Hoop Crazy: The Lives of Clair Bee and Chip Hilton

Images

Grafton, West Virginia, in Clair Bee’s boyhood was a gritty, bustling railroad town built on steeply pitched hills with the Tygart River slicing through it. Courtesy of Rich Bord, Grafton, WV. Twenty-three-year-old team captain Clair “Beezer” Bee, second from left, with his 1920 Grafton High School basketball mates and coach Jasper Colebank. Courtesy of Joyce M. Freeman, Taylor County Public Library, Grafton, WV. The Fairgrounds Baseball Field in Grafton, West Virginia, the field Chip Hilton and his Colts’ players rehabilitate in Clair Bee’s 1966 Hungry Hurler. Courtesy of Rich Bord, Grafton, WV. Clair Bee in his early thirties as director of athletics, coach, and business professor at Rider College. Courtesy of Moore Library Special Collections and University Archives, Rider University. The 1938–39 Long Island University basketball team that won the second National Invitation Tournament ever held by beating previously undefeated Loyola University of Chicago and its six feet nine shotblocking star Mike Novak. Team captain Art Hillhouse is holding the ball; Dolly King is seated to his right; Clair Bee is to the far right in the second row. Courtesy of Tristram W. Metcalfe III. Dolly King, who starred in three sports at Long Island University, was a huge favorite of the sports staff and readers of the Amsterdam News. Courtesy of Tristram W. Metcalfe III. At the end of the 1938 season, Clair Bee became a pioneer in scheduling games against all-black colleges. The Long Island University versus Virginia Union game was played at the Renaissance Casino in Harlem. All the proceeds went to the New York Urban League. Courtesy of Tristram W. Metcalfe III. On Thanksgiving Day 1939, Dolly King was featured in a cover drawing for the game program when Long Island University’s football team played Catholic University. King played the entire game on both offense and defense and then played most of LIU’s basketball game against the alumni later that evening. Courtesy of Tristram W. Metcalfe III. The 1941 National Invitation Tournament champions celebrate their win in the final over Ohio University. Ossie Schectman is holding the trophy, while Sy Lobello, who was killed in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, is shaking Clair Bee’s hand. Courtesy of Tristram W. Metcalfe III. Clair Bee at his desk at Long Island University in a fleeting moment in 1942 between his duties as basketball coach, director of athletics, and accounting professor . The 1942 season was Bee’s last at the university before he volunteered for service in the Merchant Marine during World War II. Courtesy of LIU Athletics. The 1950 Blackbird squad in a Madison Square Garden locker room celebrating a win and coach Clair Bee’s fiftieth birthday, which in reality was his fifty-fourth. To Bee’s right, holding the cake, is Eddie Gard. Vince “Jim” D’Agostino is to Gard’s right, with assistant coach Saverio J. Picariello and LeRoy Smith next in that row. Sherman White is in the second row, to Bee’s left. Courtesy of Maria D’Agostino Crawford. Tom Murtha of the 1950–51 Long Island University team offers a basketball to their team mascot, Clair F. “Bobo” Bee, who was no more than two years old at the time. Courtesy of Tristram W. Metcalfe III. Clair Bee uses a play board to reinforce the mental aspects of the game for his Blackbird squad. Courtesy of LIU Athletics. Big Ray Felix played in the final year of Long Island University basketball under Clair Bee in 1951, and he later became the National Basketball Association Rookie of the Year when Bee coached the Baltimore Bullets in the 1953–54 season. Courtesy of Tristram W. Metcalfe III. Clair Bee admires the trophies his teams won during his twenty-year career as coach at Long Island University. Courtesy of LIU Athletics. Clair Bee (far left) keeps the players at the All-America Camp at Kutsher’s laughing as he is about to pass to camp guest Wilt Chamberlain (far right), who is “guarded” by Saverio “Pic” Picariello, giving away at least three feet of height to the man who was a friend...