History and Trivia: The City College Scandal

Sportslaw History: The City College Scandal

Point shaving by players in 1951 team was first of many

Betting on men's college basketball has become a pastime shared by many fans all across the country. Fans often engage in "pools" among their friends of co-workers, the odds set by point spreads. The favored team must win by the spread or else the person who bet on the underdog team wins -- even if that team loses the match.

On occasion, student players have been accused and caught taking money in return for "shaving points," winning a game by less than the favored amount stated on the spread. Unfortunately, this practice is not new. In the "good old days," point shaving went on, frequently with members of organized crime providing the money to the players.

In 1950, the men's team from the City College of New York won both the NIT and NCAA championships, the only team ever to accomplish that feat. The CCNY team represented the city it played in. Composed of neighborhood kids in a tuition-free institution which included sons of immigrations and grandsons of slaves, the hoopsters were the talk of the town. CCNY and other schools often played their games at Madison Square Garden. The NBA Knicks were forced out of the Garden to play at a local armory when CCNY and other college teams played.

According to a recent HBO documentary called "City Dump," gamblers saw the potential to make big money by bribing players on the favored team to miss a few baskets to make sure the team does not exceed the spread in their victory. These gamblers first contacted many of the players in summer resorts where many players worked, ostensively as waiters. (They really were playing pick-up basketball games to entertain the patrons.) Ultimately players at CCNY and other New York schools such as Long Island University and NYU were reached.

After a student from another school blew the whistle on the activity, the Manhattan District Attorney investigated and ultimately arrested a number of the CCNY students, along with those from LIU. As the documentary recounts, the players were hauled to the DA's office right from Penn Station after coming home from a game in Philadephia. In the days before Miranda warnings and heightened due process rights, the students could not call their parents nor could see an attorney before they put into separate rooms and made their confessions. A few of the players served short jail sentences. All were humiliated and brought shock to their schools and their fans.

Adolf Rupp, the noted coach of the University of Kentucky, a team that CCNY beat the year before in a 89-50 rout, remarked after the scandal that it was confined to "Jews and niggers" and New York. He added that gamblers couldn't touch his players with a 10-foot pole. That was before two his players were caught doing the same thing.

The CCNY scandal did not end the practice of taking money to shave points. In December, 1998 two former Arizona State players pleaded guilty to deliberately missing shots so gamblers could beat the point spread.