Paul Vincent "Polly" Birch (January 4, 1910 – June 5, 1982) was an American basketball player and coach.
Life and career A native of Pennsylvania, Birch attended Homestead High School where he played on the school's basketball team. He entered Duquesne University where he was a member of Duquesne Dukes men's basketball] team from 1931-1934. He was given All-America honors while he was there. From 1935-1938 he played for the New York Celtics and in 1938-1939 he was committed to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He then left professional ball for two years to coach the basketball team at his alma mater, Homestead High School.
Birch subsequently played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Fort Wayne Pistons, and Youngstown Bears during the 1940s. He coached the now-defunct Pittsburgh Ironmen of the Basketball Association of America (a forerunner of the National Basketball Association (NBA)) in 1946, and the NBA's Fort Wayne Pistons from 1951 through 1954. Birch had played for the Pistons during the early 1940s, and the Youngstown Bears of the NBL.Baseball, Basketball, Hockey and Football Online Statistics Databases - Baseball History, Basketball History, Hockey History, Football History, MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL
He worked as a coach for the Woodland Hills School District as the coach of Rankin High School, leading the school to a state championship win in 1973. Career statistics
†Denotes seasons in which Cable's team won an NBL championship*NBL leader
NBL Source
Regular season Year Team GP FGM FTM PTS PPG 1938–39† Pittsburgh 22 85 51 221 10.0 1941–42 Fort Wayne Z.P. 8 16 10 42 5.3 1942–43 Fort Wayne Z.P. 23* 29 20 78 3.4 1943–44† Fort Wayne Z.P. 22* 27 17 71 3.2 1944–45† Fort Wayne Z.P. 28 29 7 65 2.3 1945–46 Youngstown 31 35 26 96 3.1Career 134 221 131 573 4.3
Playoffs Year Team GP FGM FTM PTS PPG 1942 Fort Wayne Z.P. 6 15 7 37 6.2 1943 Fort Wayne Z.P. 6 3 2 8 1.3 1944† Fort Wayne Z.P. 5 7 2 16 3.2 1945† Fort Wayne Z.P. 3 2 3 7 2.3Career 20 27 14 68 3.4
Head coaching record
BAA/NBA Source
| align="left" |Pittsburgh | align="left" | |60||15||45||.250|| align="center" |5th in Western||—||—||—||— | align="center" | Missed playoffs |- | align="left" |Fort Wayne | align="left" | |66||29||37||.439|| align="center" |4th in Western||2||0||2||.000 | align="center" |Lost in Division semifinals
| align="left" |Fort Wayne | align="left" | |69||36||33||.522|| align="center" |3rd in Western||8||4||4||.500 | align="center" |Lost in Division finals
| align="left" |Fort Wayne | align="left" | |72||40||32||.556|| align="center" |3rd in Western||4||0||4||.000 | align="center" |Lost in Division round-robin |-class="sortbottom" | align="center" colspan="2"|Career |267||120||147|||| ||14||4||10||||
References
External links BasketballReference.com: Paul Birch