CCNY point-shaving scandal

The 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team, led by coach Nat Holman, are the team most associated with the point-shaving scandal, having won both the 1950 NCAA tournament and the 1950 National Invitation Tournament.

The CCNY point-shaving scandal of 1951 was a college basketball point-shaving gambling scandal which revealed widespread bribery and match fixing at major colleges and universities in and around New York City, particularly at Madison Square Garden. While the public scandal officially involved at least seven American colleges and universities, the scandal has been most closely associated with the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers, which won both the 1950 NCAA basketball tournament and 1950 National Invitation Tournament and had a number of players implicated in point shaving and match fixing.

The initial scandal centered on New York City colleges: CCNY, Manhattan College, New York University and Long Island University, before spreading out to the University of Toledo, Bradley University, and 1951 NCAA champion University of Kentucky. Players in California, Oregon, and the Ivy League were later implicated. CCNY was eventually banned from playing at Madison Square Garden, although both head coach Nat Holman and assistant coach Bobby Sand were cleared of any wrongdoing themselves. Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan led the prosecution of dozens of gamblers and players for attempted bribery and match fixing, including thirty-five players, a disgraced NBA referee and multiple members of organized crime. The investigations also revealed widespread bribery of police and corruption within the New York City Police Department which led to the resignation of mayor William O'Dwyer and police commissioner William O'Brien.

The scandal threatened the integrity of college basketball and threatened its very existence at the time.

Background

Early match fixing attempts

The earliest reported attempt at fixing a college basketball match occurred on January 21, 1927, when Wabash College athletic director Harry Scholler reported that a professional gambler attempted to bribe their star player, Benjamin "Benny" Devol, before their game against Franklin College of Indianapolis. However, Devol rejected the offer and finished the game with more points than the entire Franklin College team in Wabash College's 47–32 win. Another early attempt occurred in early March 1931, when the Brooklyn Eagle reported St. John's University star Max Posnack was offered $3,000 (equivalent to $48,392 in 2023 and more than twice the average annual income for a U.S. worker at the time) to rig a game against Manhattan College at Madison Square Garden. No further match fixing attempts were reported in college basketball until the 1940s, partially because any players seeking to fix games would rarely memorialize their gambling activities and partially because illegal activity was intentionally ignored in hopes that it would disappear on its own.

By 1944, illegal bookmakers were common in the United States. Many started out as bootleggers and expanded into gambling and prostitution rings following the end of Prohibition and the start of the Great Depression. Bookmakers often cooperated with law enforcement to report attempted bribery, in order to develop a reputation for honesty dealing with bettors, seek political protection, and avoid losing a rigged bet. Despite these efforts, gambling and match fixing became more widespread and serious in college basketball. In January 1945, Arthur Daley of The New York Times heard rumors of college basketball games being thrown for around 15 years, with him even recalling certain games that had the final results being questioned at the time.

On the day before the 1944 NCAA championship, a gambler reportedly approached University of Utah head coach Vadal Peterson and asked how much would it take for Utah to lose to Dartmouth College. Peterson responded with a quick right punch to him. In October 1944, University of Kansas coach Phog Allen warned of a gambling incident "that would stink to high heaven", citing an earlier incident where two Philadelphia Textile Institute players agreed to rig a game for $1,000 (equivalent to $13,754 in 2023), though they did not follow through.

Following the conclusion of World War II, football became the biggest sport for colleges and universities, but basketball became a popular alternative revenue stream, particularly for schools, given its more modest operating costs and potentially greater return on expenses, given the potential for one great recruit to carry his team to success and celebrity. Newspapers and magazines began covering the sport in syndicated columns, with writers depending on coaches and athletic administrations to provide stories. This media environment rarely led to stories critical of college programs, including moments that felt like fixing was going on within the games at hand, with the rare stories in question that were critical noting a select few teams like the Long Island Blackbirds that felt like they were routinely working with gamblers or that they had betting suspended on them due to "unusual money" coming in too often on the Long Island team in particular. Regardless, things with college basketball and gambling were considered relatively calm following the Brooklyn College situation up until 1948.

1945 Brooklyn College scandal and Wilson-Moritt Act

Prior to the CCNY scandal, the most infamous case of match fixing in college basketball occurred on January 29, 1945, when five Brooklyn College players (Bernard Barnett, Jerome Green, Robert Leder, Larry Pearlstein, and Stanley Simon) were arrested and confessed to accepting $1,000 each from multiple gamblers with promises of an extra $2,000 (equivalent to over $34,900 in 2024) included to throw their scheduled game against the Municipal University of Akron at the Boston Garden and a further game against St. Francis College at Madison Square Garden.

The "Brooklyn Five" scandal came to light when two detectives noticed Barnett and Pearlstein entering the home of Henry Rosen, a suspected fence for teenage garment thieves. On following the two players, the detectives saw them enter to gambler Harvey Stemmer's house, leading to the players' arrest and expulsion from the college. One of the players questioned why the Brooklyn players were expelled, claiming that every college in the city was fixing games. Both Rosen and Stemmer would later be indicted for their involvement; while in prison, Stemmer was involved in bribing New York Giants players ahead of the 1946 NFL Championship Game.

During the scandal, mayor Fiorello La Guardia revealed that Pearlstein had not attended Brooklyn College directly while playing for the team. In response, Manhattan assemblyman William J. A. Glancy raised the possibility that "dummy students", who joined teams despite not meeting admission and scholastic requirements, could be planted by gamblers. Jack Laub of CCNY was raised. The Brooklyn Five scandal led the New York State Legislature to pass the 1945 Wilson-Moritt Bill on April 9, which made it a felony to extend or accept a bribe to throw a game in a wide number of amateur sports, including basketball.

The NCAA addressed concerns following the 1945 scandal by creating the Principles for the Conduct of Intercollegiate Athletics, known colloquially as the "Sanity Code". By the end of the 1940s, according to author Stanley Cohen, even children and casual spectators began to suspect corruption was rampant in college basketball.

Origins

During the 1944–45 season, City College of New York player Lenny Hassman, who was reported to be a "dumper", attempted to bribe star player Paul Schmones, but Schmones reported the offer to head coach Nat Holman, who immediately removed Hassman from the team and reported the attempt to Frank S. Lloyd, the university's hygiene chairman, but neither took action further against Schmones or made the incident public. During the same season, CCNY player William Levine was approached by gamblers before a game against the University of Syracuse, but Levine declined their offers to rig games. On January 14, 1948, Leonard Cohen of the New York Post reported an attempt to fix a game between CCNY and the University of Syracuse at Madison Square Garden but that bettors favoring Syracuse lost $50,000 (equivalent to $651,815 in 2024). CCNY athletic director Sam Winograd admitted that he had received a telegram warning him of the fix but had not commented to the press.

At a sportswriters' meeting in 1948, Holman claimed another scandal similar to Brooklyn Five would break out during the season. Later in the year, Maude Stewart, director of information services for the New York Board of Education, wrote to CCNY president Harry N. Wright regarding gambling influences at Madison Square Garden. Wright considered Stewart's suggestions unacceptable, given the results of the Brooklyn College scandal.

The apex of cheating occurred on a double-header night at the Madison Square Garden on December 28, 1950. Salvatore T. Sollazzo, a jeweler-turned-gambler, attempted to fix games by both CCNY and Long Island against underdogs University of Arizona and Western Kentucky University, respectively. CCNY, favored by six points, attempted to win by less but ultimately lost to Arizona 41–38. Long Island double-crossed Solazzo and won over Western Kentucky by only 7 points, with Western Kentucky scoring 13 unanswered points in the final two minutes of the game. Spectators left both games furious, with one claiming the games felt like "slot machines on wheels".

Investigations and arrests

Although match fixing was not limited to New York City, the 1951 scandal surrounded the activities of several New York City colleges and universities. Arrests and indictments made by Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan primarily focused on New York City before implicating players from other schools who had fixed games in New York City.

Manhattan District Attorney

On January 4, 1949, Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan arrested four men (Joseph Aronowitz, Phillip Klein, Jack Levy, and William Rivlin) for attempting to bribe David Shapiro, co-captain for George Washington University, to fix a game against Manhattan College at the Madison Square Garden. One of the four men approached Shapiro the previous summer, but Shapiro insisted on advance payment, which led the conspirators trying to bribe his uncle on game night. Max Rumack, a member of the Hogan's staff, posed as the uncle.

Manhattan College arrests

In January 1951, Junius Kellogg, a standout Manhattan College center, was offered a $1,000 bribe (equivalent to $12,800 in 2024) to shave points against DePaul on January 16. Although he was working for minimum wage at a frozen custard shop near campus, Kellogg reported the offer to his Manhattan coach Ken Norton, who referred Kellogg to Hogan. To obtain evidence, Kellogg wore a wire when he was approached again in a nearby bar by Henry "Hank" Poppe, who explained the point-shaving scheme in great detail and claimed professional players were involved as well. After the DePaul game, Poppe and co-captain John Byrnes were arrested alongside fixers Cornelius Kelleher and brothers Benjamin and Irving Schwartzberg. Kelleher had paid the two players $40 per week (equivalent to $528.03 in 2024) before the 1949–50 season, as well as $3,000 per game to ensure Manhattan lost against Siena, Santa Clara, and Bradley and $2,000 per game (equivalent to over $26,400 in 2024) to beat the spread against St. Francis and NYU. Following their arrest, Poppe and Byrnes asked why they were being targeted when others were involved in match fixing.

CCNY and LIU arrests

On February 17, 1951, after a victory over Temple in Philadelphia, the CCNY team were stopped in Camden, New Jersey by two undercover detectives from Hogan's office. The detectives arrested three players who had been instrumental to the 1950 championship team: center Ed Roman, guard Alvin Roth, and All-American forward Ed Warner. All three men were charged with conspiring to fix games, along with Salvatore Sollazzo, Harvey Schaff of New York University, and former Long Island player Eddie Gard, who by then worked as an agent for Sollazzo. While under arrest, the CCNY players confessed to shaving points against inferior teams in exchange for $1,500 per player per game (equivalent to over $19,550 in 2024). Roman, Roth, and Warner were indicted for accepting bribes, Gard was indicted for bribery, and Schaff was indicted for attempting to bribe a teammate, Jim Brasco. Sollazzo and Gard were indicted for paying a total of $30,000 in bribes (equivalent to over $396,000 in 2024) to players over the prior two seasons.

On February 20, three Long Island players admitted to their own complicity in the growing scandal. The three players had accepted a total of $18,500 (equivalent to over $244,210 in 2024) for eight games in the two most recent seasons, including their NIT opening round loss against Syracuse, and were arrested themselves. The most notable arrest of the three was Sherman White, who had been named the Sporting News Player of the Year the day prior. White's arrest prematurely ended his college career, only 77 points short of the all-time college scoring record, and ended his chances of playing in the NBA; the New York Knicks had planned on drafting him with a territorial pick in the 1951 NBA draft.

A week after the Long Island arrests, Nat Miller of LIU and Floyd Layne of CCNY were arrested. Layne admitted to accepting $3,000 (equivalent to over $39,100 in 2024) for rigged games during the most recent season. On information given by Eddie Gard, Miller was charged for rigging two games for $1,500 (equivalent to $19,800 in 2024). Layne's arrest came after he scored 19 points for CCNY in a 67–48 win over Lafayette College and a game against Cincinnati was canceled.

On March 26, three more players from the CCNY championship team were arrested: Herb Cohen, Irwin Dambrot (then a dental student at Columbia University), and Norm Mager (then a rookie season for the Baltimore Bullets of the NBA). Mager later became the first player to be permanently banned from the NBA.

On March 30, former LIU player Louis Lipman was arrested for fixing a game against Duquesne University on January 1, 1949. On April 13, LIU player Richard Fuertado was arrested for admitting to fixing four games in the prior two seasons. On April 28, gambler Eli Klukofsky was arrested for his involvement in fixing some of the CCNY games.

University of Toledo arrests

On July 20, four players from the University of Toledo (Jack Feeman, Bob McDonald, Carlos Muzi, and Bill Walker) were arrested on charges of point-shaving in New York City and the surrounding area. Local bookmakers tipped Hogan off that gamblers frequently attended Toledo's home games and that some Toledo players were involved with both betting on and fixing a December 14, 1950 game against Niagara University. While local law enforcement had previously raided Toledo gambling establishments with university support, there had been little permanent effect. Instead, surveillance on Jacob Rubinstein, a Brooklyn bookie and friend of Toledo freshman Joe Massa, led New York investigators to Toledo. Massa had previously trained with Bill Walker and introduced him to Eli Klukofsky, who offered Walker $250 (equivalent to nearly $3,260 in 2024) to fix games and an additional $250 for every player he recruited to join in. Rubinstein and three of the four players implicated Massa. Feeman's participation was revealed by an intercollegiate investigatory committee headed by Toledo's own President, Asa S. Knowles.

Jackie Goldsmith

Hogan made his biggest arrest on July 22, when his office arrested Jackie Goldsmith, a former LIU and professional basketball player turned fixer. Goldsmith was reportedly the "master fixer" and "the sum of all that has been wrong in the basketball picture in recent years". After Goldsmith declined to play in his senior year for unknown reasons, he built connections in gambling and organized crime. Even while playing professionally for several minor leagues, Goldsmith had been "responsible for the corruption of more college basketball games than any other single person". Goldsmith reportedly kept apprised of all match fixing in New York City to advise gamblers that certain games were fixed and if games weren't as he sold them to be as such, he would plead innocence by claiming a double-cross.

On March 4, 1951, University of Southern California player Ken Flower reported to head coach Forrest Twogood that a gambler offered him $1,500 (equivalent to $18,125 in 2024) to throw a game against UCLA.

Bradley arrests

On July 24, four days after the arrests in Toledo, detectives from Hogan's office travelled to Peoria, Illinois to arrest three players from Bradley University (Mike Chianakas, Bill Mann, and Gene Melchiorre) for fixing their 1949 NIT consolation game against Bowling Green at Madison Square Garden. Melchiorre, an All-American point guard and the first overall pick of the 1951 NBA draft, was also considered the contact man for the group. The three players, along with teammates Charles Grover, Jim Kelly, Aaron Preece, and Fred Schlictman, admitted that they also fixed four games during the 1949–50 season.

The Bradley investigation in particular revealed threats of physical violence and murder against players and their families, helping law enforcement understand how gamblers ensured that players kept their promise. On August 27, Hogan obtained indictments against the Bradley players, along with gamblers Nick and Tony Englisis of Brooklyn; Marvin Mansberg; Jacob Rubinstein; Joseph Benintende of Kansas City, a known narcotics dealer suspected of murdering Charles Binaggio and Charles Gargotta; and Jack West, who had also been questioned in 1947 for allegedly offering a $100,000 bribe (equivalent to $1,408,856.50 in 2024) to boxer Rocky Graziano. The Bradley players also willingly offered to fix games by contacting bookmakers themselves. In at least once case, players attempted to fix games in opposite directions, as in a Bradley–Manhattan game, where Klukofsky offered Melchiorre $500 if Bradley failed to cover the five-point spread, while Byrnes and Poppe on Manhattan accepted a bribe to fail to cover from the other direction. The match in question ended with Bradley winning 89–67, well over the spread in question.

University of Kentucky arrests

On October 20, former University of Kentucky players Dale Barnstable (who was working as a high school teacher in Louisville at the time of his arrest), Ralph Beard and Alex Groza (both playing for the Indianapolis Olympians in the NBA) were arrested on suspicion that they threw a 1949 first round NIT game against Loyola University Chicago at Madison Square Garden. The arrests came just months after Kentucky won the 1951 NCAA tournament and head coach Adolph Rupp claimed gamblers "couldn't touch [our] students with a ten-foot pole."

Despite his initial comments, the suspicions were raised by Rupp himself, when he told assistant coach Harry Lancaster and athletic director Bernie Shively that "something was wrong with [this] team" after the Loyola game. Hogan alleged that during the 1948–49 season, eleven different Kentucky games were fixed, beginning with a game against St. John's University at Madison Square Garden. Hogan also alleged that while the team was in New York, the Englisis brothers and former Harvard Law School student Saul Feinberg plotted with the three Kentucky players to fix more games. Barnstable, Beard, and Groza admitted to rigging three games, including the loss to Loyola. Tony Englisis alleged in a 1952 True magazine article that more games had been rigged, but the players denied it, and the New York courts declined to hear cases of match fixing which occurred entirely outside the state. Beard and Groza, who had signed a package deal with the Olympians for a seventy percent share of profits and ownership of the team, with an option to buy the team outright in three years, were permanently banned from the NBA and forced to sell their shares at ten percent of their original value. Despite making the playoffs in every season, the Olympians folded as a franchise in 1953.

Kentucky players Walter Hirsch and Jim Line admitted to complicity in rigging games during the 1948–49 and 1949–50 seasons. Hirsch and Line also implicated Bill Spivey in rigging the 1950 Sugar Bowl against St. Louis, but Spivey was adamant that he had never fixed a game. While no charges were ever filed against Hirsch and Line, because all of their match fixing had occurred in states without anti-bribery laws for amateur sports at the time due to their rigging of games occurring in states that didn't have anti-bribery laws for amateur sports at the time, Assistant District Attorney Vincent O'Connor indicted Spivey for first degree perjury for failure to truthfully testify that he received $1,000 (equivalent to nearly $13,040 in 2024) for the Sugar Bowl from Jack West. His case resulted in a mistrial. Hirsch was permanently banned from both the NBA and minor league baseball as a first baseman once the discovery came to light.

The entire Kentucky team would be suspended from basketball play during the 1952–53 NCAA basketball season.

Sol Levy

NBA referee Sol Levy was suspended and later arrested for arranging the outcome for fixing six different NBA games in 1950. Levy's arrest led to a modification to the Wilson-Morritt Act of 1945 to include a provision for referees. Levy was later murdered for not upholding his part in rigging at least three more games.

New York American-Journal

The first newspaper to seriously investigate the scandal was the New York Journal-American, led by sports editor Max Kase. After hearing rumors of widespread corruption in the late 1940s, Kase assigned a crime reporter to obtain evidence of match fixing during the 1948–49 season. Kase later presented the Journal-American's evidence to Frank Hogan on January 10, 1951. Hogan asked Kase to delay the story, in order to wiretap and surveill individuals related to the case. Kase earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1952 for his investigative stories into the scandal.

New York City Police Department cover-up

Parallel to the arrests of college players, a report released by the Brooklyn Eagle in February 1951 revealed that the New York City Police Department suppressed around forty recordings of telephone conversations before, during, and after the 1949–50 season that detailed accounts of a substantial fix involving players from every major college in and around New York City. Further investigations revealed that bookie Harry Gross and his brother Frank Gross had engaged in widespread manipulation and bribery of city police. The Gross scandal eventually resulted in the resignation of Mayor William O'Dwyer, police commissioner William O'Brien, and various other officers who accepted bribes, as well as led to numerous police reforms.

Trials and sentencing

On October 27, 1951, Frank Hogan officially closed the investigation into the point-shaving scandal. In total, thirty-five players from seven colleges admitted to taking bribes between 1947 and 1950 to fix eighty-six games in seventeen states, with varying results and punishments being given out to each player at hand. All thirty-five players were permanently from the NBA, and some were banned from other professional sports leagues.

With the exception of the initial Manhattan College arrests, the trials were presided over by Judge of the Court of General Sessions Saul S. Streit.

During the trials, Mike Chianakas and Gene Melchiorre of Bradley revealed that they could take easy courses, such as individual gymnastics, elementary badminton, elements of tumbling, golf, boxing, and both social and square dancing in order to maintain easy academic credits and graduate on time. By early October, Chianakas, Melchiorre, and Bill Mann would plead guilty to a misdemeanor, while the rest of the Bradley players would find themselves acquitted in the case.

At sentencing, Judge Streit made scathing remarks on the roles of college officials and coaches and the corruption and commercialization of college athletics as a whole. When Streit sentenced the Bradley players on December 7, 1951, he vigorously castigated Bradley president David B. Owen, who had accompanied the team to all of their away games, blaming Owen and the university's booster club for openly giving money to players after games, paying for bogus jobs, and creating an atmosphere "inimical to sound educational practices". Streit's most damning remarks followed the sentencing of the Kentucky players on April 29, 1952. He issued a 63-page report including a litany of abuses against the university's basketball and football programs as "money-mad". He would also label the university athletic department in general "a highly systematized, professionalized, and commercialized enterprise" and "an acme of commercialization" with budgets comparable to professional sports franchises.

Eli Kukofsky died of a heart attack before the end of his trial, leading all charges against the Toledo players to be dropped.

Sherman White received one year in prison, while his teammates received suspended sentences. Questions regarding White's race have been raised with respect to his comparatively harsh sentence.

The following sentences or punishments that were given out by Judge Saul S. Streit, unless stated otherwise:

Role(s)	Name	Sentences/Punishments
Manhattan player	John Byrnes	by Judge James M. Barrett: three years of probation permanently banned from the NBA and other professional basketball leagues
	Henry "Hank" Poppe
Fixer	Cornelius Kelleher	by Judge James M. Barrett: one year of probation
	Benjamin Schwartzberg	by Judge James M. Barrett: one year in prison
	Irving Schwartzberg
NBA referee & accomplice of Eddie Gard	Sol Levy	three years in prison, reduced to a suspended sentence following appeal fired from his position as a referee from the NBA, if not permanently banned from the NBA and other basketball leagues altogether murdered, likely in retaliation by organized crime
CCNY player	Alvin Roth	six months in a workhouse, suspended for service in the United States Army permanently banned from the NBA
	Ed Roman	six months in prison, suspended for service in the United States Army permanently banned from the NBA
	Ed Warner	six months in prison at Rikers Island permanently banned from the NBA
	Herb Cohen	six months in prison, suspended for service in the United States Army permanently banned from the NBA
	Irwin Dambrot	suspended sentence for realizing the "enormity of his misstep" permanently banned from the NBA
	Norm Mager	suspended sentence permanently banned from the NBA
	Floyd Layne
NYU player	Harvey "Connie" Schaff	six month suspended sentence permanently banned from the NBA
Fixer	Salvatore Sollazzo	eight to sixteen years in a state prison (ultimately served twelve years)
Agent of Salvatore Sollazzo & Long Island player	Eddie Gard	up to three years in prison for two counts of conspiracy (ultimately served nine months) praised by ADA Vincent O'Connor for cooperation permanently banned from the NBA
Long Island player	Adolph "Dolph" Bigos	suspended sentence permanently banned from the NBA
	Leroy Smith
	Natie "Nat" Miller
	Richard "Dick" Feurtado
	Louis Lipman	suspended sentence due to previous military service permanently banned from the NBA
	Sherman White	one year in prison (served close to nine months at Rikers Island) permanently banned from the NBA
Toledo player	Jack Feeman	charges dropped following death of Eli Klukofsky permanently banned from the NBA
	Bob McDonald
	Carlos Muzi
	Bill Walker
Bradley player	Charles "Bud" Grover	acquitted permanently banned from the NBA
	Jim Kelly
	Fred Schlictman
	Bill Mann	pleaded guilty to misdemeanor for accepting bribes to shave points praised by ADA Vincent O'Connor for cooperation suspended sentence permanently banned from NBA
	Gene Melchiorre
	Aaron Preece
	Mike Chianakas
Fixer & Long Island player	Jackie Goldsmith	two-and-a-half to four years in prison for fixing games permanently banned from the NBA
Fixer	Eli "Kaye" Klukofsky	suffered a fatal heart attack while awaiting trial
Gambler	Nick Englisis	up to three years in prison
	Tony Englisis	six months in prison
	Joe Benintende	four to seven years in prison
Fixer	Jack West	two to three years in prison
Kentucky player	Dale Barnstable	suspended sentence indefinite probation permanently banned from the NBA barred from professional sports for three years
	Ralph Beard
	Alex Groza
	Walter Hirsch	not formally charged permanently banned from the NBA and minor league baseball
	Jim Line	acquitted permanently banned from the NBA
	Bill Spivey	barred from collegiate play on March 2, 1952 indicted for perjury case resulted in a mistrial and was subsequently dismissed permanently banned from the NBA sued the NBA and de facto commissioner Maurice Podoloff in 1960 for $800,000 (equivalent to nearly $8.5 million in 2024) before accepting a settlement of $10,000 (equivalent to $106,140 in 2024)
Columbia player	Jack Molinas	While he was never caught during the initial scandal period in 1951, he would be caught during his later years when playing professional basketball for the Fort Wayne Pistons (now Detroit Pistons) of the NBA. After he got caught gambling during the period before the 1954 NBA All-Star Game took place in January 1954, Molinas was permanently banned from the NBA as a late suspect connected to the scandal alongside him betting on games that he played for the Pistons. Years later, Molinas would be involved as a centerpiece figure in the 1961 NCAA men's basketball gambling scandal that involved 50 players from 27 colleges, including future Hall of Fame players Connie Hawkins and Roger Brown. He would later be given a 10 to 15 year sentence at the Attica Correctional Facility by Judge Joseph Sarafite in relation to the 1961 scandal, though he was ultimately paroled after five years spent in prison for that event.

Aftermath

Some Americans questioned why the scandal did not reach colleges or universities in Philadelphia or any Catholic institution (outside of Manhattan College). In his book Barney Polan's Game, Charley Rosen suggests that some players from St. John's University were also involved in match fixing. Hogan countered claims of pro-Catholic bias by stating that the main players and gamblers involved were apprehended and that further punishments would be given out in order to help prevent future corruption. Ultimately, the scandal did little to reduce corruption or bribery in college sports and involvement with gambling, and CCNY coach Nat Holman wrote in 1954 that gambling in college basketball was as rampant as ever and that the game would once again be tainted by scandal. In 1961, an even broader scandal resulted in the arrests of 37 students from 22 different colleges and implicated hundreds more.

The scandal had long-lasting effects for some of the individuals and programs involved, as well as college basketball itself.

• Sherman White was barred from college play only seventy-seven points short of the all-time college scoring record.
• Gene Melchiorre, who had been the first overall pick in the 1951 NBA draft, was barred for life.
• Bill Spivey sued the NBA and de facto commissioner Maurice Podoloff in 1960 for $800,000 (equivalent to nearly $8.5 million in 2024) before accepting a settlement of $10,000 (equivalent to $106,140 in 2024). Spivey was eventually able to technically play an NBA game on February 11, 1968, when he participated in an exhibition game organized in Baltimore between the Eastern Basketball League's Baltimore Bullets and the original Baltimore Bullets All-Star team of past ABL, BAA, and NBA talents.
• The Indianapolis Olympians folded in 1953 after Ralph Beard and Alex Groza were forced to sell their shares in the team.

Some figures involved in the scandal, such as Eddie Gard, would later play semi-professional basketball in the summer.

Kentucky

Kentucky cancelled one season of play following the university's involvement in the scandal and accusations of an overemphasis on athletics at the expense of academics. However, it was the only program that was not permanently hobbled by the scandal. The scandal forced Adolph Rupp to renege on plans to resign from coaching for health reasons. He continued working as a head coach until 1972, winning another NCAA championship in 1958. To date, Bradley is the only other affected school to have appeared in a final major media poll since 1951 (being the runner-up again in 1954), and NYU is the only other program to reach the Final Four since then. As of 2024, Manhattan College is the only New York program to still maintain good standing as a Division I NCAA program.

CCNY

Following the discovery of several other irregularities, CCNY deemphasized athletics entirely and eventually became a Division III program. In November 1952, the New York Board of Education's Committee on Intercollegiate Basketball made further revelations that ultimately led to the demise of the CCNY program, including fourteen fraudulent transcripts, an illegal recruiting mechanism in the Student Athletic Academic Council, and plans for a South American tour that would have paid players. Nat Holman and assistant Bobby Sand initially resigned from their positions before ultimately returning in 1954, for everything outside of bad judgment and Sand being demoted to other duties instead.

Long Island

Meanwhile, LIU fired basketball coach Clair Bee and shut down its entire athletic program from 1951 to 1957, with LIU Brooklyn competing separately as a Division II program. The school did not return to Division I sports properly until the 1980s. Beginning in July 2019, the LIU Post Pioneers merged with the long-standing LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds to form a new Division I program, reunifying the locations for the first time since their separation in 1951 to become the LIU Sharks.

New York University

Following a surprise Final Four appearance and at the subsequent 1961 scandal implicating New York University in the early 1960s, the Violets would disband their athletics programs for financial reasons in 1971, before reinstating them in 1983 as a Division III team.

Jack Molinas

In 1954, Jack Molinas of the Fort Wayne Pistons was suspended and later permanently banned for gambling by the NBA for betting on games involving his own team. He was ultimately linked back to the 1951 scandal by bets he had also placed on his then-college team, Columbia University, working alongside another gambler that had slipped through the cracks at the time. Molinas later became an associate of the Genovese crime family and a central player in the one of the most wide-reaching college basketball point-shaving scandals in 1961.

Legacy

Documentaries

Main article: City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal

In 1998, George Roy and Steven Hilliard Stern, Black Canyon Productions, and HBO Sports made a documentary film about the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal, City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal, that appeared on HBO. Initially, six of the surviving point-shavers of the time and Eddie Gard were discussed to have been involved in the documentary, but they would all back out, with most of them looking for financial compensation for participating in the documentary. However, Junius Kellogg and the now former Assistant District Attorney Vincent A.G. O'Connor would appear in the documentary, with archived footage of Frank Hogan also being shown as well.

The story is also detailed in The First Basket, a 2008 documentary covering the history of Jewish players in basketball.

In popular culture

• A 1951 movie, The Basketball Fix, was based on the scandal.
• Jay Neugeboren's 1966 novel Big Man is based on what happens to an All-American African American basketball star five years after he was caught in this scandal.
• The scandal is referenced in the second episode of the fifth season of the HBO series The Sopranos, "Rat Pack", first broadcast on March 14, 2004. After learning of the death of New York mob boss Carmine Lupertazzi, Junior Soprano confirms that Lupertazzi invented point shaving: "CCNY versus Kentucky, 1951. Nobody beat the spread. I bought a black Fleetwood."

See also

• List of people banned or suspended by the NBA
• William & Mary scandal of 1951, another college scandal going on around the same time
• 1950s quiz show scandals, a contemporaneous scandal and criminal case involving rigged television quiz shows
• 1961 NCAA University Division men's basketball gambling scandal

Further reading

• Cohen, Stanley (2000). The Game They Played: The True Story of the Point-Shaving Scandal That Destroyed One of College Basketball's Greatest Teams. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0786708215.
• Rosen, Charles (1978). Scandals of '51: How the Gamblers Almost Killed College Basketball. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 003040701X.
• Shapiro, Edward (2007). "The Shame of the City: CCNY Basketball, 1950–51". In Kugelmass, Jack (ed.). Jews, Sports, and the Rites of Citizenship. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp. 175–192. ISBN 978-0-252-07324-3.
• Figone, Albert (2012). Cheating the Spread: Gamblers, Point Shavers, and Game Fixers in College Football and Basketball. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252037283.
• Wilner, Barry & Rappoport, Ken (2014). Crazyball: Sports Scandals, Superstitions, and Sick Plays. Taylor Trade Publishing. pp. 53–60. ISBN 978-1589799127.

External links

• "Whereabouts Of The 1950 City College Of New York Team, NIT and NCAA Champs (Part I)". Lost Lettermen. March 11, 2010.
• Berkow, Ira (March 29, 1996). 1998 "Final Four: A Look Back; Scandal, the Unwanted Scar of Triumph". The New York Times.