The City Game: Marking 75 Years of a Black-Jewish Basketball Championship – and Scandal
Hosted By: The New York Jewish Week, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
Join the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the New York Jewish Week for a discussion on the 75th anniversary of one of the most remarkable stories in sports history.
The unlikeliest of champions, the 1949–50 City College Beavers were extraordinary by every measure. City College was a tuition-free, merit-based college in Harlem known far more for its intellectual achievements and political radicalism than its athletic prowess. Only two years after Jackie Robinson broke the Major League Baseball color barrier — and at a time when the National Basketball Association was still segregated — every single member of the Beavers was either Jewish or African American.
This unheralded group of city kids would stun the basketball world by becoming the only team in history to win the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. The team, though, proved to be extraordinary in another way: During the following season, all of the team’s starting five were arrested by New York City detectives, charged with conspiring with gamblers to shave points. Almost overnight these beloved heroes turned into fallen idols.
Matthew Goodman, author of “The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team,” joins JTA’s sports reporter Jacob Gurvis to discuss the complicated and remarkable episode in Black and Jewish sports history, 75 years later.
