Bob Douglas

Robert L. "Smilin 'Bob" Douglas (born November 4, 1882 in St. Kitts , British West Indies , † July 16, 1979 in New York City at the age of 96 years and 254 days) was a West Indian sports manager and entrepreneur in the United States . He founded the professional African-American basketball team of the New York Renaissance . Douglas was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on April 20, 1972 as a " Contributor " .

biography

Douglas immigrated to New York City in 1902. He had been a swimmer at St. Kitts and played cricket and soccer . In 1905 he saw his first basketball game in Midtown Manhattan and was thrilled. In 1908 he founded with George Abbott and J. Foster Phillips the Spartan Field Club , an amateur club for black youth, the association football , cricket, athletics , basketball and later baseball offered. He himself played from 1910 for the Spartan Braves , the club's basketball team, until he became the club's manager in 1918.

Professional basketball, which began before the turn of the century, was initially criticized in black and white amateur circles. Edwin Bancroft Henderson , the "grandfather of black basketball", for example, saw the game not only as an instrument for the moral strengthening of the African-American community, but also pursued the idealistic goal of African Americans, who had a high mortality rate due to the cramped living conditions to strengthen health. Nevertheless, in the second decade of the 20th century, the economic potential of the basketball game could not be concealed and African-American teams emerged which used to pay their members for games. These teams included Major Aloysius Harts New York All Stars , Will Anthony Maddens New York Incorporators , as well as Cumberland Posey's Monticello Athletic Association and Loendi Big Five . These early professional teams soon formed an alliance with African-American music and culture and often played in dance halls such as the Manhattan Casino or the Loendi Social & Literary Club.

In 1921, two Spartan FC baseball players were convicted of accepting cash benefits in contravention of the amateur statutes. Although Douglas fired both from the club, clubs refused to play against Spartan FC on several occasions. When Douglas received no support from the association, he decided, also under the impression of the black Commonwealth Big Five founded by the white McMahon brothers in 1922, to fully professionalize the Spartan Braves and to equip them with seasonal contracts and to sign their best players after the dissolution of the Commonwealth Five .

New York Renaissance

The Renaissance Ballroom one year before its demolition in 2015, the Renaissance Theater can be seen on the right edge of the picture, the Abyssinian Baptist Church on the left

As early as the spring of 1923, there had to be negotiations between Douglas and William Roach, the owner of the $ 175,000 Renaissance Ballroom , a well-known (but not shown there) on the corner of 7th Avenue and 138th from the fourth season of the TV series Boardwalk Empire Street located dance hall and casino in the New York district of Harlem have come. In return for game and training facilities, he adopted the name New York Renaissance. He received support in building his team from another West Indian immigrant, Romeo Dougherty of the weekly New York Amsterdam News . The black press quickly took the Rens under their wing. For example, while Cumberland Posey's sporting professionalism was still criticized as ignoble by the Pittsburgh Courier , Bob Douglas was admired in Harlem for his sporting achievements and his solvency. This admiration soon became a mission for him and he saw his New York Rens as ambassadors for the "black cause". As a result, the Rens were extremely disciplined or almost hostile to pleasure in contrast to the Chicago Harlem Globetrotters , whose talent Douglas admired, while he despised their clowning.

The legendary friendship and rivalry with the New York Celtics began at the beginning of Renaissance history in 1925. In the course of a year, up to February 1926, there were seven games with a total of two victories for the Rens. By 1944 the Rens played 156 games against the Original Celtics and until the end there were bonuses for wins. Douglas always looked for tough competition for his Renaissance Five to edify the fans. He relied on fast breaks and passing play because the ball passed faster than the dribbled ball. The team quickly established themselves with this style of play, traveling to the Midwest for the first of many times in 1929.

In January 1933 Douglas became the manager of the Renaissance Ballroom and stayed at home from then on. Eric Illidge took on his role as local manager and Fats Jenkins became player coach . Two months later, a streak of 88 wins in 86 days against the Celtics in Philadelphia ended.

After winning the last Colored Basketball World Championship in 1925, a so-called mythical championship, the New York Renaissance won the first World Professional Basketball Tournament organized by the Chicago Herald American in March 1939 with a 34-25 final victory over the reigning National Basketball League champions the Oshkosh All-Stars . In the semifinals the Harlem Globetrotters were defeated 27-23.

Many of the Rens' players took jobs in the military or in national defense in the year before the American entry into the war, and Bob Douglas, whose word was as good as a contract, waived binding contracts because of possible conscripts. African-American players who were not subject to regular gaming operations and thus to transfer supervision began to compete for up to six professional and semi-professional teams at the same time. This included all the New York Rens, who competed extremely lucratively for the Washington Bears on Sundays . In 1943 it became apparent that the players at the World Professional Basketball Tournament wanted to play exclusively for the Bears. Bears and Rens were the exact same team, however, and Douglas withdrew the registration of the New York Renaissance. He believed the tournament organizers had encouraged Washington to "steal" his team. Douglas then made his influence felt and in the following years the players who had won the tournament sovereignly as Bears only competed for the New York Renaissance at the tournament.

Integration in the course of the war

In 1946/47 Dolly King and William "Pop" Gates were signed by two NBL teams, the Rochester Royals and the Buffalo Bisons . Douglas did not want to put obstacles in the way of his stars or integration and therefore gave his blessing. The forerunner of the NBL, the Midwest Basketball Conference , had been integrated and the NBL itself reintegrated in 1941. The Basketball Association of America (BAA), later the National Basketball Association (NBA), unlike the NBL, however, insisted on its anti-Negro -Rule, but at the same time used the attraction of teams like the Rens and the Globetrotters for double headers . Douglas allowed himself to be instrumentalized because he hoped that the BAA would open up in the long term. The founder of the New York Knickerbockers and managing director of Madison Square Gardens Ned Irish bitterly defended his New York basketball monopoly against black teams like the Rens or the Manhattan Nationals by putting pressure on numerous NBL teams who had reached agreements with the BAA to to prevent games at New York venues. Nevertheless, he agreed to a double header with the Rens against the SPHAs and the Knickerbockers against the Providence Steamrollers at the beginning of the 1947/48 season . At the same time, Douglas was hoping for a BAA franchise for the New York Renaissance, but the majority of team owners voted against him. Former Celtics player Joe Lapchick wanted to make his stay in the BAA and as coach of the Knickerbockers dependent on a franchise for Douglas, but was appeased by him, as this promised longer-term benefit for the integration by Lapchick. But even when Earl Lloyd , Chuck Cooper , New York Ren Nathaniel Clifton and Dayton Ren Hank DeZonie (Harold Hunter also signed a contract) were supposed to integrate the NBA, the quota for African-American players remained until the 1960s.

On December 17, NBL President Ike Duffey offered the Rens to take over a disbanded NBL franchise. However, the Rens had to agree to a move to Dayton , Ohio and take over the table position as points (2-17) of the Detroit Vagabond Kings they replaced . In the end there were 16-43 wins, as the New York Rens continued to play in parallel. Although the NBL had been integrated since 1941, the Dayton Rens did not find a home hall in Dayton until the end and were never really accepted by the public. Two months after the end of the season, the NBL dissolved the contract with the last-placed Dayton Rens. Bob Douglas threw in the towel and on May 25, 1949 rented the Rens to Abe Saperstein as an opponent of two Globetrotters teams.

The following season the NBL and BAA merged to form the NBA - without the New York Renaissance. Although Douglas sent the Original Renaissance Five as a traveling group through the northeastern United States until the mid-1950s , the era of the Black Fives ended with the slow integration of the NBA.

The fall of the racial barrier, which Bob Douglas had worked towards his life, was ultimately responsible for the fall of the New York Renaissance.

See also

• List of members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Web links

• Robert Douglas in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame On: Hoophall website; Springfield, MA, 2018. Retrieved February 8, 2018 (in English).

Individual evidence

1. ^ NN: New York Renaissance ('Rens'). On: Black Fives Foundation website; Washington, DC, year unknown. Retrieved February 25, 2018 (in English).
2. ^ NN: Early Racial Inclusion Puts Wisconsin On Pro Basketball Map. On: Black Fives Foundation website; Washington, DC, February 19, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2018 (in English).
3. ^ Ron Thomas: They cleared the Lane. From: They cleared the Lane. The NBA's Black Pioneers. Lincoln / London 2001: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803245280 , quoted from: HoopsHype — Website; May 4, 2004. Retrieved in archived form on February 24, 2018.
4. ^ Susan J. Bayl: Smilin 'Bob Douglas and the Renaissance Big Five in: Separate Games. African American Sport behind the Walls of Segregation. edited by David K. Wiggins and Ryan A. Swanson. Fayetteville, 2016: The University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 978-1-68226-017-3 (pages 19-36, in English).