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CCNY BASKETBALL VICTORY  "These are kids from the inner city and the ghetto, from private school and country homes, from economic hardship and four-car garages, from everywhere in the 50 states and maybe 50 other countries." |
College basketball was
very different in 1950
of TheColumnists.com
It is American democracy at its finest.
For three weeks until that chilling, glorious
April 3 night when one college basketball team stands alone on
the floor in Indianapolis as NCAA champion, the country is captured
by 18-19-and 20-year old kids throwing a fat, round ball into
a metal rim with nets.
It all started in Springfield, Massachusetts over 100 years ago
and has grown more thrilling, more dramatic, more inclusive over
the last century plus.
These are kids from the inner city and the ghetto, from private
school and country homes, from economic hardship and four-car
garages, from everywhere in the 50 states and maybe 50 other
countries.
They are black, mostly now, and white and Asian and Hispanic
and Eastern European and South African. Some are seven feet tall
and some are really under six feet tall. A few dozen are showing
off for NBA teams and the millions to follow. Most are playing
their final games ever before they step off a court and into
the world.
A dozen years from now they’ll worry about pleasing wives
and feeding kids and holding down jobs and remembering their
favorite shot.
For now, only the next shot, the next pass, the next win on the
way to Indianapolis really matters.
There are negatives about college basketball because kids are
romanced and recruited to these schools, not only for studies
and degrees but also for jobs and bonuses and benefits that can
hardly be measured.
Still, for the majority it is a life thrill that can not really
be measured. Shoot a basket in the back yard with your kids.
Measure that. Shoot a winning basket in the Final Four and measure
that. Impossible.
My own basketball thrills go back to the 1940s when I starred
on the park three-man basketball teams with my deadly two handed
set shot and peaked at a camp game at the age of 17.
Then, in 1950, I was at the City College of New York watching
our school team from the balcony of Madison Square Garden in
the National Invitation Tournament, a big deal in that era.
CCNY was a team of mostly sophomore stars from New York City
schools--Ed Roman, Ed Warner, Al Roth, Floyd Layne and a few
spectacular seniors, Irwin Dambrot, Norm Mager and Joe Gallagher.
They were coached by Nat Holman, a star of basketball’s
first famous team, the Original Celtics, who had brought the
game into dance halls and CYOs and Jewish Community Centers,
any place with a hardwood floor and a couple of baskets.
CCNY didn’t figure in the NIT, a sort of extra team to fill
out the field. Then they ripped through the opposition. They
defeated a school called Bradley Tech in the final game and earned
honor and glory for the free-tuition city institution.
These were street kids, black and Jewish and lower class and
driven for excellence in basketball and life.
They came back a few days later and entered the national tournament
called the NCAA, not as big an event in 1950 as it later became.
No team had ever won both tournaments in the same season.
Now it was CCNY against Kentucky in an NCAA game. Kentucky players
had represented the USA in the 1948 Olympics at London. Now they
were out for a national title.
Their coach was Adolph Rupp and he simply was a Kentucky racist.
He called blacks by the "N" word almost 100 years after
the end of the Civil War and something he never knew called the
Emancipation Proclamation.
CCNY had a 6-10 backup center named Leroy Watkins. He was black.
He had never started a game. Ed Roman, the star, was on the sideline
and Watkins was on the floor to jump center at the start. He
out-jumped Hall of Famer Alex Groza and the march through Kentucky
was on.
CCNY 90, Kentucky 49, final score in the southern school’s
worst humiliation.
CCNY went on through that championship play to meet Bradley Tech
again in the final game, rose to the challenge and captured the
second title. No team had ever done that before. No team has
done it since. Can’t happen again because both tournaments
are played at the same time now.
The tragedy of scandal hit the next year when so many of the
CCNY stars, as well as many others, were arrested for throwing
games or point shaving scores to keep the bettors happy.
It was sad to see them handcuffed and in courts, paying the price
for greed and naivety. I choose to remember the glory and forget
the greed more than half a century later.
I went on later to write for a newspaper in Indiana and was there
when Milan, the tiniest high school team in the state tournament,
pulled off the miracle win. The movie “Hoosiers” was
based on their tale.
I saw a black kid in an all black school beat everybody the next
year. His name was Oscar Robertson and he played for Crispus
Attucks, the name of a Civil War slave hero.
The college basketball championship is one of the sports highlights
of any year, loved and lamented across the country, on college
campuses and in office pools, on hillsides and beach fronts by
powerful executives and three man basketball street kids.
Don’t call me for the next couple of weeks on game nights.
I am too busy chalking in my selections on the board.
Nothing will take me away from watching American democracy in
action.
©2006 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This
column first posted March 20, 2006.
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