2nd Story Morry


2nd Story Morry logo

Location: Pittsburgh, Pa.
Nickname:
“The Morrys”
Colors: Black, Grass Green, Pink, Ivory
Manager: Morry Goldman
Established: 1922

The Second Story Morry basketball team, also known as the 2nd Story Morrys, was a unique squad from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with two special links to local and national African American sports history.

The first connection was through Cumberland Posey, the Pittsburgh native who was universally considered the best Black basketball player of his generation. Posey grew up in Homestead, a closely-knit and ethnically diverse steel-making community in Pittsburgh. He attended Homestead High School, leading its basketball team to win the 1908-9 city championship title.

Charles “Chick” Davies grew up a few doors down the street from Posey (Posey was at 320 E. 13th Avenue; Davies was at 350 E. 13th Ave.), and everyone on the block shared the same makeshift backboard and hoop that Posey had put up on the utility pole in front of his house.

Davies developed a love of basketball there, that would one day blossom into a pro career, first as a player, then as a nationally renowned college coach.

Posey went on to play basketball at Penn State and eventually at Duquesne University, where he was the team’s leading scorer for three seasons. He then starred for several major Black Fives Era semi-pro and professional teams including the Loendi Big Five, which won four straight Colored Basketball World Championships beginning in the late 1910s.

A collage of the Second Story Morry basketball team, Pittsburgh, 1923.
A collage of the Second Story Morry basketball team, Pittsburgh, 1923.

Davies became so talented that he dropped out of Homestead High School during his freshman year to join a local all-Jewish semi-pro basketball team called the Second Story Morrys, in order to support his widowed mother and his sisters, earning up to $20 a game.

The Morrys were so named because they were sponsored by a downtown Pittsburgh clothing haberdasher named Morry Goldman. Goldman’s apparel shop was on the second floor of a building in downtown Pittsburgh, so he became known as “Second Story Morry,” also the name of his store, and the team took that name as well. The shop’s motto was, “Walk up the stairs and save $10,” as well as “Clothing With a Conscience.”

This 2nd Story Morry dad cap is one of many Black Fives Era team and branded styles available. Select for more info.

In the early 1920s, the Second Story Morrys were one of the best basketball teams in Pittsburgh, rivaling only one other White team called the Coffey Club, whose lineup was also all-Jewish.

Both the Morrys and the Coffeys collaborated with Cumberland Posey and his powerful Loendi Big Five, an all-Black squad, to stage action-packed games that routinely sold out the 6,000-seat Union Labor Temple in Pittsburgh’s predominantly Black Hill District as well as other large Pittsburgh venues. The success of their race-cooperative business models helped inform subsequent African American basketball pioneer Bob Douglas, owner of the New York Renaissance.

One of Morry Goldman's newspaper advertisements.
One of Morry Goldman’s newspaper advertisements.

The second connection of the Second Story Morrys to African American sports history had an equally broad impact. In 1924, Davies left the Morrys to become the head basketball coach of Duquesne University, where he remained for 24 years, posting 314 wins. By the 1940s, Duquesne had become a basketball powerhouse, with three NIT and one NCAA Final Four appearance. Two of their great NIT teams were led by local African American basketball star Chuck Cooper, a sensational talent from Westinghouse High School.

It was Davies who had recruited Cooper to attend Duquesne, and the Westinghouse grad went on to a spectacular career with the Dukes. In 1950, his senior year in college, he was a Consensus All-American. After graduating, Cooper made history by becoming the first African American player drafted into the National Basketball Association, by the Boston Celtics.

Chuck Cooper of Duquesne University with his coach, Chick Davies, ca. 1950
A photograph of Chuck Cooper with his coach, Chick Davies, at Duquesne University. Cooper soon afterward became the first African American player to be drafted into the NBA.

All three Duquesne basketball men, Davies (1963), Cooper (1969), and Posey (1988) were later inducted into Duquesne University’s Sports Hall of Fame. Coming full circle, Davies would go back to teach at Homestead High School and become the head coach of its basketball program after leaving Duquesne in 1943. He would coach Homestead for three years before returning to the Dukes.

The Second Story Morrys lasted through the late 1920s, playing independently as well as in the Central League of Pennsylvania for one season (1926) before disbanding.

The Morrys produced several notable basketball players who accomplished great achievements beyond the team, including Ken Loeffler, who later coached LaSalle to NIT and NCAA titles and is enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, Bill Campbell, who would coach Duquesne University just prior to Davies, Carl “Moon” Klinzing, who is in Duquesne University’s Sports Hall of Fame, and “Pip” Koehler, who appeared in 12 games with baseball’s New York Giants in 1925.

(Updated: January28, 2022)

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