Full Description
The Eastern Professional Basketball League (1946-78) was fast and physical, often played in tiny, smoke-filled gyms across the northeast and featuring the best players who just couldn't make the NBA—many because of unofficial quotas on Black players, some because of scandals, and others because they weren't quite good enough in the years when the NBA had less than 100 players.
In Boxed out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League, Syl Sobel and Jay Rosenstein tell the fascinating story of a league that was a pro basketball institution for over 30 years, showcasing top players from around the country. During the early years of professional basketball, the Eastern League was the next-best professional league in the world after the NBA. It was home to big-name players such as Sherman White, Jack Molinas, and Bill Spivey, who were implicated in college gambling scandals in the 1950s and were barred from the NBA, and top Black players such as Hal "King" Lear, Julius McCoy, and Wally Choice, who could not make the NBA into the early 1960s due to unwritten team quotas on African-American players.
Featuring interviews with some 40 former Eastern League coaches, referees, fans, and players—including Syracuse University coach Jim Boeheim, former Temple University coach John Chaney, former Detroit Pistons player and coach Ray Scott, former NBA coach and ESPN analyst Hubie Brown, and former NBA player and coach Bob Weiss—this book provides an intimate, first-hand account of small-town professional basketball at its best.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter I - Welcome to the Eastern League: A Brief History and the Influences that Shaped It
Chapter II - Stars of the Early Years (1946-53)
Chapter III - The Fixers . . . and One Frustrated Superstar
Chapter IV -Blackballed: Race, the NBA, and the Rise of the Eastern League
Chapter V - The Glory Years (1954-67): The Second-Best League Around
Chapter VI - Stars of the Glory Years (1954-67)
Chapter VII - Tough Guys, Characters, and Urban Legends
Chapter VIII - Life in the Eastern League
Chapter IX - The Towns, the Gyms, the Fans: Big-Time Basketball on a Small Scale
Chapter X - The Impact of the ABA and the Beginning of the End
Chapter XI - Stars of the ABA Era and the Eastern League's Final Years (1967-78)
Chapter XII - The Coaches
Chapter XIII - The Refs
Chapter XIV - The CBA and the End of the Eastern League
Chapter XV - Legacy of the Eastern League
Chapter XVI - Epilogue: Life After the Eastern League
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors
