NBL – From Way Downtown

Basketball Is In, 1947

Twenty or 30 years ago, most sports fans regarded basketball as sissy stuff fit only for genteel young ladies in fashionable seminaries.

Bobby McDermott: Blast from the Distant Past

The temperamental side of McDermott’s personality made him a forerunner to the Billy Martins and Bobby Knights, although Buddy Jeannette, his outstanding backcourt mate with the Pistons, noted, “Compared to Mac, Bobby Knight is a saint.”

Dolph Schayes: The Boy from Syracuse, 1953

All the near riots which have occurred in the New York-Syracuse series. Almost always, at the bottom of the basketbrawl pile, you’d find a big National with the number 4. That was Adolph Schayes.

Al Cervi: Old Pro from Syracuse, 1952

Cervi would hardly know what to do if he couldn’t run around and take sets and layups with the boys before the game, and he is quite sure he might go crazy if he had to sit on the bench all night, coaching only by remote control.

Bob Davies—Royal Playmaker, 1948

You, too, can learn to dribble behind your back. Bob Davies says anyone can do it, and while the stunt is not recommended as a sure approach to social favor, it does come in handy on the basketba