Hank Luisetti
Angelo-Giuseppi Hank Luisetti was an American college mens basketball player and one of the great innovators of the game. In an era that featured the traditional two-handed set shot, Luisetti developed the running one-handed shot, equipped with such an offensive weapon, Luisetti became one of the most dominant players in American college basketball history. A graduate of Galileo High School in his city, San Francisco. He became the first player to score 50 points in a game on January 1,1938, Luisetti was named the second-best player of the mid-century by an Associated Press poll of sportswriters and broadcasters in 1950. Luisetti’s influence was aided by a game between Long Island University and Luisetti’s Stanford Indians. Long Island, at the time of the game, had a 43-game winning streak. The game was played in the evening of December 30,1936, in Madison Square Garden and a crowd of 17,623 was on hand to see Long Island, the nations No.1 team, play Stanford. Stanford was the defending Pacific Coast Conference champion from the 1935 season, the crowd, while not expecting to see their local favorites lose, were intrigued by Luisetti, a 6-foot-2, 185-pound sophomore.
They knew that he shot the ball with one hand while he hung in the air, although Luisetti scored only 15 points on five field goals and five free throws, Stanford ended the LIU winning streak with a 45-31 victory. The fact that occurred in the media capital of the country, however. The publicity surrounding Luisettis shooting style changed the game forever, Luisetti is often credited with inventing the jump shot, although others were doing it during the 1930s as well. One possible originator was John Miller Cooper, some have mistakenly said that Luisetti kept both feet planted on the court when taking his shots, but it seems clear that he was a jumper. Id get the ball, take a dribble or two and jump and shoot on the way up, I didnt jump and shoot at the height of my jump, the way they do now. Id let the ball go right near my face, Id push and shoot, furthermore, he shot the ball with one hand while he hung in the air, in defiance of basketball style. He was a player, whose play and shooting were exciting.
Hank could take over a game like Michael Jordan if he had to and he was an absolute artist on the basketball court. Luisetti contracted spinal meningitis while serving in the Navy, ending his basketball career and he never played in the NBA, but in 1950, the nations sportswriters voted him the second-best player in the first half of the century. Among his other accomplishments, he was an officer during World War II
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as the sports most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball, dedicated to Canadian physician and inventor of the sport James Naismith, it was opened and inducted its first class in 1959. As of the induction of the Class of 2016 on September 9,2016, the Naismith Hall of Fame was established in 1959 by Lee Williams, a former athletic director at Colby College. In the 1960s, the Basketball Hall of Fame struggled to raise money for the construction of its first facility. The Basketball Hall of Fames Board named four inductees in its first year, in addition to honoring those who contributed to basketball, the Hall of Fame sought to make contributions of its own. In 1979, the Hall of Fame sponsored the Tip-Off Classic and this Tip-Off Classic has been the start to the college basketball season ever since, and although it does not always take place in Springfield, generally it returns every few years.
In the 17 years that the original Basketball Hall of Fame operated at Springfield College, the popularity of the Basketball Hall of Fame necessitated that a new facility be constructed, and in 1985, an $11 million facility was built beside the scenic Connecticut River in Springfield. As the new hall opened, it recognized women for the first time, with such as Senda Berenson Abbott. In 2002, the Basketball Hall of Fame moved again—albeit merely 100 yards south along Springfields riverfront—into a $47 million facility designed by renowned architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, the buildings architecture features a metallic silver, basketball-shaped sphere flanked by two similarly symmetrical rhombuses. The dome is illuminated at night and features 80,000 square foot, including numerous restaurants, the second Basketball Hall of Fame was not torn down but rather converted into an LA Fitness health clubs. The current Basketball Hall of Fame features Center Court, a basketball court on which visitors can play.
Inside the building there are a gallery, many interactive exhibits, several theaters. A large theater for ceremonies seats up to 300, the honorees inducted in 2002 included the Harlem Globetrotters and Magic Johnson, a five-time NBA champion, three-time NBA finals MVP and Olympic gold medalist. As of 2011, the current Basketball Hall of Fame has greatly exceeded attendance expectations, despite the new facilitys success, a logistical problem remains for the Basketball Hall of Fame and the City of Springfield. Urban planners at universities such as UMass Amherst have called for the I-91 to be moved, in 2010, the Urban Land Institute announced a plan to make the walk between Springfields Metro Center and the Hall of Fame easier. Since 2011, the induction process employs a total of seven committees to both screen and elect candidates, since 2011, the Veterans and International Committees vote to directly induct one candidate for each induction class. Contributor Direct Election Committee Note that other committees may choose to elect contributors, for example, the 2014 class included two contributors.
However, each screening committee is limited as to the number of candidates it can put forth to the Honors Committee—10 from the North American Committee, any individual receiving at least 18 affirmative votes from the Honors Committee is approved for induction into the Hall of Fame
Amos Alonzo Stagg
Amos Alonzo Stagg was an American athlete and pioneering college coach in multiple sports, primarily American football. His Chicago Maroons teams of 1905 and 1913 have been recognized as national champions and he was the head basketball coach for one season at the University of Chicago, and the head baseball coach there for 19 seasons. At the University of Chicago, Stagg instituted an annual basketball tournament. Both drew the top school teams and athletes from around the United States. Stagg played football as an end at Yale University and was selected to the first College Football All-America Team in 1889. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach in the class of 1951 and was the only individual honored in both roles until the 1990s. Influential in other sports, Stagg developed basketball as a five-player sport and this 5 man concept allowed his 10 man football team the ability to compete with each other and to stay in shape over the winter. Stagg was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in its first group of inductees in 1959, Stagg forged a bond between sports and religious faith early on in his career that remained important to him for the rest of his life.
Stagg was born in a poor Irish neighborhood of West Orange, New Jersey, Stagg attended Yale College, where he was a divinity student, and a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and Skull and Bones society. He played as a pitcher on his baseball team, he declined an opportunity to play for six different professional baseball teams. He nonetheless influenced the game through his invention of the batting cage, Stagg played on the 1888 team. He was an end on the first All-America team, selected in 1889 and he went on to earn an MPE from the Young Mens Christian Training School, now known as Springfield College. On March 11,1892, still an instructor at the YMCA School, a crowd of 200 watched as the student team beat the faculty, 5–1. Stagg scored the basket for the losing side. He popularized basketball teams having five players and he abandoned the theology career and received a MPE from Young Mens Christian Training School in 1891. Stagg became the first paid coach at Williston Seminary, a secondary school.
This was Staggs first time receiving pay to coach football and he would coach there one day a week while coaching full-time at Springfield College. Stagg coached at the University of Chicago from 1892 to 1932, University president Robert Maynard Hutchins forced out the septuagenarian Stagg, who he felt was too old to continue coaching
Columbia Lions
The Columbia University Lions are the collective athletic teams and their members from Columbia University, an Ivy League institution in New York City, United States. The current director of athletics is Peter Pilling, the Ivy League conference sponsors championships in 33 mens and womens sports and averages 35 varsity teams at each of its eight universities. The League provides intercollegiate athletic opportunities for men and women than any other conference in the United States. All eight Ivy schools are listed in the top 20 NCAA Division I schools in number of sports offered for men and women. Columbia University was founded in 1754 and currently fields 31 co-ed, men’s, womens teams are cooperatively organized with the affiliated Barnard College. All Columbia teams compete at the Division I level in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the schools football team competes at the NCAA Division I FCS level. In 1910, the school adopted the mascot as a reference to the institutions royal past.
The University was originally named Kings College since its charter in 1754 by King George II of Great Britain, the lion is the animal depicted on the English coat of arms. After the American Revolution Kings was renamed Columbia University, Intercollegiate sports at Columbia date to the foundation of the baseball team in 1867. Mens association football followed in 1870, and mens crew in 1873, the third ever mens intercollegiate soccer match was played between Columbia and Rutgers University, with Rutgers winning 6 to 3. In addition, the Lions wrestling team is the nations oldest, the Columbia football team won the Rose Bowl in 1934, upsetting Stanford University 7-0. Columbia was one of the first schools to take up the game, the Lions compete in the Ivy League, which is part of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. The streak was broken on October 8,1988, with a 16-13 victory over archrival Princeton and that was the Lions first victory at Wien Stadium. Even before the streak, the Lions had long regarded as one of the worst football teams in the country.
The program was more successful in the first half of the 20th century. The 1915 squad went undefeated and untied, the 1933 edition of the Lions won an unofficial national championship by upsetting the top-ranked Stanford Indians 7-0 in the Rose Bowl on New Years Day 1934. Lou Little, who coached the team from 1930 to 1956, is in the College Football Hall of Fame, pro Football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman played his college ball at Columbia, graduating in 1938. Luckman is in the College Football Hall of Fame, another Lions back who became legendary for his accomplishments off the gridiron was baseball great Lou Gehrig, who was a two-sport star at Columbia
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League as a club of the leagues National Football Conference East division. The team plays its games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Giants hold their training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Giants were one of five teams that joined the NFL in 1925 and their championship tally is surpassed only by the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears. Throughout their history, the Giants have featured 28 Hall of Fame players, including NFL Most Valuable Player award winners Mel Hein, Frank Gifford, Y. A. Tittle, and Lawrence Taylor. The teams heated rivalry with the Philadelphia Eagles is the oldest of the NFC East rivalries, dating all the way back to 1933, the Giants played their first game as an away game against All New Britain in New Britain, Connecticut, on October 4,1925. They defeated New Britain 26–0 in front of a crowd of 10,000, the Giants were successful in their first season, finishing with an 8–4 record.
In its third season, the finished with the best record in the league at 11–1–1 and was awarded the NFL title. In 1930, there were many who questioned the quality of the professional game. In December 1930, the Giants played a team of Notre Dame All Stars at the Polo Grounds to raise money for the unemployed of New York City and it was an opportunity to establish the skill and prestige of the pro game. Knute Rockne reassembled his Four Horsemen along with the stars of his 1924 Championship squad and told them to score early, like much of the public, thought little of pro football and expected an easy win. But from the beginning it was a one-way contest, with Friedman running for two Giant touchdowns and Hap Moran passing for another, when it was all over, Coach Rockne told his team, That was the greatest football machine I ever saw. I am glad none of you got hurt, the game raised $100,000 for the homeless, and is often credited with establishing the legitimacy of the professional game for those who were critical.
It was the last game the legendary Rockne ever coached, in a 14-year span from 1933 to 1947, the Giants qualified to play in the NFL championship game 8 times, winning twice. During this period the Giants were led by Hall of Fame coach Steve Owen, the period featured the 1944 Giants, which are ranked as the #1 defensive team in NFL history. a truly awesome unit. They gave up only 7.5 points per game and shut out five of their 10 opponents, though they lost 14-7 to the Green Bay Packers in the 1944 NFL Championship Game. The famous Sneakers Game was played in this era where the Giants defeated the Chicago Bears on an icy field in the 1934 NFL Championship Game, the Giants played the Detroit Lions to a scoreless tie on November 7,1943
Madison Square Garden (1890)
Madison Square Garden was an indoor arena in New York City, the second by that name, and the second to be located at 26th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The 1890 version replaced the first Madison Square Garden, and was replaced by the third Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden II, as it has come to be called in retrospect, was designed by noted architect Stanford White, the resulting sensational press coverage of the scandal caused Thaws trial to be one of the first Trials of the Century. It was 200 feet by 485 feet, and the main hall and it had a 1200-seat theatre, a concert hall with a capacity of 1500, the largest restaurant in the city and a roof garden cabaret. The final cost for the building, which the New York Times called one of the institutions of the town, to be mentioned along with Central Park. Topping the Gardens tower was a statue of Diana, by noted sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, which caused Madison Square Park to become known as Dianas little wooded park.
The original gilt copper statue was 18 ft tall, and weighed 1,800 lb, and spun with the wind, Saint-Gaudens had draped the statue in cloth, but this was soon blown away. The statue was put in place in 1891, but was thought to be too large by Saint-Gaudens. It was removed and placed on top of a building at The Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago, but the half was destroyed by a fire after the close of the Exposition. In 1893 a hollow version of the statue,13 ft tall and made of gilded copper. This is now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a copy is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Saint-Gaudens made several variants in bronze, one of which was on display in the entryway of both Madison Square Garden III, built in 1925, and the current Madison Square Garden. The opening of the new arena was attended by over 17,000 people – who paid up to $50 for tickets to the event – including J. P. Morgan, the Pierponts, the Whitneys and General William Tecumseh Sherman. In 1902 and 1903, the Garden hosted the World Series of Football, the 1902 event involved five teams.
The Knickerbocker Athletic Club, New York team, Syracuse Athletic Club, the Orange Athletic Club represented New Jersey. The eventual winner of the 1902 series was the Syracuse Athletic Club, the event returned the Garden in 1903 for the second and final time. The 1903 series featured the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, Olympic Athletic Club, Oreos Athletic Club, the Orange Athletic Club represented New Jersey, and the Franklin Athletic Club represented western Pennsylvania. The Franklin Athletic Club would go on to claim the final title
Franklin Wonder Five
The Franklin Wonder Five was a 1920 basketball team from Indianas Hoosier Hysteria era. With basketball king in Indiana, the team from Franklin was dubbed the “Wonder Five” and this small town about 20 miles south of Indianapolis produced a team that captured the Indiana State Basketball Championship three years in succession, 1920–1922. They became national champions in 1923, playing with Franklin College. While they passed on a match with the New York Celtics, they defeated the professional team of the Omars from Detroit. The boys had started playing together as children and developed synergy, in high school, they thrived under the coaching of Ernest Griz Wagner and had a 104 to 10 win/loss record in their four years. After their high school successes, most members of the team followed Wagner to Franklin College, at the time, total enrollment of the college was around 350 students. The “Wonder Five” team took on those of universities, including Notre Dame, Purdue. The team was undefeated in its first college season of 1922–23 and it was not until February 1924 that the team suffered its first defeat, by Butler University, ending a string of 50 consecutive victories over a 2-season span.
Later Coach Wagner turned down an offer to play the New York Celtics, the leading scorer on the Wonder Five was Fuzzy Vandivier. In 1924, the Chicago Tribune named him one of the Five Best Players in the nation, Coach John Wooden, of UCLA fame, considered Fuzzy the greatest high school basketball player he had ever seen. After graduation, Vandivier returned to Franklin High School as the basketball coach, in 1939 he led the team to a runner-up in the state basketball tournament. He retired from coaching in 1944 but continued as the athletic director. Since the years of the Wonder Five, the Franklin High School team took the nickname of Grizzly Cubs, in 1980, Franklin College unveiled a banner proclaiming the Wonder Five as national college champions of 1923. 1986, Phillip Ellett wrote a history of the team, entitled The Franklin Wonder Five, A Complete History of the Legendary Basketball Team
Phog Allen
Forrest Clare Phog Allen was an American basketball and baseball player, coach of American football and baseball, college athletics administrator, and osteopathic physician. In his 39 seasons at the helm of the Kansas Jayhawks mens basketball program, his teams won 24 conference championships, the Helms Athletic Foundation retroactively recognized Allens 1921–22 and 1922–23 Kansas teams as national champions. Allens 1951–52 squad won the 1952 NCAA Tournament and his Jayhawks were runners-up in the NCAA Tournament in 1940 and 1953 and his 590 wins are the most of any coach in the storied history of the Kansas basketball program. Allen attended the University of Kansas, having acquired the nickname Phog for the distinctive foghorn voice he had as a baseball umpire. He lettered in baseball and basketball, the latter under James Naismith, Allen served as the head football coach at Warrensburg Teachers College from 1912 to 1917 and at Kansas for one season in 1920, amassing a career college football record of 34–19–3.
He coached baseball at Kansas for two seasons, in 1941 and 1942, tallying a mark of 6–17–1, and was the athletic director from 1919 to 1937. Allen was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame with the class of 1959. The home basketball arena at the University of Kansas, Allen Fieldhouse, was named in his honor when it opened in 1955, Allen was born in the town of Jamesport, Missouri. His father, William Allen, was among the 30 people who originally incorporated Jameson, Missouri in 1879, William Allen had strong ties to Jamesport where he was town clerk and constable. Biographies of Allen usually refer to his birthplace as Jamesport and his family moved to Independence, Missouri. Allen coached at William Chrisman High School in Independence, the University of Kansas, Baker University, Haskell Institute, Allen began classes at the University of Kansas in 1904, where he lettered three years in basketball under James Naismiths coaching, and two years in baseball. In 1905 he played for the Kansas City Athletic Club, at Kansas he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity.
Allen launched his career at his alma mater in 1907. Allen was a legend in the field of treatment of athletic injuries and he had a successful private osteopathic practice, and many he treated, the famous and otherwise, contend he had a magic touch for such ailments as bad backs and ankles. He said he applied the same treatments to civilians as he did to his athletes and his forceful, yet reasonable, disposition helped him become the driving force behind basketball becoming accepted as an official sport in the Olympics in 1936. Allen coached in the 1952 Summer Olympics, leading the United States to the medal in Helsinki. He coached college basketball for 50 seasons, and compiled a 746–264 record, during his tenure at Kansas, Allen coached Dutch Lonborg, Adolph Rupp, Ralph Miller and Dean Smith, all future Hall of Fame coaches. Among the Hall of Fame players he coached were Paul Endacott, Bill Johnson and he recruited Wilt Chamberlain to Kansas, and even coached former United States Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole
Walter Meanwell
Walter E. Meanwell was an English college mens basketball coach in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. The Leeds, England native coached in the U. S. for the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Meanwell became the fourth basketball coach in University of Wisconsin–Madison history in 1911. After earning a degree in 1915, he was nicknamed Doc or Little Doc. During World War I he served in the US Army, after a two-year stint at University of Missouri, Meanwell was back at Wisconsin. The Badgers won or shared four Big Ten titles under his guidance and his 1912,1914, and 1916 Wisconsin teams were retroactively named national champions by the Helms Athletic Foundation and the Premo-Porretta Power Poll. Meanwell taught a style of game that featured short passing, crisscross dribbles, in 1934 he retired from coaching and practiced medicine in Madison, until his death. He was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 1959
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the economy can decline. The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4,1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s, however, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%, unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%.
Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries, farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Even after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time, john D. Rockefeller said These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come, prosperity has always returned and will again. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April and this was still almost 30% below the peak of September 1929. Together and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the period of the previous year. On the other hand, many of whom had suffered losses in the stock market the previous year. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S, by mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed.
By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928, prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth Smith, known professionally as Kate Smith and The First Lady of Radio, was an American singer, a contralto, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlins God Bless America. She had a radio and recording career spanning five decades, Smith became known as The Songbird of the South after her enduring popularity during World War II and contribution to American culture and patriotism. Kathryn Elizabeth Smith was born May 1,1907 in Greenville, Virginia to Charlotte Lottie Yarnell and William Herman Smith, growing up in Washington and her father owned the Capitol News Company, distributing newspapers and magazines in the greater D. C. area. She was the youngest of three daughters, the middle child dying in infancy, as a baby, she failed to talk until she was four years old, but a year she was singing in church socials. Her earliest performances were during amateur nights at vaudeville theaters in D. C and her earliest musical influences were her parents, her father sang choir at the Roman Catholic church, her mother played piano at the Presbyterian church.
She attended Business High School in D. C. —which would become Roosevelt Senior High School—likely graduating in 1924 and she got herself on the bill at Keiths Theater in Boston as a singer. Heading the bill was the actor and producer Eddie Dowling, who signed up the singer for a revue he was preparing. It was called Honeymoon Lane, and it opened in Atlantic City on August 29,1926, a month later, it moved to Broadway. Kate Smith is the newcomers not uncommon name and she was actually only 17 at the time. From Honeymoon Lane, Smith went into the company of Vincent Youmans Hit the Deck. Back in New York, she took the lead in George Whites Flying High, which opened at the Apollo Theater on March 3,1930. As Pansy Sparks, Miss Smiths role was to be the butt of Bert Lahrs often cruel jibes about her girth and she said that she often wept with humiliation in her dressing room after the show. Her professional musical career began in 1930, when she was discovered by Columbia Records artists-and-repertoire executive Ted Collins, who became her longtime manager in 50–50 partnership.
She credited Collins with helping her overcome her self-consciousness, Ted Collins was the first man who regarded me as a singer and she noted, Im big, and I sing, and boy, when I sing, I sing all over. Collins put Smith on radio in 1931 and that year, she performed the controversial top-20 song of 1931, Thats Why Darkies Were Born and Dream a Little Dream of Me. Rose ODay sold over one million copies, her first to achieve this feat and her theme song was When the Moon Comes over the Mountain, she had helped write the lyrics. Smith greeted her audience with Hello and signed off with Thanks for listenin. In 1932, Smith appeared in Hello, with co-stars Randolph Scott and Sally Blane, and in the 1943 wartime film This is the Army she sang God Bless America
