Hoop Crazy: The Lives of Clair Bee and Chip Hilton

CHAPTER 6: Defying Hitler; Losing to Luisetti

CHAPTER 6 Defying Hitler; Losing to Luisetti Long Island University’s undefeated 1935–36 basketball season launched Bee on a steadily ascending spiral that continued until 1951, but when the season began in December, those allegedly in the know were touting New York University as the best team in the New York metropolitan area and the East. The Violets stormed to a winning streak of twenty straight before losing back-to-back games to Georgetown and Temple, psychologically devastating defeats from which they never fully recovered.1 “Meanwhile, Long Island University had gone along quietly and almost unnoticed, winning game after game, taking both the hard ones and the easy ones in stride,” the New York Times observed in a year-ending retrospective piece.2 Eventually, Bee’s talented Blackbirds would finish 25-0, extending a winning streak that reached thirty-three by season ’s end. That season was the first that LIU was included on a regular basis in Ned Irish’s lucrative Madison Square 83 Garden doubleheaders, and thirteen thousand showed up late in the season to watch LIU handle a Rice team that averaged six feet five, giants by 1936 standards, 45–29. In the other game that evening, Manhattan slammed the nail into NYU’s coffin, 36–26.3 Arthur Daley led his next-day coverage with this: “Long Island University and New York University passed each other going in opposite directions in Madison Square Garden last night.The Blackbirds, whirling along toward an unbeaten year and the final Olympic basketball trials, routed Rice, co-champions of the Southwest Conference.”4 At this point, with two games left in the regular season, it was apparent that LIU would be the proverbial force to be reckoned with when the Olympic tryouts were staged in the Garden in early April.“Critics picked Long Island University, with Notre Dame, University of Washington, University of Kansas, University of Arkansas, University of Kentucky . . . as one of the favorites in the forthcoming tournament to select the team to represent the U.S. in next summer’s Olympic Games.”5 National championship tournaments for college teams did not exist in 1936. The NIT (National Invitation Tournament ) was two years away from inception, and the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) tournament would not follow suit until 1939. But basketball was to be included in the Berlin Olympic Games later that summer for the first time in Olympic history, and the American Olympic Basketball Committee, under the direction of J. Lyman Bingham, had plans in place for a nationwide qualifying tournament that would culminate with eight teams meeting for the final rounds to be played over three days in the Garden. Bingham’s plan called for five college teams, victors in regional tournaments; the top two teams from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) tournament; and the winner of the national YMCA tournament to advance to New York.6 That LIU would be more familiar with the Garden’s environment than any other team and that the players could stay at home rather than in a hotel were facts not lost on most commenta84 Bee at Long Island University tors.A Blackbird run to the championship game, while hardly a lock, seemed to be at least a good possibility. The Boycott Debate Grips New York As the college season neared a conclusion, Bingham’s committee sent invitations to one hundred college teams with winning records. LIU, naturally, was among the chosen. Bee’s Blackbirds were scheduled to play in the qualifying tournament of a combined District 1 and 2, an area comprising the Northeast and the Middle Atlantic states. As was the case with the tryout finals, the District 1 tournament was slated to be played in Madison Square Garden.7 Thirty-nine of the invited one hundred teams accepted the invitation to compete, and they were spread over ten districts throughout the country. District 3, which was the Southeast, saw a number of strong teams decline the invitation; for many of those schools, spring football practice took precedence over attempting to qualify basketball players for the Olympics. For others, travel expenses were an impediment, and Notre Dame, in the post-Rockne era, declined because it did not want its students to miss too many classes.8 In New York City, NYU, CCNY, and LIU all declined to participate. Their reason for deciding against participation had nothing to do with expenses or spring football...