Philly’s Hoop History Commemorated

This week, Larry Needle, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Sports Congress and author of Homecourt: The True Story of the Best Basketball Team You’ve Never Heard Of, a new children’s book about Red Klotz and the SPHAS, writes about hoop dreams and memories.

With the unveiling of a historic marker commemorating the legendary SPHAS basketball team at the site of the old Broadwood Hotel April 14, the hoop memories run deep.

Memories of the SPHAS (South Philadelphia Hebrew Association) teams of the first half of the 20^th century, who made the Broadwood their home and helped to show the world that an all-Jewish basketball team could compete with the very best in the land.

Memories of “the Mogul,” Eddie Gottlieb, who founded the team in 1917 and coached them to multiple championships in the Eastern League and American Basketball League over three decades (including seven titles in 13 years from 1933-1946), before going on to be one of the founders of the NBA and owner of the Philadelphia Warriors NBA franchise.

Memories of the SPHAS winning in the toughest of environments, against nasty, often anti-Semitic crowds, in gyms from Cleveland to Brooklyn, and Harlem to Trenton.

Of course, there was the scene at the Broadwood every Saturday night in the 1930s and ‘40s, fans dressed to the nines for the game and the dance that followed on the court immediately afterwards, with SPHAS player turned bandleader Gil Fitch often playing both roles.

Men paid 65 cents for their tickets and women 35 cents.  Hot dogs were a dime.  During games, another legend in the making, PA announcer Dave Zinkoff, would give away a salami and a $20 suit to Gerson’s department store.

And there were, of course, the SPHAS players. Names like Lou Forman, Shikey Gotthofer, Cy Kaselman, Inky Lautman, and Temple legend Harry Litwack.  And of course there was Red Klotz.

Growing up in South Philly, Red’s legendary set shot would help lead him on a career from South Philadelphia High School to Villanova University, and championships with the SPHAS in 1942 and the NBA’s Baltimore Bullets in 1948.

At 5-7, he was usually the shortest player on the team, but that didn’t begin to measure his heart or his passion for the sport of basketball.  Because that NBA championship wasn’t the end of his basketball career, it was merely the beginning.

Red would go on the become the founder and owner (as well as player and coach) of the Washington Generals, the team that would play foil to the Harlem Globetrotters over the next 60 years.  He became one of the sport’s great ambassadors, bringing basketball and smiles to millions of people around the globe, as well as lessons of sportsmanship and tolerance.

Of course, his legacy of winning would turn to one of losing; more than ten thousand games of losing in fact, but always with dignity and grace.  Of course, there was the exception, that one night in Martin, Tennessee, when Red hit the jumper to seal the Generals last recorded win against the Globetrotters in 1971.

Globetrotters legend Curly Neal recently said this about Red: “He may have been on the losing end of the scoreboard many nights, but the laughs and thrills that we brought to audiences all over the world is what makes Red a winner every single day. “  He called Red “the little giant with the timeless two-handed set shot and game-winning smile.”

Despite Red’s phenomenal career and contributions to the sport of basketball, he has yet to be honored by the Basketball Hall of Fame.  Just this week, the 2013 inductee class was announced, and Red was again sadly denied his rightful spot in the Hall.

Red is now 92, and lives with his wife Gloria in Margate, surrounded by family, friends and rooms full of basketball memories that he helped to create.

Of course, there is still room on the shelf for the one missing piece; what should be the crowning achievement to a career dedicated to playing the game the right way, and teaching those lessons to countless players, coaches and fans over the decades.

Red’s story is one of many in an incredible legacy created by the SPHAS, a legacy that will forever be honored with the new historic marker.

Call Harilyn Rousso anything but “Inspirational”

In this blog entry, Harilyn Rousso explains why she titled her memoir  Don’t Call Me Inspirational. 

When I was thirteen years old, in junior high school, I found myself standing next to my gym teacher during a fire drill. When she saw me, she put her arm around my shoulder and said, “I want you to know how inspirational you are.” I was perplexed since in gym, as a girl with a discombobulated walk and poor coordination in my arms and hands, the result of cerebral palsy, my performance was mediocre at best. Then she went on: “I understand that you wash and dress yourself. That is truly amazing.” What was she talking about? I had been washing and dressing myself since I was four years old. In my confusion and embarrassment, I could only respond “Thank you.” But I was wondering why she expected so little of me that even my most modest achievements could inspire her.

Since that incident many years ago, I have repeatedly encountered people who call me inspirational, usually people who barely know me. They stop me on the street, in the supermarket, or at some event where I am scheduled to give a talk or run a workshop. They know nothing about me other than how I look, with my disabled body, or how I speak, with my disability accent. From those clues alone, they declare me inspirational. The most disconcerting are the “inspirational” comments from those who have just heard me speak or conduct a training session. In the past, I’ve told myself that perhaps they were inspired by my words or my ability, through the training process, to change attitudes toward disability. But when I inquire why they find me inspirational, I hear: “If I were you, I’d never leave my house, much less speak in public. You are so brave, truly amazing.” I get this reaction even when I have just given the most hostile, confrontational speech, challenging people’s stereotypes of me and other people with disabilities as sick, helpless, dependent, or, in more pseudo-positive language, brave, courageous and inspirational. In some of those speeches, I insist, demand, cajole or even beg that they don’t call me inspirational. But my words don’t matter. They have only responded to the seeming imperfections of my voice and body.  Why do so many nondisabled people expect me to retreat to my home and hide? Why do they harbor such limiting assumptions about the potential and quality of my life?

Those of us in the disability rights movement joke about our “inspirational” status. We go to events featuring writers, painters or other artists with disabilities and wait for the inspirational comments, knowingly looking at each other and rolling our eyes when we hear them, which inevitably we will.

What compels nondisabled people to repeatedly engage in such misguided, oppressive labeling?   What I experience most profoundly when nondisabled people call me inspirational is a sense of distance, a barrier they have created between them and me. It is as though they are afraid to really get to know who I am and then run the risk of relating to or identifying with me as a peer. To do so would render them vulnerable, since they perceive me, a disabled person, as vulnerable. They cannot allow themselves to imagine a disabled person as strong, competent and at ease with herself, disability and all. Of course all of us, disabled or not, are vulnerable in one way or another. But in our “can do, must do” culture, vulnerability, imperfection, the possible inability to do ordinary tasks is a secret fear that most people try to keep from themselves. People with disabilities appear to embody that fear. We are a threat to others’ sense of wholeness and invincibility. I think they imagine that if they were vulnerable like they perceive me—or any visibly disabled person they see—they would have to abandon an active life and possibly even end their life. What a sad assessment, particularly given that most people, if they live long enough, are likely to acquire a disability. What can be done to change their vision of their own future? And, damn it, what can I do to stop people from instinctively calling me inspirational without knowing who I am?

I attempt to do that in Don’t Call Me Inspirational: A Disabled Feminist Talks Back. Will I succeed? I am not sure. The “inspirational” myth is tenacious; people hold onto it as though their lives depended on it. In fact, their lives would be enhanced if they could give up the myth and see me and my disabled sisters and brothers for who we really are. Then the reality of aging and possible disability would become less terrifying.  Occasionally, when I develop programs or engage in activities such as writing or painting that hopefully transform how people think and feel, I am proud to accept the “inspirational” label. But most of the time, my life is fairly mundane—going to the grocery store, paying the rent, spending quality time with my life partner and close friends, eating more chocolate than I should, and so forth. Sound familiar? That is the point.

 

Mourning the loss of a pioneer of women’s history

Temple University Press is saddened to learn of the passing of women’s historian Gerda Lerner. In honor of Dr. Lerner, we are re-posting this interview from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Political Engagement as Therapy for the Intellect

By Danny Postel for The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 May 2002

The writing of one’s life can offer an “explanatory myth” at worst and an “entertaining tale” at best, says Gerda Lerner, a professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

In Fireweed: A Political Autobiography (Temple University Press), she recounts the prehistory of her career in what she calls the “intellectual revolution” of women’s history, a field on which she left a pioneering mark with such works as The Woman in American History (1971), The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), and The Creation of Feminist Consciousness (1993).

Q: You grew up in Austria in the 1920s and ’30s. How did that experience influence the development of your political consciousness?
A: From an early age, I experienced revolution, counterrevolution, military occupation, and fascism. I was imprisoned, I was a hostage—I lived in great danger. I was essentially struggling for my life. Living through this makes you very much aware of politics as a force in life and of the need to struggle for human rights.

Q: After the war, in America, you were active in the Communist Party for a time and then left. You write that it took you some years “to think [your] way out, not of one political movement only, but out of Marxism, the theory.”
A: There was a period when, though I was disillusioned with the Communist Party, I was still a Marxist. Then, after 1958, when I began to study academically, I began to have serious problems with the doctrine in regard to women. It was my feminism that made me realize that Marxism was wrong.

Q: You went many decades without publicly discussing this chapter in your life, the Communist years. Why now?
A: Well, I’m 81 years old—when am I going to do it if not now? I felt uneasy about evading the issue based on fear. I felt that I owed it to myself and to the people who have learned from me and respect me to tell them the whole story. And I feel that there is something to be learned from my story.

Q: What, exactly, would you say that is?
A: That active political engagement is good for thinking. If you are engaged in the world, you have a way of testing your thinking. I tested Marxist thought. It didn’t work.

Q: At the very end of the book, you say that for many years you felt that you had nothing to apologize for, but you go on to say that you feel differently about this now. Why the change?
A: We learned things that we did not know at the time. I defended the Hitler-Stalin pact [over which thousands of Communists left the party] at the time, and I’m sorry I did. The decisions I made in my life seemed to have a good logic then, even if 60 years later, that logic may not stand up.

 

Remembering The SPHAS, basketball pioneers who made today’s game what it is

Douglas Stark, author of The SPHAS, describes an earlier period in basketball history, when collective bargaining, salary cap and revenue sharing were not in the vocabulary.

At this time of the year, football dominates the water cooler conversation as we head into late fall and early winter. Did you see that game yesterday? Can you believe that bad call that cost the game for that team? How did your fantasy team do? From the serious to the casual fan, football is an indelible part of how we spend the fall. Everyone is a Monday morning quarterback.

For me, this time of year always signals the beginning of the basketball season; one that starts in early November and goes through June (hopefully if my Boston Celtics are still playing). My body clock seems to wake up in mid-October as NBA training camp starts. A new season is just around the corner.

This year the conversation centers on the collective bargaining sessions between the NBA owners and players union. Instead of hearing about the surprise player in training camp or whether the team’s defense will improve, the news is about salary caps, revenue sharing, and the cancellation of games. Ultimately it is about how to split a lot of money equitably. These conversations are part of the sporting landscape in the twenty-first century and no sport is immune.

My hope is that these talks can be resolved shortly and everyone’s attention can turn to the game and the players. In recent weeks, my mind has wandered to an earlier period in basketball history when collective bargaining, salary cap and revenue sharing were not in the vocabulary. I have been thinking about the game’s pioneers, most specifically the SPHAS.

The SPHAS, South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, were born in 1918 as a club team and continued playing until 1959. The team’s growth paralleled the development of the game from a club sports to barnstorming to professional game.  The team’s best years were in the 1930s. The team was all Jewish then and overcame the Depression, anti-Semitism, and a World War to propel the game’s growth to a new generation.

As one can imagine, the business of basketball eighty years ago was different. The SPHAS often carried seven players during the season. NBA teams routinely have 15 players under contract. Eddie Gottlieb was the coach, manager, General Manager, and general overseer of all things SPHAS. Contrast that to today when NBA teams have 5-7 assistant coaches sitting on the bench. One is focused on offense, one on defense, one monitors the clock and player foul situations, and one works with the big men and another is focused on the guards. Today the game is highly specialized.

Travel was certainly different. The SPHAS either all piled into Gottlieb’s car or took the train. It was not until the 1950s that NBA teams starting flying. Each NBA team today has a private airplane outfitted with plush seats, televisions, and full service dining. NBA players never see their luggage as they are transported from one city to another.

The money was different then. Very different. Gottlieb signed the players to one year contracts. He paid the players per game. When Joel (Shikey) Gotthoffer started playing for the SPHAS in 1933-1934, he made $35.00 a game. Ten years later, he was one of the highest paid players at $100.00 a game. Gottlieb had a habit of playing his players in cash before the game. If they lost, he had a harder time paying up. As many of the players noted, Gottlieb always kept his word and paid his players.

Earning money playing basketball was a bonus, a little extra spending money the players could take home to their families. They could not earn a living playing basketball and many had full time jobs to support themselves. It is why the games were played on the weekend.

And because these early leagues were weekend leagues, teams did not practice as much as they do today. Players played on their own merits and if a player was not doing his job properly, he was taken out and replaced. The team was the focus. Players passed the ball around until a good shot materialized. Bad shots were frowned upon. Played were expected to keep their opponents from scoring.

It was a different game, but as the NBA owners and players work toward an agreement, hopefully they will take a moment to pause and remember the game’s pioneers like the SPHAS who made today’s game what it is.