1.
Red Rolfe
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Robert Abial Red Rolfe was an American third baseman, manager and front-office executive in Major League Baseball. During his playing career, Rolfe was the third baseman on the New York Yankees of the late 1930s. Rolfe played 10 major league seasons, all with New York and his finest season came in 1939, when he amassed 213 hits,139 runs scored, and 46 doubles while hitting.329 with 14 home runs and 80 runs batted in. He retired following the 1942 season, after his four-year coaching stint at Yale, Rolfe coached the Toronto Huskies of the BAA in 1946–1947 and returned to the Yankees as a coach. After the 1947 season, Rolfe joined the Detroit Tigers as director of their farm system, but he returned to the field after only one season, when he succeeded Steve ONeill as Tiger manager after the 1948 campaign. In 1949, Rolfes first season as manager, the Tigers improved by nine games, then, in 1950, they nearly upset the Yankees, winning 95 games and finishing second, three games behind. A fluke botched double play was the teams undoing, late in September at Cleveland, the Indians had the bases loaded in the tenth inning with one out and the score tied. Visibility was poor because smoke from Canadian forest fires was blowing across Lake Erie, but in the smoky conditions Robinson had not seen that a putout had already been made at first base, necessitating that the catcher tag the runner, not the plate, to record an out. Robinson mistakenly tagged the plate, the run counted and Cleveland won the game and it was the turning point in the pennant race, for the postwar Tigers, and for Rolfes managerial career. Beset by a starting rotation, the Tigers faltered in 1951, slipping to 73 wins. Then Detroit completely unraveled in 1952, winning only 23 of 72 games under Rolfe, on July 5, he was fired and replaced by one of his pitchers, Fred Hutchinson. The 1952 club won only 50 games, losing 104 – the first time ever that the Tigers lost 100 or more games, Rolfe then returned to Dartmouth as the athletic director of his alma mater from 1954 to 1967. The colleges baseball diamond is named in his honor, Rolfe died in Gilford, New Hampshire, in 1969 at age 60 of chronic kidney disease
2.
Basketball
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Basketball is a non-contact team sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of five players each. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high that is mounted to a backboard at each end of the court. The game was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket being defended by the opposition team during regular play. A field goal scores three points for the team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line. A team can also score via free throws, which are worth one point, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time is mandated when the score is tied at the end of regulation. The ball can be advanced on the court by passing it to a teammate and it is a violation to lift, or drag, ones pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling. The game has many techniques for displaying skill—ball-handling, shooting, passing, dribbling, dunking, shot-blocking. The point guard directs the on court action of the team, implementing the coachs game plan, Basketball is one of the worlds most popular and widely viewed sports. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague, the FIBA Basketball World Cup attracts the top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for teams, like EuroBasket. The FIBA Womens Basketball World Cup features the top womens basketball teams from continental championships. The main North American league is the WNBA, whereas the EuroLeague Women has been dominated by teams from the Russian Womens Basketball Premier League, in early December 1891, Canadian Dr. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied, after rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball and these laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable. Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith, dribbling was not part of the original game except for the bounce pass to teammates. Passing the ball was the means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a part of the game around the 1950s
3.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
4.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball
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The Notre Dame Fighting Irish mens basketball team is the intercollegiate mens basketball program representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The program competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference of NCAA Division I, on September 12,2012, Notre Dame announced they would be moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference, they joined the conference on July 1,2013. The school holds two retroactively awarded national championships in basketball from the Helms Foundation, for the 1927 and 1936 seasons and they have also played in the NCAA Tournament 35 times, good for 9th all time, and reached the Final Four in 1978. They are also the first Big East team to go undefeated at home two straight seasons and they play their home games in the Purcell Pavilion at the Edmund P. Joyce Center. Since moving to the Purcell Pavilion in 1968, they have had 44 winning seasons at the Purcell Pavilion and have had only 4 losing seasons at the Purcell Pavilion, jeff Sagarin and ESPN listed the program 12th in the college basketball all-time rankings in the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia. The Fighting Irish are currently coached by Mike Brey, the Fighting Irish have appeared in the NCAA Tournament 36 times. From 2011–2015 the round of 64 was known as the Second Round, Round of 32 was Third Round NCAA Tournament Seeding History The NCAA began seeding the tournament with the 1979 edition, single-Game scoring performances, The Fighting Irish have appeared in the National Invitation Tournament 11 times. Source, Source, 1926–27 Helms Foundation National Champions 1935–36 Helms Foundation National Champions The wins include several wins over the defending NCAA Tournament Champion. Both wins over UCLA were in seasons immediately following UCLA claiming the NCAA Championship with the 1971 win coming over a team that would be the tournament champion. The 1954 win in the NCAA tournament over Indiana prevented IU from back-to-back national titles after claiming the 1953 NCAA Tournament Title, the 1978 win over Marquette was another instance of the Irish defeating the defending national champion. The 1948 win over Kentucky saw the Irish defeat the eventual Tournament champion who would go on to win both the 1948 and 1949 titles. The 1948 win over NYU was a victory over the eventual NIT runner-up, also of note is that the 2005 win over Boston College and the 2012 win over Syracuse saw 20–0 teams traveling to South Bend and leaving with their first loss of the season. Boston College, in its year as a member of the Big East. The 2012 Syracuse team began the game against the Irish with the goal of breaking Boston Colleges record, as in 2005, the Irish defeated Syracuse and cemented their place as the streak stopper. * – Occurred in NCAA Tournament, Indiana was #2 in the AP sportswriters poll and #1 in the UPI coaches poll. ** – UCLAs 88 game win streak started immediately after the 1971 loss to Notre Dame, the Irish bookended the streak, an NCAA mens basketball record. *** – Kentucky was #2 in the AP sportswriters poll and #1 in the UPI coaches poll, **** – North Carolina was #2 in the AP sportswriters poll and #1 in the USA Today coaches poll. S
5.
DePaul Blue Demons men's basketball
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The DePaul Blue Demons mens basketball program is the NCAA Division I intercollegiate mens basketball program of DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. The team competes in the Big East Conference and plays their games in the Allstate Arena in Rosemont. DePaul was independent for much of its history and has enjoyed success with such great players as George Mikan in the 1940s. Ray Meyer coached at DePaul for over 40 years, from 1942 to 1984. After going to the Final Four of the 1979 NCAA Mens Division I Basketball Tournament, success continued with multiple NCAA appearances under his son, Joey Meyer, throughout the 1980s. DePaul joined the Great Midwest Conference in 1991 which later merged with the Metro Conference in 1995 to become Conference USA, the Blue Demons advanced to the second round of the 2004 NCAA tournament before being eliminated by eventual national champion Connecticut. DePaul left for the Big East Conference for the 2005–2006 season, the most recent mens basketball coach was Oliver Purnell, with Dave Leitao returning for the 2015-16 season in his second tenure as the Demons coach. The coach prior to Purnell was Jerry Wainwright, who joined DePaul in 2005, in the 2006–2007 season, the Blue Demons beat powerhouse #5 Kansas 64-57, pulling off one of the greatest upsets in school history. They also beat 2007 NCAA tournament teams California, Northwestern State, Marquette, Connecticut, the team made it to the NIT and lost in the bracket final to Air Force 52-51. The Demons opened up the 2008 season with two of their star players gone to the NBA, Four games into the 2007–2008 season, Wainwright logged his 200th career win as a head coach. The 2007–08 season saw the Demons with a 10–19 record, DePaul had upsets over Villanova, then ranked #15 nationally and ultimately a member of the NCAA Sweet Sixteen, and Northwestern. However, things took a turn for the worse during the 2008–2009 season, DePaul went 0–18 in Big East play, setting a school-record for longest losing streak. DePaul, however, has not had a record in any season since 2006-07. The Blue Demons have appeared in the NCAA Tournament 22 times and their appearances in the tournament from 1986–1989 have been vacated by the NCAA thus their official record is 15–21. * Vacated by the NCAA The Blue Demons have appeared in the National Invitation Tournament 16 times and they were NIT Champions in 1945. NCAA Mens Division I Final Four appearances by coaches NCAA Mens Division I Final Four appearances by school Official Site of DePaul Blue Demons Basketball
6.
NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament
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The tournament was created in 1939 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and was the idea of Ohio State University coach Harold Olsen. Played mostly during March, it has one of the most famous annual sporting events in the United States. The tournament teams include champions from 32 Division I conferences, and 36 teams which are awarded at-large berths, the 68 teams are divided into four regions and organized into a single-elimination bracket, which pre-determines, when a team wins a game, which team it will face next. Each team is seeded, or ranked, within its region from 1 to 32, after an initial four games between eight lower-ranked teams, the tournament occurs during the course of three weekends, at pre-selected neutral sites across the United States. The Final Four is usually played during the first weekend of April and these four teams, one from each region, compete in a pre-selected location for the national championship. The tournament has been at least partially televised since 1969, currently, the games are broadcast by CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV under the trade-name NCAA March Madness. Since 2011, all games are available for viewing nationwide and internationally, such as in the Philippines, as television coverage has grown, so too has the tournaments popularity. Currently, millions of Americans fill out a bracket, attempting to predict the outcome of all 67 games of the tournament. With 11 national titles, UCLA has the record for the most NCAA Mens Division I Basketball Championships, the University of Kentucky is second, with eight national titles. The University of North Carolina is in place, with six titles, while Duke University. The University of Connecticut is sixth with four national titles, the University of Kansas and University of Louisville are tied with three championships. During that time Villanova, Michigan, UNLV, Duke, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Syracuse, the NCAA has changed the tournament format several times since its inception, most often representing an increase of the number of teams. This section describes the tournament as it has operated since 2011, for changes during the course of its history, and to see how the tournament operated during past years, go to Format history, below. A total of 68 teams qualify for the tournament played during March, thirty-two teams earn automatic bids as their respective conference champions. Of the 32 Division I all-sports conferences, all 32 currently hold championship tournaments to determine which team receives the automatic qualification. The Ivy League was the last Division I conference that did not conduct a tournament, through the 2015–16 season, if two or more Ivies shared a regular-season championship, a one-game playoff was used to decide the tournament participant. Since 2017, the league conducts their own postseason tournament, the committee also determines where all sixty-eight teams are seeded and placed in the bracket. The tournament is divided into four regions and each region has at least sixteen teams, the committee is charged with making each of the four regions as close as possible in overall quality of teams from wherever they come from
7.
National Invitation Tournament
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The National Invitation Tournament is a mens college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Played at Madison Square Garden in New York City each March and April, over time it became eclipsed by the NCAA Division I Mens Basketball Tournament – known today informally as March Madness and The Big Dance. The NIT has since been regarded more as a tournament for teams that did not receive a berth in the NCAA tournament. A second, much more recent NIT tournament is played in November, formerly the Preseason NIT, it was founded in 1985. Like the postseason NIT, its final rounds are played at Madison Square Garden, both tournaments were operated by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association until 2005, when they were purchased by the NCAA, and the MIBA disbanded. Unless otherwise qualified, the terms NIT or National Invitation Tournament refer to the tournament in both common and official use. The first NIT was won by the Temple University Owls over the Colorado Buffaloes and this became the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association in 1948. Originally the tournament invited a field of 6 teams, with all games played at Madison Square Garden in downtown Manhattan. The field was expanded to 8 teams in 1941,12 in 1949,14 in 1965,16 in 1968,24 in 1979,32 in 1980, in 2007, the tournament reverted to the current 32-team format. Some conferences, such as the Southeastern Conference, were racially segregated, from its onset and at least into the mid-1950s, the NIT was regarded as the most prestigious showcase for college basketball. The winner of the National Invitation Tournament was regarded as more of a national champion than the actual, titular, national champion, several teams played in both the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year, beginning with Colorado and Duquesne in 1940. Colorado won the NIT in 1940 but subsequently finished fourth in the NCAA West Region, in 1949, some Kentucky players were bribed by gamblers to lose their first round game in the NIT. This same Kentucky team went on to win the NCAA, the champions of both the NCAA and NIT tournaments played each other for a few years during World War II. From 1943 to 1945, the American Red Cross sponsored a charity game between each years tournament champions to raise money for the war effort. The series was described by Ray Meyer as not just benefit games, the NCAA champion prevailed in all three games. The Helms Athletic Foundation retroactively selected the NIT champion as its champion for 1938. In 1943 the NCAA tournament moved to share Madison Square Garden with the NIT in an effort to increase the credibility of the NCAA Tournament. In 1945, The New York Times indicated that many teams could get bids to enter either tournament, the team played in the NIT instead, which it won
