During the 1910s, a Lower East Side basketball coach brought Jewish Americans and African Americans together in the sport for the first time. Who was he? What did he do? Was he Jewish?
The Original Nexus of Blacks and Jews in Basketball (Parts 6-7 of 9)
The Naval Ammunition Depot in Hastings, Nebraska — the Navy’s largest W.W. II inland munitions plant — had an all-black contingent that represented the base in the “Colored Servicemen’s Basketball Championship Tournament of Nebraska” around 1944.
In 1961, during a summer job in Vienna, Austria, my father took pivotal advice from Father Theodore Hesburgh, now President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame.
Adrian Dantley finally got elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He’ll be enshrined on Friday in a ceremony in Springfield, Massachusetts, along with several other players, coaches, and contributors including Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, and Pat Riley. Among other things, I like Dantley’s unselfishness and perspective when it comes to recognizing his… Read more »