COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Rebound

At the beginning of the decade, few fans held their breath over what team would be crowned champion of college basketball. Many fans—and even a few sportswriters—complained that the winning ways of the John Wooden-coached UCLA Bruins had robbed the season and the NCAA championship tournament of any drama. But Wooden eventually retired and the Bruins' level of play returned to earth. Great teams led by brilliant and colorful—if not slightly deranged—coaches emerged in the Midwest, and in 1979 two super-stars faced off against each other in the NCAA finals, giving birth to the media-hyped carnival atmosphere that has made the tournament one of the greatest events in American sports. Larry Bird and Earvin ("Magic") Johnson in the next decade went on to become pro basketball's saviors, but they left behind a college game that had achieved new heights in popularity.

The Bruins

UCLA had become the New York Yankees of college basketball. They had won the NCAA championship an astounding five times in the previous decade—in 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969. It seemed that the Bruins always had a big-play man to lead them, and when Lew Alcindor left for the pro ranks, all-American forward Sidney Wicks stepped forward along with brilliant six-foot-one-inch playmaker Henry Bibby to fill the void. As were the great Yankees dynasty teams of the 1950s, the UCLA Bruins were simply expected to win—which they did with awesome efficiency. The Bruins' bench was crowded with top-notch basket-ball talent, and as the players themselves began to assume that they would win on virtually every outing, controversies arose over playing time and which players would get to take direct part in the victory. Indeed, if UCLA had one problem during its dynasty years, it was that winning—and the high expectations that they seemed to meet with ease—at times created a morale problem. After graduation former Bruin Lynn Shackelford said that winning the championships they were expected to win "took a lot out of the actual accomplishment. I think that was one reason for our businesslike manner on the court. We were only doing what we'd been expected to do."

Challenges

In the 1970 NCAA tournament finals, UCLA routed the Jacksonville Dolphins, 80-69. The Bruins' fourth championship in a row, however, was especially significant given that the tournament's final four featured three other very strong teams—Jacksonville, Saint Bonaventure, and New Mexico State. Jacksonville had the enormously talented seven-foot-two-inch Artis Gilmore, and Saint Bonaventure was led by the Buffalo, six-foot-eleven-inch, 265-pound Bob Lanier. During the 1960s UCLA's detractors had liked to point out that college basketball had too few quality opponents that could even stay a single half on the same court with the star-studded Bruins. In the early 1970s, however, college basketball was expanding in talent, as many schools began to realize that their basketball programs could potentially be greater cash cows than their football programs, which had become more and more expensive to fund. As such, schools in once-powerful basketball regions such as the East were stepping up their recruiting efforts.

East vs. West

In the 1971 NCAA finals the Bruins received a scare from the Wildcats of Villanova University. Led by Jack Kraft, basketball's coach of the year, the Wildcats from Philadelphia carried the hopes of a region into the finals. As Villanova's Hank Siemiontkowski explained, "The whole East Coast will go up in flames if we win." And in the last thirty seconds of the game it looked as if fire departments were ready to go on alert, with the two teams trading baskets in the Bruins' first uncomfortably close final in years. UCLA prevailed, however, 68-62. After the tournament, old questions about the eligibility of Villanova star and tournament MVP Howard Porter resurfaced. He and Western Kentucky's Jim McDaniels had signed ABA contracts prior to the end of the season, and the NCAA "vacated" Villanova and Western Kentucky from the tournament's final standings. East Coast basketball had served notice to the West, however, and the venue for the tournament's final four had the look and feel of a big-time event. The Astrodome offered much greater seating capacity than did virtually any other site, and over 63,000 fans packed the dome for both the semifinal games. But the raised court in the middle of the Astrodome's vastness created for the players problems of depth perception when shooting as well as the danger of tumbling off the side of the court. Of the raised court and the great distance between the stands and the players one reporter commented, "the spectators at ground level needed periscopes, while the spectators in the stands needed telescopes."

Walton

As Joe Ireland of Loyola University liked to put it, the NCAA tournament had become the "UCLA Invitational/' Yet, prior to the 1972 season many sports-writers were picking teams from the East and Midwest to bring to an end the Bruins' reign over college basketball. Many of UCLA's big players had graduated. But early in the season the Bruins were already proving the depth of their recruitments, and, as it had happened on previous Bruin teams, a megastar emerged. Bill Walton, a freckle-faced, curly-red-haired, six-foot-eleven-inch sophomore with tendinitis in both knees became the dominant big man in college basketball. Walton was a reluctant hero, however. He resented being called a superstar and was easily irked by reporters' questions that focused on his play rather than the play of the entire team. On the basketball floor, opposing teams often intentionally fouled Walton in order to move him out of the key; when Walton complained, players, coaches, officials, sports-writers, and fans labeled him a crybaby.

Off-Court

More than any other college athlete of the early 1970s, Walton was closely identified with the campus counterculture. A politically involved student, Walton loudly protested the government's mining of Haiphong Harbor, took part in many peace marches and sit-ins, and in one highly publicized incident stretched out on Wilshire Boulevard to demonstrate against the Vietnam War. Once arrested for demonstrating, Walton was forced to pay a $50 fine and was put on two-year, conditional probation by the university—a sentence that relieved many Bruin fans who, perhaps unrealistically, worried that their star player would be expelled. Walton was also sensitive to issues of race and took offense any time he detected in a reporter's question the suggestion that he was basketball's "Great White Hope." He often claimed that materialism—and the lure of a lucrative pro contract—meant nothing to him, and he wondered out loud if organized athletics would ever be put in its proper place by a sports-obsessed American society.

Memphis State

Bill Walton and the Bruins won the championship over Florida State in 1972—with Walton also taking player of the year honors—and again over Memphis State in 1973. The Memphis State Tigers were an extraordinary team in 1973, as much for what they signified away from the court as for how well they played on it. In 1970 Gene Bartow had come to Memphis State and found a locker room divided by racial strife, a problem that reflected severed race relations on the campus and in the surrounding southern community—the scene of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Under Bartow, however, the Tigers, black and white, came together as a team and began having success. Memphis reporters, leaders in the city's black and white communities, and Memphis mayor Wyeth Chandler all began to notice an easing of race relations that came with the success of the Tigers. As the Tigers made their run for a national title, Chandler commented on the broader implications of Tiger success: " This team has unified the city like it's never been unified before.… Black and white, rich and poor, young and old are caught up in its success. Memphis is a better city now, thanks to the Memphis State team."

The Streak

During the 1973 season the Bruins beat Notre Dame to win their sixty-first consecutive game, surpassing the record set by the Bill Russell-led University of San Francisco teams. In 1974 the Notre Dame Fighting Irish ended UCLA's streak at eighty-eight games. In the following weeks, UCLA succumbed to a few weaker teams and finally seemed ready to be toppled. The defending champs regrouped, however, and charged into the NCAA tournament semifinals, played for the first time in the South at Greensboro, North Carolina. Their opponents, North Carolina State, could practically claim home court. Although the other semifinal game between Marquette University and Kansas brought together the number one and number two teams in the polls, UCLA versus N.C. State was the premier matchup. Brilliantly coached by Norm Sloan, the N.C. State Wolfpack squeaked ahead of the Bruins in the game's second overtime and in front of a wild partisan crowd ended the UCLA dynasty. The Wolfpack went on to beat Marquette in the finals, but the big story was what UCLA had failed to do.

Wooden's Last Shot

UCLA returned to the semifinals in 1975, but the season had been dominated on the court by Bobby Knight's number one Indiana Hoosiers and off the court by rumors that Wooden was close to retirement. The morning of UCLA's semifinal game against Louisville, Los Angeles papers confirmed that Wooden was stepping down at the end of the season. Wanting to go out a winner, Wooden drove his team to an overtime victory over the Cardinals, then to a close-fought 92-85 championship-game victory over the Kentucky Wildcats. The Bruins had won their eighth championship of the decade—a total of twelve over the past fourteen seasons—but they had lost Wooden and their prominent position at the top of college basketball.

Indiana

Prior to the 1976 season, many were picking UCLA—now coached by Gene Bartow—to repeat as champions. A few insiders had different ideas, however. Among the minority was Marquette's feisty head coach, Al McGuire, who picked equally as feisty head coach Bobby Knight and his Indiana Hoosiers to go all the way: "Indiana has the best team with the best players and the best coach." Knight's growing reputation as a brilliant tactician and motivator was turning the heads of other coaches in college basketball. His reputation as an ill-tempered bad boy who closed team practices to gawking alums, abused his players verbally, stalked officials along the sidelines, and splintered chairs against scorers' tables was also turning the heads of many in the basketball world.

Perfect Hoosiers

In 1971 Knight had come to Indiana University from West Point—having coached the cadets into the nation's top twenty—and brought with him a style of basketball that emphasized tenacious defense. Soon IU fans were won over by Knight and his brand of coaching, as the Hoosiers in his first season finished with a 17-8 record and posted a third-place finish in the Big Ten. Improvement at IU under Knight was extraordinarily rapid, and in 1975 the Hoosiers were undefeated before losing to Kentucky in the NCAA regional final—a loss that many blamed on an injury to star forward Scott May. The 1976 Hoosier squad was once again led by May and by the brilliant play of point guard Quinn Buckner. The Hoosiers in that year went on to a perfect 32-0, beating fellow Big Ten member Michigan in the NCAA finals. Both the good and bad sides of Knight's legendary reputation would continue to grow, and he would go on to coach other championship Hoosier teams. But the perfect 1976 Hoosiers remain as one of the greatest college basketball teams of all time.

Marquette

Coach McGuire and his Marquette squad won the NCAA title in 1977 over Dean Smith's North Carolina Tar Heels and their four-corners offense. A time-killing tactic that involved passing the ball from one corner of half-court to the next in an effort to hold the ball and frustrate the opponent, the four corners in many ways reflected the brilliant tactical mind of Smith and the highly disciplined, methodical style of basketball he instilled in his players. Although close friends with Smith, McGuire was very much Smith's antithesis. McGuire was an alumnus of fabled coach Frank McGuire's Saint John's program and a product of New York street-style basketball. He considered himself Irish-tough and street-wise, and it was an image that his players came to respect: on more than one occasion McGuire physically confronted an out-of-line player. Yet, despite McGuire's emphasis on disciplined ballhandling and methodically run offenses, the Marquette Warriors and their coach had the reputation for being a group of free spirits, and the biggest free spirit among them, star guard Butch Lee, was a favorite of McGuire. In the final game against the Tar Heels, McGuire turned the Tar Heels four-corners to his advantage, taking away Smith's backdoor plays and running his own version of the four-corners offense. McGuire retired after the 1977 season, having capped a twenty-year coaching career with an NCAA championship.

The Wildcats

The Kentucky Wildcats, coached by Joe Hall, met preseason expectations by holding on to the number-one spot in the polls through most of the year and then winning the 1978 NCAA championship. Hall's reaction to winning the championship was one of relief. He had followed the late Adolph Rupp as Kentucky's head coach and as such had the shadow of a legend and the fans' memory of four Rupp-coached NCAA championship teams looming over him. Prior to the start of the NCAA final game against Bill Foster's Duke University Blue Devils, UK fans paraded around the court with a bedsheet that read, "Win one for Rupp!" Upon seeing the sign a Kentucky fan in the stands yelled what was almost certainly Hall's sentiment: "To hell with Rupp! Win one for Joe Hall!" The win exorcised the ghost of Rupp, and the program had thus become exclusively Hall's.

Magic and Bird

At the end of the decade college basketball and its showcase event, the NCAA championship tournament, had reached new heights in popularity. By 1977 the tournament's championship game was aver-aging over forty-two million television viewers, and in 1979 overall fan attendance during the season surpassed thirty million. In 1959 only twenty-two college basketball teams played in arenas with a seating capacity of ten thousand or more. During the 1970s major arena-construction projects were under way at all collegiate levels, and more than one hundred teams played half their games in ten-thousand-seat arenas. In 1979 two star college players emerged, raising the excitement that had already surrounded college basketball to a fever pitch. Larry Bird was a six-foot-nine-inch forward with phenomenal shooting, passing, and rebounding skills. From French Lick, Indiana, Bird powered the little-known Indiana State Sycamores to a number one ranking. Compounding all the excitement raised by his brilliant play was the inescapable fact that Bird was white, and in a sport dominated by talented players who happened to be black, many pointed to Bird as the next Great White Hope. Meanwhile, Michigan State's six-foot-eight-inch Earvin ("Magic") Johnson of Lansing, Michigan, was stunning fans with unbelievable displays of passing, shooting, and rebounding. His assists were something like art, and he took a special thrill out of feeding perfectly lobbed passes to teammate Greg ("Special K") Kelser, who would catch the pass above the rim and spectacularly slam it through the hoop.

Showdown

A nation eagerly awaited the showdown between the two players, as the Indiana State Sycamores and the Michigan State Spartans steadily made their way past the competition in the NCAA tournament toward a meeting in the championship game. Once in the finals, however, the Spartans proved to be too deep with talent for the mismatched Sycamores and scored an easy victory. Nevertheless, the Final Four had become a big-time event, as well as a national showcase for the talents of Johnson and Bird. Kids watching the two players on television became instant fans of basketball and the all-around game, which held ballhandling and passing to be equally as important as shooting. The era of the big man was coming to an end, and taking his place were small forwards and passing guards. Bird and Johnson took their act to the pros—Bird signing with the Boston Celtics, Johnson leaving college in his sophomore year to play with the Los Angeles Lakers—each in the next decade having legendary careers while raising the popularity of pro basketball to new levels.

BASKETBALL, COLLEGE

Before the War

A revolutionary rule change in 1938 unshackled college basketball from the cumbersome, mandatory jump ball at the center of the court after every basket. The decision brought speed and nonstop action to the game and opened up new styles of play, including the jump shot. Washington State coach Jack Friel said, "Ironically, I didn't believe in the shot at first. I simply couldn't conceive of a kid jumping off the floor and shooting accurately from the distance they do. I was soon converted, however, and the jump shot is the big weapon now. I think the present teams score more by accident, with their excellent jump shooters, than our old teams did by design."

NCAA

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament was in its infancy as the decade opened. The first NCAA tournament, staged in 1939, was won by Oregon in a small gym on the campus of Northwestern University in Evans ton, Illinois. Critics insisted, though, that the older National Invitational Tournament (NIT), played at Madison Square Garden, attracted better teams and determined the real national champion. The Indiana Hoosiers swept the second NCAA tournament 60-42 over the University of Kansas. At the beginning of the 1940s, coaches were experimenting with substitutions. During the 1941 NCAA tournament final, Washington State employed a fast-breaking offense with a two-platoon substitution system to tire their opponent, but the strategy failed, as Wisconsin won 39-34. Washington State coach Jack Friel explained, "I substituted a lot. In fact, I think I was one of the first to use the two-platoon system. Basketball was developing into a racehorse game. I finally came to the conclusion that players really couldn't stay in there and pitch on defense; to play good defense, they needed some rest. So by 1941 I was substituting a lot, and after that I platooned all the time." The Pitt-Fordham and NYU-Georgetown doubleheader games on 28 February 1940 were the first college basketball games broadcast on television; they appeared on experimental station W2XMS, forerunner to New York's WNBC. One year later, in another landmark for sports broadcasting, the 1941 NCAA tournament final between Wisconsin and Washington State was broadcast by Mutual Broadcasting Network on national radio for the first time.

The War Years

The 1941-1942 season had just begun when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Entire teams were wiped out by the ensuing draft. Many schools dropped the sport for the duration of the war, and the teams that remained were kept alive by a rule change allowing freshmen to compete as varsity players. Basketball was affected less than other sports by the wartime shortage of men, because the players' height often made them ineligible for military service. College basketball teams got taller in the war years. West Texas State boasted a 6-foot-10-inch center and a front line that averaged 6 feet, 6 inches. College basketball during the war was also a game for young athletes, because the draft took older players. Four of the starting five players on Illinois's exciting 1943 team, which compiled a record of 17—1, were named All-Big Ten, but the team was unable to play in either the NCAA or NIT tournament because the heart of the team was drafted by tournament time. A year later, Utah's NCAA-championship team, which practiced all year in church gyms because their field house had been appropriated by the army, was composed of players whose average age was 18 1/2 years. In an effort to do its part for the war effort, the NCAA staged its championship games in Madison Square Garden from 1943 to 1945 and then played the NIT champion as a benefit for the Red Cross.

The College Big Man

College basketball took another leap toward the modern game in the mid 1940s with the introduction of big, agile players who could freely roam the court. In 1945 coach Hank Iba of Oklahoma A&M led the way, building his NCAA-championship team around seven-footer Bob "Foothills" Kurland, the core of a squad billed as the "tallest team on earth." Kurland's defensive skill under the basket led directly to new goaltending rules following his sophomore year. That same year NIT champion DePaul was led by 6-foot, 10-inch George Mikan. His coach, Ray Meyer, instituted a rigorous program of rope skipping, shadow boxing, and running to increase the agility of his big man. The hype was so great that when the two teams finally met in the Red Cross final at Madison Square Garden, 18,148 fans showed up for what was billed as the "battle of the goons." The showdown of the NCAA and NIT winners proved to be a lackluster game, won by Oklahoma A&M 52-44, in part because Mikan fouled out after fourteen minutes, but the contest clearly helped establish the role of the quick, agile centers in college basketball. Both centers were also significant in the establishment of professional basketball. Mikan, who averaged 23.1 points his senior year, signed with the Chicago American Gears in 1946. His contract was the largest paid to that time to a basketball pro—twelve thousand dollars a season for five years.

College Basketball after the War

As soldiers came back from duty and reenrolled in college, college basketball progressed to a new level of sports entertainment. Oklahoma A&M won the NCAA championship two years in a row, in 1945-1946 and 1946-1947, the first team to win two NCAA titles, consecutive or otherwise. But the postwar era belonged to Adolph Rupp, whose Kentucky Wildcats won four NCAA titles from 1945 to 1954. In the decade after World War II no one coached so many championship teams, produced so many All-Americans, or won so many games as Rupp. In 1947-1948 Kentucky went 36-3, won the Southeastern Conference title for the fifth time in a row, then routed Baylor 58-42 in the NCAA finals. One year later, Kentucky established twenty-two NCAA team and individual records in winning its second national championship in a row, defeating Oklahoma A&M 46-36. The Wild-cats were led by Alex Groza, who was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row. The end of the decade was noteworthy for the appearance of a remarkable player—6 foot, 1 inch Bob Cousy of Holy Cross. His passing, dribbling, quickness, and sound technique made him the prototype of the imaginative, wide-open-style players who excelled in the 1950s. Just as the decade began with one defining rule change, it ended with another: coaches could talk to their team during a time-out without a penalty. Basketball was a national game by 1949, as reflected by the national ranking that the Associated Press began publishing that year. Kentucky, which finished 36-1, was the first AP national champion.

Black Collegians after the War

When black servicemen returned from the war and attended college on the GI Bill of Rights, more black players appeared on the courts of white colleges and universities. Tennessee coach John Mauer refused to allow his team to play Duquesne University if there was even a remote possibility of Charles "Chuck" Cooper participating in the game. Several weeks later, on 15 January 1947, the University of Miami canceled the Orange Bowl against Duquesne, citing a city ordinance prohibiting blacks and whites from playing in the same event. In 1948 all the teams in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) basketball tournament were expected to sign a contract prohibiting blacks from playing. Several schools protested, including Manhattan College, which, though it did not have any black players, announced it would resign unless the ban was lifted. The tournament organizers backed down, but the issue did not go away.

A NEW APPROACH TO SPORTS

In 1945 contract-bridge teacher, ex-billiard champion, and lawyer Julian Rice led a one-man crusade to "evolutionize sports." A few of his ideas:

Basketball: On personal foul shots, a player may choose to shoot from the customary 15-foot line tor one point, or from the 21-foot line for two points; field goals shot from 21 feet would count three points.

Football: After touchdowns a team would have the choice to convert from the 2-yard line for one point or from the 17 for two points.

Baseball: A batter given four balls could refuse his walk to take another turn at bat. If he walked again, he would go directly to second base.

Blacks in Basketball

Blacks began slowly to assert themselves as superior basketball players during the 1940s, and one team boldly led the way. The Harlem Globetrotters walked off with the world professional basketball championship in 1940, the second year in a row that the designation went to an all-black team; the Renaissance Big-Five won in 1939. Called the "greatest Negro team of all time," the Globetrotters were organized in 1927 by Abe Saperstein, a Jewish social worker on Chicago's North Side. By 1940 the Globetrotters were one of the few financially successful professional basketball teams in the country, and they displayed extraordinary skill. There was not an organized national league then, so professional teams were barnstormers; they traveled the country playing college teams and pickup games where they could find them. Good players made fifty dollars a week, and, if they played for the Globetrotters, they traveled about 35,000 miles per year, playing about 150 games and enduring accommodations that most people would consider unsuitable. Because they were so good and so entertaining, the Globetrotters found games and audiences. They played for about 350,000 people in 1940. The Globetrotters were so formidable that Saperstein instructed them to play hard for only the first ten minutes of a game, and then to slow things down and amuse the crowd by clowning. Known more as entertainers than athletes, the Globetrotters were invited to the world professional basketball tournament by promoters who anticipated that they would put on a good show and be gone after the first round. They were wrong. In the 1940s the Globetrotters became international entertainers, playing before Pope Pius XII and to a white-tie audience at London's Wimbledon Stadium. Six-foot-three Reese "Goose" Tatum, nicknamed the "Clown Prince of Basketball," developed many of the moves, no-look passes, and fakes that became standard among top basketball athletes in later years. In 1946 Marques Haynes joined the team, contributing his remarkable dribbling skills. He was without equal as a ball handler.

Professional Basketball

Struggling financially in the early 1940s, professional basketball was able to begin establishing itself as a big-league sport after the war. Riding the crest of college basketball popularity, pro basketball captured a paying audience thanks to a group of arena owners led by Walter Brown, president of the Boston Garden, who met in New York on 6 June 1946 to form a new professional league. Maurice Podoloff was named president of the newly formed Basketball Association of America (BAA). A talented attorney, Podoloff pioneered an offense-oriented league designed to attract fans. To create the most exciting game possible, zone defenses were prohibited, man-to-man contests were promoted, and a format for championship playoffs was created. Teams were organized in eleven cities, all east of the Mississippi River. These new franchises competed with the smaller National Basketball League (NBL) teams operating mostly in small midwestern cities. Immediately a bidding battle for the outstanding players of the day ensued. The National Basketball League captured the first prize when it signed college great George Mikan from DePaul. The BAA fought back the next year by adding four midwestern franchises, including Minneapolis, Mikan's team. In 1949 the two leagues merged into the National Basketball Association (NBA) with seventeen teams, with Podoloff still at the helm. In the first NBA championship game that year, Minneapolis, led by Mikan, who averaged 27.4 points a game, defeated Anderson, Indiana, in a hotly contested six-game series. The Globetrotters proved themselves again as legitimate professional players in 1948 and 1949, when they beat the world champion Lakers twice.

Creating Stars

During the early days when the Basketball Association of America was struggling for survival, one player helped the league capture attention. The association's first star was the Philadelphia Warriors' Joe Fulks. In the 1940s, when it was still considered a major feat to score twenty points in a single game, the 6-foot, 5-inch former marine stunned the basketball world by averaging more than twenty points per game in 1946-1947. Playing a sixty-game schedule, he boosted fan appeal by scoring more than thirty points on twelve occasions, with a single-game high of forty-one points. Fulks's high-scoring efforts helped transform the deliberate, low-scoring game so many fans knew as basketball. Known for his exciting, twisting, two-handed pivot shots, the forerunner of the modern jump shot, Fulks won the scoring championship in 1946, the league's first year. His nearest rival averaged 16.8 points per game. "Jumpin'" Joe Fulks's most celebrated achievement was his career-high sixty-three points against the Indiana Jets in 1949, a time when most teams did not score that many points in an entire game. Fulks retired in 1954, having scored 8,003 points for a 16.4 points-per-game average. Only towering George Mikan of Minneapolis had scored more at that time.

George Mikan

The 6-foot, 10-inch George Mikan first captured national attention while playing for DePaul University in Chicago in 1944. A star throughout his college career, Mikan was a key figure in making professional basketball a popular, profitable sport. Playing for the Minneapolis Lakers for six years, Mikan led the league in scoring three times, averaging 22.4 points during his career, leading the Lakers to five championships. Mikan was so dominating and popular that on one occasion the marquee of Madison Square Garden announced the evening game: "Tonight George Mikan vs. Knicks." His control inside caused the NBA to widen the lanes under the basket from six to twelve feet to make the game more competitive. In 1950 the Associated Press named Mikan the outstanding player of the first half of the twentieth century, and he was elected to the NBA's alstar team each of his six playing years. He retired at the end of the 1954 season to attend law school but returned for a short time in the middle of the 1955-1956 season.

Sources:

Zander Hollander, ed., The Modern Encyclopedia of Basketball, revised edition (New York: Four Winds Press, 1973);

John D. McCallum, College Basketball, U.S.A., Since 1892 (New York: Stein & Day, 1978);

Douglas A. Noverr and Lawrence E. Ziewacz, The Games They Played: Sports in American History, 1865-1980 (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983);

Art Rust, Jr., and Edna Rust, Art Rust's Illustrated History of the Black Athlete (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985).