Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville and named the City of Charlottesville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities; this means a resident will list city on official paperwork. It is named after the British Queen consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who as the wife of George III was Virginia's last Queen. In 2016, an estimated 46,912 people lived within the city limits; the Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the City of Charlottesville with Albemarle County for statistical purposes, bringing its population to 150,000. Charlottesville is the heart of the Charlottesville metropolitan area, which includes Albemarle, Fluvanna and Nelson counties. Charlottesville was the home of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. During their terms as Governor of Virginia, they lived in Charlottesville, traveled to and from Richmond, along the 71-mile historic Three Notch'd Road.
Orange, located 26 miles northeast of the city, was the hometown of President James Madison. The University of Virginia, founded by Jefferson and one of the original Public Ivies, straddles the city's southwestern border. Monticello, 3 miles southeast of the city, is, along with the University of Virginia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, attracting thousands of tourists every year. At the time of European encounter, part of the area that became Charlottesville was occupied by a Monacan village called Monasukapanough. An Act of the Assembly of Albemarle County established Charlottesville in 1762. Thomas Walker was named its first trustee, it was situated along a trade route called Three Notched Road, which led from Richmond to the Great Valley. The town took its name from Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who became queen consort of Great Britain when she married King George III in 1761. During the American Revolutionary War, Congress imprisoned the Convention Army in Charlottesville at the Albemarle Barracks between 1779 and 1781.
The Governor and legislators had to temporarily abandon the capitol and on June 4, 1781, Jack Jouett warned the Virginia Legislature meeting at Monticello of an intended raid by Colonel Banastre Tarleton, allowing a narrow escape. Unlike much of Virginia, Charlottesville was spared the brunt of the American Civil War; the only battle to take place in Charlottesville was the skirmish at Rio Hill, an encounter in which George Armstrong Custer engaged local Confederate Home Guards before retreating. The mayor surrendered the city to Custer's men to keep the town from being burned; the Charlottesville Factory, founded c. 1820–30, was accidentally burnt during General Sheridan's 1865 raid through the Shenandoah Valley. The factory had been taken over by the Confederacy and used to manufacture woolen clothing for the soldiers, it caught fire when some coals taken by Union troops to burn the nearby railroad bridge dropped on the floor. The factory was rebuilt and was known as the Woolen Mills until its liquidation in 1962.
After the Civil War, emancipated enslaved persons who stayed in Charlottesville established communities in neighborhoods such as Vinegar Hill. In 1943, there were at least three theaters in Charlottesville: Paramount, La Fayette. In July 1957, the first real estate firm owned and operated by African Americans, opened for business; the company, named Ideal Realty Company, was owned and operated by James N. Fleming, Roy C. Preston, Vassar Tarry, it was located in the Preston Building, 115 Fourth Street, N. W. James Fleming was a graduate of Jefferson High School. After Reconstruction ended, Charlottesville's black population suffered under Jim Crow laws that segregated public places and limited opportunity. Schools were segregated by race and blacks were not served in many local businesses. Public parks were planned separately for the white and black populations: four for the whites, one, built on the site of a former dump, for blacks; the Ku Klux Klan had chapters in the Charlottesville area beginning at least in the early twentieth century, events such as lynchings and cross burnings occurred in the Charlottesville area.
In 1898, Charlottesville resident John Henry James was lynched in the nearby town of Ivy. In August 1950, three white men were observed burning a cross on Cherry Avenue, a street in a African-American neighborhood in Charlottesville, it was speculated that the cross burning might be a reaction to "a white man had been known to socialize with one of the young Negro women in that vicinity." In 1956, crosses were burned outside a progressive church and the home of white integration activist Sarah Patton Boyle. In the fall of 1958, Charlottesville closed its segregated white schools as part of Virginia's strategy of massive resistance to federal court orders requiring integration as part of the implementation of the Supreme Court of the United States decision Brown v. Board of Education; the closures were required by a series of state laws collectively known as the Stanley plan. Negro schools remained open, however; the first African American member of the Charlotteville School Board was Raymond Bell in 1963.
In 1963 than many southern cities, civil rights activists in Charlottesville began protesting segregated restaurants with sit-ins, such as one that occurred at Buddy's Restaurant near the University of Virginia. In the summer of 1940 the first Field Day event was held in Washington Park. In 1947 Charlottesville organized a local NAACP branch. In 2001, the Charlottesville and Albemarle Branches of the NAACP merged to form the Albemarle-Charlottesvi
United Press International
United Press International is an international news agency whose newswires, news film, audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and television stations for most of the 20th century. At its peak, it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its rival, the Associated Press, UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches. Formally named "United Press Associations" for incorporation and legal purposes, but publicly known and identified as United Press or UP, the news agency was created by the 1907 uniting of three smaller news syndicates by the Midwest newspaper publisher E. W. Scripps, it was headed by Hugh Baillie from 1935 to 1955. At the time of his retirement, UP had 2,900 clients in the United States, 1,500 abroad. In 1958, it became United Press International after absorbing the International News Service in May; as either UP or UPI, the agency was among the largest newswire services in the world, competing domestically for about 90 years with the Associated Press and internationally with AP, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
At its peak, UPI had more than 2,000 full-time employees. With the rising popularity of television news, the business of UPI began to decline as the circulation of afternoon newspapers, its chief client category, began to fall, its decline accelerated after the 1982 sale of UPI by the Scripps company. The E. W. Scripps Company controlled United Press until its absorption of William Randolph Hearst's smaller competing agency, INS, in 1958 to form UPI. With the Hearst Corporation as a minority partner, UPI continued under Scripps management until 1982. Since its sale in 1982, UPI has changed ownership several times and was twice in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. With each change in ownership came deeper service and staff cutbacks and changes of focus and a corresponding shrinkage of its traditional media customer base. Since the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its one-time major rival, the AP, UPI has concentrated on smaller information market niches, it no longer services media organizations in a major way.
In 2000, UPI was purchased by News World Communications, an international news media company founded in 1976 by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon. It now maintains a news website and photo service and electronically publishes several information product packages. Based on aggregation from other sources on the Web and gathered by a small editorial staff and stringers, UPI's daily content consists of a newsbrief summary service called "NewsTrack," which includes general, sports, science and entertainment reports, "Quirks in the News." It sells a premium service, which has deeper coverage and analysis of emerging threats, the security industry, energy resources. UPI's content is presented in text and photo formats, in English and Arabic. UPI's main office is in the Miami metropolitan area and it maintains office locations in five other countries and uses freelance journalists in other major cities. Beginning with the Cleveland Press, publisher E. W. Scripps created the first chain of newspapers in the United States.
Because the recently reorganized Associated Press refused to sell its services to several of his papers, most of them evening dailies in competition with existing AP franchise holders, in 1907 Scripps merged three smaller syndicates under his ownership or control, the Publishers Press Association, the Scripps-McRae Press Association, the Scripps News Association, to form United Press Associations, with headquarters in New York City. Scripps had been a subscriber to an earlier news agency named United Press, that existed in the late 1800s in cooperation with management of the original New York-based AP and in existential competition with two Chicago-based organizations using the AP name. Drawing lessons from the battles between the earlier United Press and the various AP's, Scripps required that there be no restrictions on who could buy news from his news service, he made the new UP service available to anyone, including his competitors. Scripps hoped to make a profit from selling that news to papers owned by others.
At that time and until World War II, most newspapers relied on news agencies for stories outside their immediate geographic areas. Despite strong newspaper industry opposition, UP started to sell news to the new and competitive radio medium in 1935, years before competitor AP, controlled by the newspaper industry, did likewise. Scripps' United Press was considered "a scrappy alternative" news source to the AP. UP reporters were called "Unipressers" and were noted for their fiercely aggressive and competitive streak. Another hallmark of the company's culture was little formal training of reporters, they were weaned on UP's famous and well-documented slogan of "Get it first, but FIRST, get it RIGHT." Despite controversy, UP became a common training ground for generations of journalists. Walter Cronkite, who started with United Press in Kansas City, gained fame for his coverage of World War II in Europe and turned down Edward R. Murrow's first offer of a CBS job to stay with UP, but who went on to anchor the CBS Evening News, once said, "I felt every Unipresser got up in the morning saying,'This is the day I'm going to be
Small forward
The small forward known as the three, is one of the five positions in a regulation basketball game. Small forwards are shorter and leaner than power forwards and centers, but taller and larger than either of the guard positions; the small forward is considered to be the most versatile of the five main basketball positions. In the NBA, small forwards range from 6' 6" to 6' 10" while in the WNBA, small forwards are between 5' 11" to 6' 2". Small forwards are responsible for scoring points, defending and as secondary or tertiary rebounders behind the power forward and center, although a few have considerable passing responsibilities. Many small forwards in professional basketball are prolific scorers; the styles with which small forwards amass their points vary widely. Some players at the position are accurate shooters, others prefer to initiate physical contact with opposing players, still others are slashers who possess jump shots. In some cases, small forwards position as off-the-ball specialists.
Small forwards who are defensive specialists are versatile as they can guard multiple positions using their size and strength
Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball
The Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball program represents the University of Virginia in the Atlantic Coast Conference in Division I of the NCAA. The team is coached by Tony Bennett. Since 2006 the team has played at John Paul Jones Arena, an on-campus arena on the North Grounds of the university, in front of 14,593. A consistent winner in the early years of college basketball under the tutelage of Pop Lannigan, the Cavalier program lay dormant between 1930 and 1975 before Terry Holland arrived to win their first ACC Championship and earn their first NCAA Tournament appearance in his second year. UVA has since finished first in the ACC basketball standings nine times, third best all-time, they have won the ACC Tournament three times. Virginia won the 2019 NCAA Tournament Championship, has been to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament three times, won the last third-place game played at the event; the Cavaliers have been in the Top 5 of the AP Poll a total of 96 weeks in the past four decades, ranking the program 9th since 1980.
Never making the Top 5 from the first poll in 1949 until 1981, the program still ranks 16th all-time by this measure. The Wahoos, as they are unofficially known, began their history under the tutelage of a Welshman and American immigrant known best as "Pop", Henry Lannigan. Lannigan began the program in 1905 after training Olympic Games hopefuls in track and field and brought the basketball program into near-dominant form, he led the Cavaliers to a perfect record of 17–0 in 1914-15 and a Southern Conference title in its inaugeral season of 1921-22. After reaching prominence the team was invited to help the nationally known Kentucky Wildcats showcase their new Alumni Gymnasium. Virginia dominated Kentucky, 29–16. Inviting Kentucky back to Memorial Gymnasium in 1928, Virginia again won, 31–28. Lannigan's record of 254–95 held the Virginia record for best career winning percentage by a head coach until surpassed by a man, hired 104 years after he started the program. After Lannigan's sudden death in 1930 and with limited administration interest at the onset of the Great Depression, Virginia basketball did not maintain its momentum into the next several decades.
Buzzy Wilkinson scored 32.1 points per game in 1954-55 and is still the all-time ACC leader in scoring per game for both the single-season and career categories. He was selected by the Boston Celtics in the 1955 NBA Draft. Virginia teams of the era were not as great at defense and high scoring did not lead to many wins. Barry Parkhill was named ACC Men's Basketball Player of the Year in 1971–72 and was drafted in the first round by the Portland Trail Blazers but the program had not regained its early standing. Terry Holland was hired from Davidson in 1975, with star Wally Walker surprised the ACC in just his second year as head coach when his sixth-seeded Virginia defeated AP No. 17 NC State, No. 9 Maryland and No. 4 North Carolina en route to winning the school's first ACC Championship. Played in Landover, Maryland, it was and fittingly the first ACC Tournament held outside of North Carolina. Athletic and seven-foot-four, Ralph Sampson was the most desired high school recruit in college basketball history when he chose to play with Jeff Lamp at Virginia over Kentucky in 1979.
He lived up to that hype would become one of the most dominant college players the game has known, winning three consecutive Naismith College Player of the Year awards to tie him with Bill Walton as the most awarded individual player in NCAA history. Virginia would attain its first AP Top 5 rankings and go to its first Final Four in Sampson's era, but would be stonewalled by Dean Smith and North Carolina both in that Final Four and in ACC Tournaments. Carolina notoriously held the ball in a four corners offense for most of the last seven minutes of the game, despite having UNC’s most celebrated NBA superstars Michael Jordan and James Worthy on the floor, to defeat Virginia in the 1982 ACC Tournament 47–45. Both the shot clock and three-point line were implemented into college basketball during the same decade in part to combat such shenanigans. In 1984, after Sampson was drafted first in the 1983 NBA Draft, Virginia made a Cinderella run back to the Final Four. There they lost 49–47, in overtime, to a Houston team led by the first pick of the 1984 NBA Draft, Hakeem Olajuwon, who joined Sampson to form the original Twin Towers of the NBA on the Houston Rockets.
John Crotty and Bryant Stith took the darkhorse 1988–89 team to the Elite Eight after defeating a No. 1 seed Oklahoma team which returned most of its lineup from the team that reached the 1988 NCAA Tournament Championship Game. After Holland retired, the Cavaliers were coached by Jeff Jones, Pete Gillen, Dave Leitao. Highlights of those teams include a Jones team headlined by Cory Alexander and Junior Burrough that reached the Elite Eight after a first-place finish in the ACC standings of 1995. There were no championship teams under Gillen, but his recruits Sean Singletary and J. R. Reynolds led the 2007 team to Virginia's next conference-topping finish in Leitao's second season. While there were flashes of brilliance under each of the three coaches, the program regained and expanded its national prominence under the one who followed them. Tony Bennett arrived in March 2009 and got to work in building ”a program that lasts." His 2013–14 team led by Joe Harris and Malcolm Brogdon brought Virginia its first ACC Tournament Championship in 38 years and its first Sweet Sixteen appearance in 19 years.
The 2014–15 squad, led by Justin Anderson and Brogdon, started 19–0 and was more dominant throughout the season as this team more than doubled up the scores of Georgia Tech and Wake Forest, only
Isiah Thomas
Isiah Lord Thomas III is an American former basketball player who played professionally for the Detroit Pistons in the National Basketball Association. A point guard, the 12-time NBA All-Star was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History and inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Thomas has been a professional and collegiate head coach, a basketball executive, a broadcaster. Thomas played collegiately for the Indiana Hoosiers, leading them to the 1981 NCAA championship as a sophomore and declaring for the NBA draft, he was taken as the second overall pick by the Pistons in the 1981 NBA draft, played for them his entire career, while leading the "Bad Boys" to the 1988–89 and 1989–90 NBA championships. After his playing career, he was an executive with the Toronto Raptors, a television commentator, an executive with the Continental Basketball Association, head coach of the Indiana Pacers, an executive and head coach for the New York Knicks, he was the men's basketball coach for the Florida International University Golden Panthers for three seasons from 2009 to 2012.
In early May 2015, amidst controversy, Thomas was named president and part owner of the Knicks' WNBA sister team, the New York Liberty, subsequent to the re-hiring of Thomas's former Pistons teammate, Bill Laimbeer, as the team's coach. The youngest of nine children, Thomas was born on April 30, 1961 in Chicago and grew up in the city's West Side, he attended the private St. Joseph High School in Westchester, a 90-minute commute from his home. Playing under coach Gene Pingatore, he led St. Joseph to the state finals in his junior year, was considered one of the top college prospects in the country. Thomas was recruited to play college basketball for the Indiana Hoosiers. Although he received mail saying Knight tied up his players and beat them, he did not believe the rumors; when Knight visited the Thomas home, one of Isiah's brothers, who wanted him to attend DePaul, embarrassed him by insulting the Indiana coach and engaging him in a shouting match. Thomas chose Knight and Indiana because he felt that getting away to Bloomington would be good for him, as would Knight's discipline.
Thomas had to adjust to Knight's disciplinarian style. At the 1979 Pan American Games in Puerto Rico, Knight got so mad at Thomas he threatened to put him on a plane home. Knight recalled yelling at the freshman-to-be, "You ought to go to DePaul, because you sure as hell aren't going to be an Indiana player playing like that." Prior to the start of his freshman year, the 1979–80 season, Knight became so upset with Thomas that he kicked him out of a practice. According to Thomas, Knight was making a point that no player, no "matter how talented, is bigger than Knight's philosophy."Thomas proved his skills as a player and became a favorite with both Knight and Indiana fans. His superior abilities caused Knight to adjust his coaching style. Fans displayed bedsheets with quotations from the Book of Isaiah and nicknamed him "Mr. Wonderful." Because of Thomas's short stature at 6 ft 1 in, coach Knight would call him "Pee Wee". Thomas and Mike Woodson led the Hoosiers to the Big Ten championship and advanced to the 1980 Sweet Sixteen.
The next year, the 1980–81 season, Knight made Thomas captain and told him to run the show on the floor. Thomas responded so well that, as the season unfolded and Thomas grew as friends; when a Purdue player took a cheap shot at Thomas during a game at Bloomington, Knight called a press conference to defend his star. And 19 days when Thomas hit an Iowa player and was ejected from a game, Knight refused to criticize him; that year and the Hoosiers once again won a conference title and won the 1981 NCAA tournament, the school's fourth national title. The sophomore earned the tournament's Most Outstanding Player award, made himself eligible for the upcoming NBA draft. In the 1981 NBA draft, the Detroit Pistons chose Thomas with the No. 2 pick and signed him to a four-year $1.6 million contract. Thomas made the All-Rookie team and started for the Eastern Conference in the 1982 NBA All-Star Game. In the opening round of the 1984 NBA Playoffs and the Pistons faced off against Bernard King and the New York Knicks.
In the pivotal fifth game, Thomas was having a subpar performance, while King was having an excellent game. Thomas scored 16 points in the last 94 seconds to force the game into overtime, but fouled out, the Knicks held on to win. In the 1985 NBA Playoffs and his team went to the conference semifinals against the 15-time NBA champion Boston Celtics led by future basketball Hall of Famers Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson. Detroit couldn't shake the Celtics in their six-game series losing. In the 1987 NBA Playoffs and the Pistons went to the Eastern Conference Finals and faced the Celtics again, it was the furthest. Detroit was able to tie the Celtics at two games apiece, but its hope of winning Game 5 at Boston Garden was dashed by Larry Bird with just seconds remaining: Thomas attempted to inbound the ball, Bird stole the pass and hit Dennis Johnson for the game-winning layup. In 1988, the Pistons' first trip to the Finals saw them face the Los Angeles Lakers, led by Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Before the series and Johnson exchanged a courtside kiss on the cheek prior to tip-off as a sign of their deep friendship. After taking a 3–2 series lead back to Los Angeles, Detroit appeared poised to win their first NBA title in Game 6. One of Thomas's most inspiring and self-defining moments came in Game 6. Alt
1988–89 NBA season
The 1988–89 NBA season was the 43rd season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Detroit Pistons winning the NBA Championship, sweeping the Los Angeles Lakers; this was the first season of the Miami Charlotte Hornets. The NBA adopts the three-official system used in college basketball permanently; the league experimented with three officials per game in 1978–79, but went back to two officials per game for the next nine seasons, although they have three with the inclusion of an alternate referee for all playoff games and selected regular season games. The Miami Heat and the Charlotte Hornets become the league's 25th franchises; the Heat plays its inaugural season in the Midwest Division. As a result, the Sacramento Kings move to the Pacific Division; the 1989 NBA All-Star Game was played at the Astrodome in Houston, with the West defeating the East 143–134. Karl Malone of the Utah Jazz takes home the game's MVP award. New Arenas: The Milwaukee Bucks move from the MECCA Arena to the then-Bradley Center, the Sacramento Kings move from ARCO Arena I to the then-ARCO Arena, the Detroit Pistons move from the Pontiac Silverdome to The Palace of Auburn Hills.
Michael Jordan records ten triple-doubles in eleven games near the end of the season. Prior to the season, the first-year Hornets announce that they choose teal as their primary color, which gave them immediate attention. In the next decade, expansion teams in the other professional sports leagues further popularized the use of the color; the Hornets popularized the use of pinstripes on the uniforms, which were adopted by the Orlando Magic, Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors, Indiana Pacers and the current Charlotte Hornets' predecessor franchise, the Bobcats. The Chicago Bulls started a playoff tradition by wearing black sneakers. Prior to that, the Boston Celtics were the only team to wear black sneakers. Following the Bulls' unlikely playoff run, other teams began adopting the style, beginning with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1990; this was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's last season. The Los Angeles Lakers became the first team to sweep two consecutive best-of-seven series; the Celtics, who had won no fewer than 57 games over the previous 9 seasons, slump to 42 as Larry Bird played only six games due to injuries.
The Indiana Pacers had 4 different head coaches during the season, a rare occurrence that has not happened since. Seattle SuperSonics guard Dale Ellis won the All-Star game's 3-point shootout; the first cancellation of an NBA game due to a civil disturbance. In the wake of the Miami riots, the game between the Miami Heat and the Phoenix Suns on January 17, 1989, was canceled. Jerry Sloan begins the first season of 23 for the Utah Jazz, the longest tenure for any professional coach for one city and franchise. Notes z – Clinched home court advantage for the entire playoffs c – Clinched home court advantage for the conference playoffs y – Clinched division title x – Clinched playoff spot The League expands from twenty-three to twenty-five franchises, with new expansion teams in Charlotte and Miami; the Heat began its season as a member of the Western Conference despite its geographical position, enduring its longest road trips when playing Western Conference teams. It began the season 0–17, at the time the worst start in NBA history.
The Hornets finished at 20–62. Such records are typical of expansion NBA franchises in their initial seasons, with 15–67 being the poorest record repeated by the Cavaliers, Grizzlies and Mavericks, as well as the Heat; the Sacramento Kings were belatedly moved to the Pacific Division in their fourth season after leaving Kansas City. Teams in bold advanced to the next round; the numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its conference, the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. The division champions are marked by an asterisk. Home court advantage does not belong to the higher-seeded team, but instead the team with the better regular season record. Most Valuable Player: Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers Rookie of the Year: Mitch Richmond, Golden State Warriors Defensive Player of the Year: Mark Eaton, Utah Jazz Sixth Man of the Year: Eddie Johnson, Phoenix Suns Most Improved Player: Kevin Johnson, Phoenix Suns Coach of the Year: Cotton Fitzsimmons, Phoenix Suns All-NBA First Team: F – Karl Malone, Utah Jazz F – Charles Barkley, Philadelphia 76ers C – Akeem Olajuwon, Houston Rockets G – Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls G – Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers All-NBA Second Team: F – Tom Chambers, Phoenix Suns F – Chris Mullin, Golden State Warriors C – Patrick Ewing, New York Knicks G – John Stockton, Utah Jazz G – Kevin Johnson, Phoenix Suns All-NBA Third Team: F – Dominique Wilkins, Atlanta Hawks F – Terry Cummings, Milwaukee Bucks C – Robert Parish, Boston Celtics G – Dale Ellis, Seattle SuperSonics G – Mark Price, Cleveland Cavaliers All-NBA Rookie Team: Rik Smits, Indiana Pacers Willie Anderson, San Antonio Spurs Mitch Richmond, Golden State Warriors Charles D. Smith, Los Angeles Clippers Hersey Hawkins, Philadelphia 76ers NBA All-Defensive First Team: Dennis Rodman, Detroit Pistons Larry Nance, Cleveland Cavaliers Mark Eaton, Utah Jazz Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls Joe Dumars, Detroit Pistons NBA All-Defensive Second Team: Kevin McHale, Boston Celtics A. C.
Green, Los Angeles Lakers Patrick Ewing, New York Knicks John Stockton, Utah Jazz Alvin Robertson, San Antonio SpursNote: All information on this page were obtained on the History
San Antonio Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division; the team plays its home games at the AT&T Center in San Antonio. The Spurs are one of four former American Basketball Association teams to remain intact in the NBA after the 1976 ABA–NBA merger and are the only former ABA team to have won an NBA championship; the franchise has won NBA championships in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014. As of May 2015, the Spurs had the highest winning percentage among active NBA franchises; as of April 2019, the Spurs have won 22 division titles since joining the NBA and have only missed the playoffs four times. From 1999–2000 to 2016–17, the Spurs won 50 games each season, setting a record of 18 consecutive 50-win seasons. In the 2018–19 season, the Spurs matched an NBA record for most consecutive playoff appearances with 22; the team's recent success coincides with the tenure of current head coach Gregg Popovich, who has coached the team since 1996.
The Spurs are the city's only team in any of the four major U. S. professional sports leagues and the only major-league team in the city's history to have lasted more than five years. Spurs players are active members of the San Antonio community, many former Spurs are still active in San Antonio including David Robinson with the Carver Academy and George Gervin with the George Gervin Youth Center; the Spurs set several NBA attendance records while playing at the Alamodome including the largest crowd for an NBA Finals game in 1999, the Spurs continue to sell out the smaller AT&T Center on a regular basis. Since 2003, the team has been forced on an extended road trip for much of February since the AT&T Center hosts the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo; this is informally known as the "Rodeo Road Trip". The Spurs have posted winning road records during this period, including an NBA-record longest single road trip winning streak; when the Spurs have won the NBA title, the team's victory parades have been boat trips on the San Antonio River Walk.
The San Antonio Spurs started out as the Dallas Chaparrals of the original version of the American Basketball Association. Coached by player/coach Cliff Hagan the Dallas Chaparrals were one of 11 teams to take the floor in the inaugural season of the upstart ABA; the Chaps' second season was a bit of a disappointment, as the team finished in 4th place with a mediocre 41–37 record. In the playoffs the Chaparrals fell to the New Orleans Buccaneers; the team suffered from general disinterest in Dallas. In fact, during the 1970–71 season, the name "Dallas" was dropped in favor of "Texas" and an attempt was made to make the team a regional one, playing games in Fort Worth, at the Tarrant County Convention Center, as well as Lubbock, at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, but this proved a failure and the team returned full-time to Dallas in time for the 1971–72 season, splitting their games at Moody Coliseum and Dallas Convention Center Arena. While the Chaparrals had been modestly successful on the court, they were sinking financially by their third season because the ownership group refused to spend much money on the team.
After missing the playoffs for the first time in their existence in the 1972–73 season, nearly all of the owners wanted out. A group of 36 San Antonio businessmen, led by Manager/Angelo Drossos, Chairman of the Board/John Schaefer and President/Red McCombs, worked out a "lend-lease" deal with the Dallas ownership group. Drossos and his group would lease the team for three years and move it to San Antonio, agreed to return the team to Dallas if no purchase occurred by 1975. After the deal was signed, the team was renamed the San Antonio Gunslingers. However, before they played a game the name was changed to Spurs; the team's primary colors were changed from the red and blue of the Chaparrals to the now familiar black and white motif of the Spurs. In the first game at the HemisFair Arena the Spurs lost to the San Diego Conquistadors, despite attracting a noisy crowd of 6,000 fans. A smothering defense was the team's image, as they held opponents to less than 100 points for an ABA record of 49 times.
The early Spurs were led by ABA veteran James Silas, the team would get stronger as the season went on as they twice took advantage of the Virginia Squires, acquiring Swen Nater, who would go on to win Rookie of the Year, in November, "The Iceman" George Gervin in January. The ABA tried to halt the Gervin deal, claiming it was detrimental to the league, but a judge would rule in the Spurs' favor, Gervin made his Spurs debut on February 7; the Spurs would go on to finish with a 45 -- good for 3rd place in the Western Division. In the playoffs, the Spurs would battle the Indiana Pacers to the bitter end before falling in seven games. San Antonio embraced the Spurs with open arms. Schaefer, Drossos and McCombs knew a runaway hit. After only one year, they exercised their option to tear up the lease agreement, buy the franchise outright and keep the team in San Antonio for good; the team made themselves at home at HemisFair Arena, playing to large and raucous crowds. Despite a respectable 17–10 start during the 1974–75 season, Coach Tom Nissalke was fired as owners become tired of the Spurs' slow defensive style of games.
He would be replaced by Bob Bass, who stated that the Spurs would have an new playing style: "It is my belief that you cannot throw a set offense at another professional team for 48 minutes. You've got to
