.”  All four New York teams, CCNY, NYU, St. John’s, and Manhattan, lost in the first round, which led the New York Times to state that, “some fans are calling it the ‘New York Massacre.’”[2]  The ‘massacre’ led commentators to conclude that New York basketball had fallen to previously unseen depths.  Louis Effrat of the New York Times blamed a peculiarity of New York basketball for local schools’ failure.  The losses “proved that what New York needs, possibly even more than a good ten-cent cigar, are good big men on its college quintets.  Whereas, invariably, visiting teams move in with elongated talent, the locals have to play with comparatively small athletes.”[3]

Much like the condemnation of the ‘Metropolitan player’ after the Stanford-LIU game in 1936, negative values were attached to the New York player.  The belief that the ‘Metropolitan’ player could not compete with taller, more athletic players had been proven unequivocally false during the late 1930s and 1940s.  The ‘massacre’ appeared to concretely illustrate that the city’s short, speedy player no longer had a place in college basketball.  Effrat did not explicitly connect the ‘small’ New York player to the ‘Jew,’ but New York basketball had long been associated with Jewish basketball and Effrat’s ‘small’ athletes conformed to the continued perception of Jewish players.  Yet, the following season, CCNY’s recovered from the ‘massacre’ in a manner which indicated that even Nat Holman had determined the basketball Jew could no longer succeed.  As Holman put together the greatest team in school history, he did so with players that bore little physical resemblance to the traditional CCNY player. 

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[1] Douchant, Inside College Basketball.

[2] “Afternoon, Night Twin Bills Today on Invitation Court Tourney Slate,” New York Times, March 14, 1949.

[3] Louis Effrat, “Loyola Conquers City College Five in Garden 62 to 47,” New York Times, March 13, 1949.

Anti-Semitism at the Garden, by Ari Sclar

Despite the disappointment of the 1946 season, CCNY had greater success in 1947.  That year, Holman led the team to a regular season record of 15-4, including a 91-60 victory over NYU.  CCNY then defeated Syracuse to qualify for the NCAA tournament, where it finished in fourth-place.  CCNY included Holman’s first African-American players, Sonny Jameson and Joe Galiber, both of whom would serve as captains in future seasons.  The team, which remained predominantly Jewish with four starters and five reserves, became involved in an incident at the Garden that reflected the intensity of college basketball.  The incident’s aftermath indicated American Jews’ growing acceptance in American society and their continued anxiety regarding the permanence of this acceptance.

On December 27, 1946, CCNY played the University of Wyoming at the Garden.  A close game until the final minutes when CCNY pulled away, the “thrill packed struggle” almost turned into “bedlam” as a result of “two near-fights, one on the court involving the players and the other on the rival benches.”  The New York Times reported that “when the players tangled on the floor, everyone knew what it was about – a lot of tense athletes, pushing each around in the heat of battle.”  In contrast, “no one could imagine what was behind the verbal conflict – with threatening gestures – that went on on the benches.”

During the game, CCNY’s Nat Holman advanced toward Wyoming coach Everett Shelton twice.  Holman then refused to shake Shelton’s hand at the end, which made it “apparent that something was radically wrong.”  After the game, Holman explained in an interview that, “I heard Shelton uttering derogatory remarks and took exception.  In fact, I threatened to punch him if he repeated them.”[1]  Newsweek quoted Shelton as stating: “those New York Jews are getting away with everything.”  Three days after the game, Shelton apologized, although he “denied that his words…were anti-Semitic.”  He explained: “I am very sorry that my remarks caused such a disturbance…what I said about Jews had nothing to do with religion or anything else.  The word ‘Jew’ was merely descriptive.  I did not swear.  In our section of the country, when we play against Indians we call them Indians and we call Swedes Swedes.”[2]

The incident triggered an outpouring of anti-Semitic letters sent to Holman.  ‘Anonymous’ exclaimed that Christians “hate you and your hooked-nose foreigners.”  A letter from Dallas differentiated “we Americans” from the “Jew” and stated that “Hitlers” will continue “springing up all over the world unless the jew changes himself…it is not the people that need changing as much as it is the jew.”  Another letter broached the stereotype of the weak Jew.  “You people should learn to punch and not squeak and everyone would give you more credit. That is the real American way.”  Finally, a self-proclaimed Irishman declared that when “we Irish” were attacked, “we simply laugh the jackass down.”  Jews needed to learn this skill, since, “the jockeying in sports is part of the game and this incident at the Garden was much akin to such doings.”[3]

Holman also received supportive letters from both Jews and non-Jews.  The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) hoped Shelton would provide a sincere apology because he “was guilty of an unsportsmanlike, an un-American and a dangerous act.” [4]  The CCNY faculty athletic committee passed a resolution that the school would no longer schedule games “against teams coached by Shelton.”  Milton Gross, the former vice president of the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association, declared that “Shelton had forfeited his right to coach a basketball team.” [5]  Other individuals and organizations condemned Shelton’s remarks and sent letters of support to Holman.  The Labor Sports Federation, the Jewish Postal Workers Welfare League, National Negro Congress, and the American Labor Party all praised Holman for his actions.  Some of Holman’s former players also expressed pride in his actions as “a long step in striking against racial and religious intolerance which unfortunately prevails in our institutions of higher learning today.”[6]  The incident and response, from Holman’s supporters and opponents, reflected the experiences of American Jews in the 1940s.

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[1] “City College Tops Wyoming Quintet in Garden, 57 to 48,” New York Times, December 28, 1946.

[2] “Basketball Coach Makes An Apology,” New York Times, December 31, 1946; “Basketball: Heated Words,” Newsweek, January 6, 1947.  One report found in the Nat Holman archives indicated that Shelton actually stated that, “those New York Jews and Niggers are getting away with everything.”  However, the press focused on Shelton’s use of the word ‘Jew’ and no other correspondence or report confirmed this account.

[3] Many of the correspondence held in the CCNY Archives contained vicious attacks on Holman personally and American Jews in general.  See Anonymous to Nat Holman, January 2, 1947; W.B. Johnson to Nat Holman, undated; George Biltman to Nat Holman, January 6, 1947; John J. Hurley to Nat Holman (and Dan Parker of the New York Daily Mirror), January 3, 1947. All letters in the Nat Holman Papers, Box 2, Holman, Nat. Correspondence. Wyoming Game. 1946. CCNY Archives, New York.

[4] Meier Steinbrink to Harry Wright, December 31, 1946, Nat Holman Papers, Box 2, Holman, Nat. Correspondence. Wyoming Game. 1946. CCNY Archives, New York.

[5] “Basketball Coach Makes An Apology,” New York Times, December 31, 1946.

[6] See Leon Slofrock to Nat Holman, December 30, 1946; Louis Brumberg to Nat Holman, December 30, 1946; Max Yergen to Nat Holman, December 30, 1946; Samuel Kaplan to Nat Holman, December 30, 1946. All letters in Nat Holman Papers, Box 2, Holman, Nat. Correspondence. Wyoming Game. 1946. CCNY Archives, New York. Quote from player Sam Liss to Nat Holman, January 7, 1947.

CCNY locked out from 1946 tournaments

In 1946, CCNY returned to their previous level of success and entered its final regular season game with a record of 13-4.  Few sportswriters or fans gave CCNY a chance against the No. 1 ranked NYU team, which had a record of 18-1 and had won 13 consecutive games.  The build-up to the game reminded many writers of the 1934 CCNY-NYU game and “fans started camping out in front of the ticket booths” four hours before tickets went on sale at 9:00am.  The ticket demand led to nine arrests for “ticket speculation” and the temporary suspension of ticket sales at 9:20am because the “line had become so long and so out of hand.”  Eventually, “ten mounted policemen and a detail of foot police restored order.”  By 3pm, “16,000 tickets” had been sold.[1]

In a surprising upset, CCNY defeated NYU by a score of 49-44 and set off a wave of celebration.  According to the New York Times, “within fifteen minutes after the game ended, a band of about 1,000 C.C.N.Y. rooters massed near the Garden” and paraded through the streets with “a ‘casket’ painted in black and covered with NYU pennants and lettering.”  When the “marchers” reached Broadway, they “started a huge snake dance which caused a traffic tie-up and created an uproar as motorists sounded their horns in an effort to break through.”  The parade entered Times Square and “then headed for the Hudson [River] to dispose of the casket.”[2]

The intense celebration reflected the belief among CCNY students and fans that the victory would result in an invitation to the NIT.  Considering the school’s absence from post-season tournaments since 1942, many hoped this would revitalize the basketball program.  Yet, the day after CCNY’s victory, the NIT announced that Rhode Island State and not City College would be the tournament’s final entrant.  Students, furious with the decision, “assailed the tournament committee for what they termed publicity ‘exploitation’ in creating the impression that City would receive a berth if it defeated N.Y.U.”[3]  Students condemned Garden promoters and NIT officials for using the promise of a tournament berth to increase fan interest, and thus profit, in the CCNY-NYU contest.  Letters of protest to Ned Irish stated that the tournament committee should have named Rhode Island State before the game.  The ticket demand for the game, the celebration following the CCNY victory, and the angry response to the team’s exclusion from the tournament indicated the popularity of CCNY within New York basketball and the intense passions involved in college basketball at Madison Square Garden.

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[1] “Basketball Fans Stage Ticket Rush.” New York Times, March 6, 1946.

[2] “Times Square Parade Marks C.C.N.Y. Victory,” New York Times, March 8, 1946.

[3] “C.C.N.Y. Protests Choice of R.I. State,” New York Times, March 9, 1946.

CCNY, representing 'Jewish' basketball, by Ari Sclar

During the 1946 season, Jewish players had considerable success in New York college basketball.  Jews made up six of the top eight scorers in the Metropolitan district, and seven of the ten players named All-Metropolitan.  They also remained well represented at the predominantly ‘Jewish’ schools of CCNY, NYU, LIU, and St. John’s, although not as extensively as the previous decade.  CCNY and NYU each had four Jewish starters at different times during the season, St. John’s had three starters, and LIU had two Jewish starters as well as 5’8” Jackie Goldsmith, who came off the bench to lead the Metropolitan district in scoring.[1]  These teams continued to headline the double-headers at Madison Square Garden and receive attention from the national press.  Yet, CCNY, the school that continued to represent Jewish basketball in the minds of American Jews, had minimal success as the basketball culture changed between 1938 and 1945.

In the 1930s, Nat Holman served as the ‘face’ of both New York and Jewish basketball.  His professional experience led the mainstream press to praise his ‘scientific’ coaching and his authorship of books such as Scientific Basketball (1922) and Winning Basketball (1932) solidified his reputation as a basketball expert and led to commercial and promotional opportunities.  As early as 1936, he had a ten-minute radio program on WNYC and in 1934, Time explained his unique place in college basketball: “in his spare time, he studies sculpture.”[2]  Historian Peter Levine illustrated that the Jewish press often portrayed Holman as a link between the immigrant past and the native-born future.  He served as the sole representative of basketball in the 1938-39 edition of Who’s Who in American Jewry.[3]

Holman could not have represented Jewish basketball by himself.  The preponderance of Jews on CCNY team, which Levine estimated at 83% of all players during Holman’s tenure, meant the school continued to represent the broader success of Jewish basketball.  In addition, CCNY’s reputation for intellectual debate, radical thought, and tough academic admissions encouraged the general belief that Holman could not recruit star players.[4]  Fans believed Holman’s teams “played five-man basketball,” since “talent receives no special consideration” at the school.  In fact, “it is miraculous that out of the paucity of material, Holman could weld a unit able to compete at all in intercollegiate basketball.”[5]  The perception of Holman’s teams reinforced the Progressive idea that teamwork and intelligence could overcome physical ability.  Although no successful sport program existed without talent, press reports concentrated on Holman’s ability to “mold” individuals into a competitive team since “outstanding individual stars are missing, and perhaps Holman would have it that way.  His contention is that basketball is essentially a team game.”[6]

In the early years of the national tournaments, Holman refused to acquiesce to the changing structure of college basketball.  Convinced that basketball remained a “small man’s game,” Holman continued to produce teams that represented this ideology.  Prior to the 1938-39 season, analysts declared that CCNY would have a poor season because the team, “sets an all-time high for low stature, even at City College, where a six-footer is as rare.”  In December 1938, CCNY had a surprising victory over the “tall firs” of Oregon, the eventual NCAA champion that year, which the New York press celebrated as “a great start in the New York vs. Rest of the World rivalry.”  This win only provided brief success as the team struggled during the rest of the season and then finished with a record of 8-8 in 1939-1940.  CCNY earned a spot in the NIT the next two seasons, finishing in third place in 1941, but the school had a losing record in 1943 and did not play in either postseason tournament between 1943 and 1946.[7]

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[1] On scoring, see “Individual Scoring,” New York Times, March 11, 1946.  Also see “All-Met,” New York Times, March 10, 1946.

[2] On Holman’s commercial activities, see his file at the Edward and Gena Hickox Library at the Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, MA. Also see the Nat Holman Papers, the City College of New York Archives, New York; “Hakoah Meets Bruins Tonight in Cage Tussle,” Chicago Tribune, December 26, 1928.  “Basketball: Mid-season Report,” Time, February 19, 1934.

[3] Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field, 56-59. Nat Holman in John Simons, ed., Who’s Who in American Jewry: A Biograhical Dictionary of Living Jews of the United States and Canada (New York: National News Association Inc., 1939).  See Nat Holman, Scientific Basketball (New York: Incra Pub. Co., 1922); Nat Holman, Winning Basketball (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932); Nat Holman, Holman on Basketball (New York: Crown Publishers, 1950). 

[4] According to historian Sherry Gorelick, less than one percent of the children of Jewish immigrants reached college and even fewer graduated in the first decade of the twentieth century.  Even the celebrated and difficult entrance requirements into City College that caused many people to call CCNY the “Harvard of the Proletariat” only took effect in the late 1930s and before that decade, graduating classes generally numbered in the hundreds.  See Shirley Gorelick, City College and the Jewish Poor: Education in New York, 1880-1924 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1981), 3. Also see Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth, 128-138.  Joel Perlmann explained that in 1908, well below five percent of the Russian Jewish children in the city graduated from high school.  See Joel Perlmann, Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure among the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Blacks in an American City, 1880-1935 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 123.

[5] “Readers’ Right,” New York Post, March 12, 1936.

[6] “Holman Stresses Form at CCNY,” New York Post, December 2, 1931.

[7] Quote on ‘small man’s game’ and ‘low stature,’ from “Pessimists Ruled Out as Holman’s Beavers Prepare for Opener,” New York Evening Post, December 1, 1938; “Fury and Finesse Lead to Same Results when Beavers and Redmen Take to Court,” New York Evening Post, December 19, 1938. In the final game of the 1939 season, CCNY defeated previously undefeated (and No. 1) NYU team to finish 8-8.  CCNY also had three straight losing seasons in the mid-1940s.

Post-season tournaments are born, by Ari Sclar

An increase in frenetic activity on the court served as a byproduct of the abolition of the center jump.  Supporters of the center jump had claimed it positively slowed down the game so that players would not overexert themselves.  According to Time, the results of the rule change during the first year led some “physicians and coaches” to become concerned that the pace placed “too great a strain on players’ hearts.”  Most commentators and coaches, however, welcomed the change since the elimination of the jump: “speeds up the game, adds about seven minutes of playing time…[and] results in more spectacular tries for basketball and larger scores.”[1]

The increase in scoring surpassed all expectations as teams and players adjusted to the new rules.  Whereas scores in the early 1930s had often been in the teens and twenties, some teams scored in the sixties during the early 1940s.  By the end of the decade, scores exploded into the seventies, eighties, and even nineties.  Spectators witnessed evenly matched teams score at incredible paces and individual players became stars for scoring more than 20 points in a game. Specialization began to differentiate between positions as “playmakers” became point guards and coaches designed offenses around individual players’ ability to score.  In March 1947, Harry Boykoff scored 54 points, which then set a record at Madison Square Garden, in a 71-52 St. John’s victory over rival St. Francis.[2]  The increased scoring also attracted spectators and intensified the commercialism of college basketball.  Garden promoter Ned Irish and the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association (MBWA) took immediate advantage of this change, and at the end of the 1938 season, they organized a postseason tournament to crown a national champion.

Described as the “Rose Bowl of Basketball,” the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) invited six teams (NYU, LIU, Temple, Bradley, Oklahoma A&M, and Colorado) to Madison Square Garden in March 1938.  Some basketball fans declared the NIT “will prove nothing” due to the absence of Stanford, Notre Dame, and teams from the powerful Big Ten, which did not participate in post-season games.  Others asserted that bids to NYU and LIU after mediocre seasons only illustrated that the “writers are playing stooges to enrich the coffers of Ned Irish.”  The tournament championship game received wide media attention as Temple, with All-American Mike (Meyer) Bloom leading the way, defeated Colorado and its star, future Supreme Court Justice Byron ‘Whizzer’ White, 60-38 by playing “a brand of basketball that never has been surpassed in Madison Square Garden.”[3]  The NIT attracted fewer customers than regular season games, but its success led the NCAA to form its own postseason national tournament in 1939.

The post-season tournaments encouraged the ongoing growth and standardization of college basketball.  Stanford coach John Bunn stated the Garden provided a “benefit” to all participants since “Western teams could learn about ball-handling from their Eastern opponents while…invading teams could teach the local fives a little about shooting.”  As more cities promoted double-headers, eastern teams sometimes traveled west and commentators declared that “basketball’s provincialism is gone and the game is much healthier for it.”  In 1940, Newsweek stated that basketball was “watched annually by more paying customers than any other sport, 90,000,000 in a single season.”[4]  That same year, the first televised college basketball game took place, although basketball would not take full advantage of the new medium until the 1950s.  Following the 1941 season, during which Nat Holman served as president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), the organization’s Coaching Committee voted to standardize the size of the ball, floor, backboards, lighting, and other equipment.  Standard equipment, inter-regional double-headers, and national tournaments, helped college basketball surpass all but college football and major league baseball in national popularity by World War II.[5]

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[1] “Sport: In New Orleans,” Time, February 7, 1938; “Sport: Point a Minute,” Time, January 24, 1938. In 1909, Luther Gulick stated he opposed the ‘cage’ game “because of the excessive strain upon the heart produced by the continuous playing.” See Luther Gulick, “Proposed Changes in Basket Ball,” American Physical Education Review 14, no. 8 (October 1909): 509.

[2] Bjarkman, Hoopla, 47. Scoring records fell at incredible paces during the 1940s.  In March 1945, NYU scored 85 points in a game against Temple and Bowling Green scored 97 points at the Garden in 1948.  Boykoff scored a Garden record 45 points in 1943.  That scoring mark was broken by Mikan in 1945.  For Boykoff’s 1947 mark, see “St. Francis Beaten By Redmen,” New York Times, March 12, 1947.  St. John’s coach Joe Lapchick called Dutch Garfinkel a “playmaker” in relation to his ability to produce scoring opportunities for his teammates.  See “West’s Brand of Basketball Finds Favor of Lapchick,” New York Evening Post, December 13, 1938.

[3] “Readers’ Right,” New York Evening Post, March 4, 1938 and March 7, 1938. The Post was not part of the committee which organized the tournament and received 34 letters in protest of the first NIT. NYU and LIU played for the first time ever. On the final, see New York Times, March 17, 1938.

[4] “Activities on Basketball Courts,” New York Times, January 4, 1938.  “West Meets East and Trims It in Year-End Basketball Spurt,” Newsweek, January 8, 1940.  The NCAA formed its own tournament because it determined that it needed to control college basketball.  See Applin, “From Muscular Christianity to the Marketplace,” 170-171.

[5] For information on Holman’s tenure as NABC president, see Nat Holman papers, City College of New York Archives, New York.  On the NABC vote to standardize the game, see “Uniform Basketball and Coaches Pushed by Coaches’ Committee,” New York Times, March 25, 1941. On basketball’s growth and general attendance figures, see “Sports,” Newsweek, April 14, 1944. According to the article, Garden attendance was 249,728 at double-headers and 115,000 at the national tournaments.

Height becomes important, by Ari Sclar

In 1937, college basketball made one of the most important rule changes in its history, the elimination of the center jump.  Prior to the 1937-38 season, play stopped after every made basket and the teams returned to the center of the court for a jump ball.  Opponents of the center jump denounced the unfairness it produced in the game.  Nat Holman had declared that, “basketball as it is now is not 100% healthy due to the advantage held by a team with a tall center.”[1]  Four years later, University of Minnesota coach Dave MacMillan stated that he favored the rule change since “otherwise you have four players and a clown.”[2] 

MacMillan’s distinction between ‘players’ and the center ‘clown’ indicated the clear bias against tall players in basketball.  Prior to the 1936 Olympic qualifying tournament, the Time magazine described the McPherson Oilers, whose starting five ranging in height from 6’1” to 6’9”, as “athletic freaks.”  They had perfected a “technique called ‘dunking’ with which they score by jumping up above the basket, dropping the ball into it.”  Some traditionalists believed that such activity would ruin the game.  Kansas coach ‘Phog’ Allen spoke for many coaches and critics when he stated: “dunking is not basketball.”[3]

During the early decades of the twentieth century, coaches viewed taller players as awkward, ungainly, and useful only for rebounds or the center jump.  In 1934, newspapers viewed Jewish high schooler and future NYU star Irwin Witty as “a smooth player, despite his 6’3” height.”[4]  Coaches spent considerably more time with shorter guards and forwards who possessed the bursts of movement required in basketball.  Many assumed this would continue in the post-center jump era.  Ironically, the rule change produced the opposite effect.  The absence of the center jump forced coaches to provide tall players with instruction, which increased their skill and ability on the court.  Some commentators immediately recognized that a shift had occurred.  In the March 1938 YMHA Bulletin, Stanley Frank re-issued his treatise on Barney Sedran with the additional comment that basketball “gives the big man crushing advantages over a smaller opponent.”  By the mid-1940s, players over 6’9” became more common in college basketball as DePaul’s George Mikan, Oklahoma A&M’s Bob Kurland, and St. John’s Harry Boykoff changed the nature of the game.[5]  Yet, tall players remained seen as “freaks.”  In 1943, Newsweek profiled the 6’9” Boykoff, New York City’s first successful ‘big man.’  The text focused on his height, made no mention of his Jewishness and explained that, “It is rumored that the reason the 20-year-old sophomore is studying accountancy is so that he can tally his final height.”[6]

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the new generation of ‘freaks’ often stood under the basket to block their opponents’ shot.  Many commentators considered this, much like the center jump, an unfair advantage for taller players and believed that the “practice called ‘goal tending’ threatened to turn the game over to circus giants, whether or not they can play basketball.”[7]  The NCAA banned goaltending following the 1944 season, but taller players and their coaches adapted to this rule like they had the elimination of the center jump.  Holman and others lamented the gradual removal of the ‘small’ player.  Holman scoffed at Phog Allen’s suggestion that the basket be raised to 12-feet, but suggested the lanes be widened to 12-feet in order to “aid the little man” by keeping taller players further from the basket.  Despite opposition from traditionalists, however, the sport’s popularity seemed to increase every year as basketball became “a sport where height pays off.”[8] 

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[1] “Holman’s No-Tap Plan Tested as Court Experts See Y Beat Collegians,” Y Bulletin, April 7, 1933.  In 1933, Holman organized a “test game” between the 92^nd Street YMHA varsity and a collection of ‘all-stars’ from CCNY and St. John’s. 

[2] “On the Courts,” New York Times, December 29, 1937. MacMillan’s comments were made after the first double-header in which a record crowd of 18,148 saw Stanford defeat CCNY and Minnesota beat LIU.  MacMillan was a former teammate of Holman’s with the Celtics.

[3] Quote on ‘freaks’ from “Sport: Basketball,” Time, April 13, 1936; Quote on ‘dunking’ from “Brooklyn College and McPherson Oilers Score in Garden Basketball Games,” New York Times, March 12, 1936.  Prior to the 1936 qualifying tournament, the Oilers played an All-Metropolitan team composed of the entire LIU squad and stars from NYU, CCNY, St. John’s, Manhattan, Fordham, and St. Francis.  MacPherson won 45-43 in “the most brilliantly played and spectacular basketball game that Madison Square Garden ever has seen.”  On Allen’s attitude, see Harold C. Evans, “Some Notes on College Basketball in Kansas,” The Kansas Historical Quarterly 11, no. 2 (May 1942): 199-215.  Quote on 213.

[4] “Jefferson Seeks First Court Title in Facing Clinton,” New York Times, March 24, 1934.

[5] Stanley Frank, “Jews in Sports: Barney Sedran,” Y Bulletin, March 18, 1938. 

[6] “Basketball,” Newsweek, February 1, 1943.  On Mikan  as the “first” great big man, see Isaacs, All the Moves, 129-135; Bjarkman, Hoopla, 51-52.

[7] The rules committee also allowed unlimited substitutions, increased personal fouls from four to five, and provided the referee with the ability to call time out for an injured player.  See “Sports,” Newsweek, April 14, 1944.

[8] “Little Man: Holman Urges Changes in Cage Setup,” Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1951; “Coach Assails Basket Ball Toss-Up as Unsportsmanlike,” Washington Post, January 17, 1929. Sport: Basketball Pfd,” Time, April 6, 1942.

The 'Jewish' New York player, by Ari Sclar

Following the 1936-37 season, the New York press declared that “eastern basketball lost prestige” due to Stanford’s victory over LIU.  Reports of the game also contained an implicit racial tone.  One member of the New York press argued that LIU’s loss meant that “New York’s fundamental concept of basketball will have to be radically changed if the Metropolitan District is to remain among the progressive centers of court culture in the country.”  In particular, “coaches must cease looking for the smart, shifty player and focus attention on big, nimble athletes who can drive and put the ball through the hoop.”  It remained unclear where this type of player could be found, but “nothing can be done about it as long as home-bred talent tries to play an intellectual game while invaders are forcing the breaks, instead of waiting for them, with terrific speed and hell-for-leather tactics.”[1]

The none-too-subtle coding of the ‘Metropolitan’ player as the ‘Jew’ indicated that New York’s Jewish basketball had not informed the larger athletic ideal.  Commentary on size, stylistic improvements, and the weakened “intellectual game” indicated that some doubted whether the ‘Jew’ could adapt to a changing game.  Coaches needed to find a new type of player who was not just ‘smart’ or ‘shifty.’  The older culture of regional distinctiveness had idealized the basketball Jew in the east.  Nationalization, however, brought the rest of America to Madison Square Garden and revealed the limits of the racially informed ideal.  The sportswriter believed that the entire structure of New York and Jewish basketball would have to change in order to keep up with big, nimble and white athletes.

The Times article did not attach an explicit racial identity to the ‘Metropolitan’ player, but others viewed Jewish basketball through the lens of race.  Sportswriter Paul Gallico explained in 1938 that basketball “appeals to the Hebrew with his Oriental background” as well as “the temperament of the Jews” because it “places a premium on an alert, scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging, and general smart aleckness.”[2]  Gallico’s representation of ‘the Hebrew’ basketball player, while clearly anti-Semitic, consisted of characteristics remarkably similar to those used by the Jewish press within the discourse of Jewish athleticism.

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[1] “Pop Knick’s ‘Big Nine’ of Court Sets Mark – Wrong One, though,” New York Evening Post, January 4, 1937; “Stanford, Notre Dame Won Fame as New York Quintets Faltered,” New York Times, December 26, 1937; “Speed Wrecks L.I.U.’s Guile and Accuracy Seals Verdict,” New York Evening Post, December 31, 1936.

[2] Paul Gallico, Farewell to Sport (New York: Knopf, 1938), 324.

The game goes national, by Ari Sclar

In December 1936, Stanford traveled east during the holiday break.  After defeating Temple, 45-38 in front of 9,000 fans in Philadelphia, Stanford arrived at the Garden to play LIU in one of the most anticipated games in college basketball history.  The predominantly-Jewish LIU team remained basically the same as the year before when the school rose to national prominence, and the New York media stated that the contest “will for the first time…[provide] the definite answer to the question of East-West supremacy.”  As the “smartest, smoothest team in the East,” LIU would defend eastern honor.  The game’s competitive pressure led LIU to follow “the example set by major colleges in football” by preparing at a “training camp” at Grossinger’s Resort in the Catskills.  According to the New York Times, “this is believed to be the first training camp trip any basketball team ever has made during the Christmas holidays.”[1]  New Yorkers believed that LIU’s zone would stop Stanford’s All-American Hank Luisetti but before a crowd of 17,623, Stanford ended LIU’s 43-game winning streak by a score of 45-31.  The result shocked ‘eastern’ basketball and resulted in the further standardization of basketball.[2]

In contrast to the east’s two-handed set shot, Luisetti and the rest of the Stanford team shot one-handed.  Some eastern commentators and coaches had doubted the effectiveness of the shot until Luisetti shredded the vaunted LIU defense for 15 points.  CCNY’s Nat Holman, an adamant defender of the set shot, had called Luisetti’s shot a “prayer” before the game.[3]  Within the decade, some CCNY players would use the one-handed shot even as others remained committed to the set shot.  The changing shooting style illustrated the impact of the Garden on New York, and Jewish, basketball.  Some players willingly incorporated improved methods of play into the traditional culture.  Others took a bigger step and began to leave the local area to play college basketball.

In the 1930s, William Silberstein traveled from Brooklyn to Indiana University and Bernie Opper left the Bronx to attend Kentucky.  Opper in particular found success as he received honors as All-Southeast Conference and All-America during his career.  Opper reportedly contacted Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp after seeing the 1935 NYU-Kentucky game as a high school student.[4]  Prior to the Garden games, personal contact with the larger basketball world was limited to the print media.  Sport radio remained relatively minor and television had yet to become a standard feature in American homes.  Garden promoter Ned Irish’s desire to attract an older audience notwithstanding, the Garden could exist as a space where players’ and spectators’ identities blended.  Opper’s first-hand exposure to teams from across the country was a common experience among Jewish youth in the New York area and his experience indicated the unique opportunity provided New York youth.[5]

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[1] “East-West Court Feud Ideal Test of Stanford,” New York Evening Post, December 30, 1936; “On Basketball Courts,” New York Times, December 24, 1936.

[2] Isaacs, All the Moves, 111-115.  The result helped Stanford capture the Helms National championship that season. 

[3] “LIU Victory String Now 43 as Result of 3 More Triumphs,” New York Times, December 28, 1936; “East-West Court Feud Ideal Test for Stanford,” New York Evening Post, December 30, 1936. 

[4] On Sliberstein, see John Laskowski with Stan Sutton, John Laskowsk’s Tales from the Hoosier Locker Room: A Collection of the Greatest Stories Ever Told (Sports Publishing Company, 2003), 77-81.  Silberstein later established the first endowed athletic scholarship at Indiana.

[5] For brief information on Opper, see Tom Wallace, Kentucky Basketball Encyclopedia (Sports Publishing LLC, 2002), 105.  After his Kentucky career, Opper returned to the northeast to play professionally with the Philadelphia Sphas and other ABL teams.  Opper also played in the National Basketball League (NBL), a Midwestern based professional league.  The Garden used radio to promote the double-headers and former football and track star Marty Glickman became the voice of college basketball during the 1940s.  He helped pioneer the sport on radio.  Also see Isaacs, All the Moves, 80.