In 1951, allegations of point-shaving and match fixing in college basketball revealed widespread bribery and corruption involving major colleges and universities in and around New York City, particularly at Madison Square Garden. While the public scandal officially involved at least seven American colleges and universities (with one university having a player retroactively participating in the event during this time after initially being missed during the original investigation period),Goldstein, Joe, "Explosion: 1951 scandals threaten college hoops" - ESPN - November 19, 2003 the scandal has been most closely associated with the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers, which won both the 1950 NCAA basketball tournament and 1950 National Invitation Tournament and had a number of players implicated in point shaving and match fixing.Goldstein, Joe. "Explosion II: The Molinas period" - ESPN - November 19, 2003
The initial scandal centered on New York City area colleges and universities: CCNY, Manhattan College, New York University and Long Island University, before spreading farther out west to the University of Toledo, Bradley University, and 1951 NCAA champion University of Kentucky. Players in California (specifically in Southern California and San Francisco), Oregon, Colorado, Georgetown, and the Ivy League also met up with gamblers, though only one player from those areas would ultimately accept any of their offers. CCNY was eventually banned from playing at Madison Square Garden, although both head coach Nat Holman and assistant coach Bobby Sand were cleared of any wrongdoing themselves.Nat Holman: The Man, His Legacy and CCNY. "The 1951 Basketball Scandal" - The City College Library - City College of New YorkConrad, Mark. "Sportslaw History: The City College Scandal" - Mark's Sportslaw News Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan led the prosecution of dozens of gamblers and players for attempted bribery and match fixing, including thirty-five players (some of whom had played professionally, including at the NBA), a disgraced NBA referee, and multiple members of organized crime. Previous investigations related to the scandal also revealed widespread bribery of police and corruption within the New York City Police Department, which led to the resignations of Mayor William O'Dwyer and Police Commissioner William O'Brien alongside multiple other police officers who accepted bribes.
The scandal itself compromised the integrity of college basketball and threatened its very existence at the time.
Background Early match fixing attempts The earliest reported attempt at fixing a college basketball match occurred on January 21, 1927, when Wabash College athletic director Harry Scholler reported that a professional gambler attempted to bribe their star player, Benjamin "Benny" Devol, before their game against Franklin College of Indianapolis. However, Devol rejected the offer and finished the game with more points than the entire Franklin College team in Wabash College's 47–32 win. Another early attempt occurred in early March 1931, when the Brooklyn Eagle reported St. John's University star Max Posnack was offered $3,000 (equivalent to $ in and more than twice the average annual income for a U.S. worker at the time) to rig a game against Manhattan College at Madison Square Garden. No further match fixing attempts were reported in college basketball until the 1940s, partially because any players seeking to fix games would rarely memorialize their gambling activities and partially because illegal activity was intentionally ignored in hopes that the sport's gambling problem would disappear on its own accord.
By 1944, illegal bookmakers were common in the United States. Many started out as bootleggers and expanded into gambling and prostitution rings following the end of Prohibition and the start of the Great Depression. Bookmakers often cooperated with law enforcement to report attempted bribery in order to develop a reputation for honesty dealing with bettors, seek political protection, and avoid losing a rigged bet. Despite these efforts, gambling and match fixing became more widespread and serious within college basketball. In January 1945, Arthur Daley of The New York Times heard rumors of college basketball games being thrown for around 15 years, with him even recalling certain games that had the final results being questioned at the time.
On the day before the 1944 NCAA championship, a gambler reportedly approached University of Utah head coach Vadal Peterson and asked how much would it take for Utah to lose to Dartmouth College. Peterson responded with a quick right punch to the gambler in question. Utah would later win the championship game in overtime that year. In October 1944, University of Kansas coach Phog Allen warned of a major gambling incident "that would stink to high heaven", citing an earlier incident where two Philadelphia Textile Institute players agreed to rig a game for $1,000 (equivalent to $ in ), though they ultimately did not follow through with the event.
Following the conclusion of World War II, football became the biggest sport for colleges and universities, but basketball became a popular alternative revenue stream, particularly for schools, given its more modest operating costs and potentially greater return on expenses, especially considering the potential for one great recruit to carry his team to success and celebrity status. Newspapers and magazines began covering the sport in syndicated columns, with writers depending on coaches and athletic administrations to provide stories. This media environment rarely led to stories being critical of college programs, including moments that felt like fixing was going on within the games at hand, with the rare stories in question that were critical noting a select few teams like the Long Island Blackbirds that felt like they were routinely working with gamblers or that they had betting suspended on them due to "unusual money" coming in too often on the Long Island team in particular. Regardless, following the 1945 Brooklyn College scandal, things with college basketball and gambling were considered relatively calm up until 1948.
1945 Brooklyn College scandal and Wilson-Moritt Act Prior to the CCNY scandal, the most infamous case of match fixing in college basketball occurred on January 29, 1945, when five Brooklyn College players (Bernard Barnett, Jerome Green, Robert Leder, Larry Pearlstein, and Stanley Simon) were arrested and confessed to accepting $1,000 each from multiple gamblers with promises of an extra $2,000 (equivalent to over $34,900 in 2024) included to throw their scheduled game against the Municipal University of Akron at the Boston Garden alongside a later game against St. Francis College at Madison Square Garden. Interestingly enough, one other individual that would mistakenly be named as an involved individual in this Brooklyn College scandal in at least one major resource, David Budin, would later be involved in a different NCAA gambling scandal many years later through the 1961 NCAA University Division men's basketball gambling scandal., p. 40 Regardless of the actual individuals involved, though, the revelation of the scandal at hand would lead to Akron and Brooklyn cancelling their planned match that was presumed to be held for later that day altogether.
The "Brooklyn Five" scandal came to light when two detectives noticed Barnett and Pearlstein entering the home of Henry Rosen, a suspected fence for teenage garment thieves. On following the two players, the detectives saw them enter to gambler Harvey Stemmer's house, leading to the players' arrest and expulsion from the college. One of the five players involved questioned why the Brooklyn players were expelled, especially since he claimed that every college in the city was fixing games. Both Rosen and Stemmer would later be indicted for their involvement alongside a third individual referred to only as "Danny"; while in prison, Stemmer was found to be involved in bribing two New York Giants players (quarterback Frank Filchock and running back Merle Hapes) ahead of the 1946 NFL Championship Game. The two Giants players in question would later be given lifetime bans from the NFL following that event, though their lifetime bans would later be repealed in the early 1950s.
During the scandal, mayor Fiorello La Guardia revealed that Pearlstein had not attended Brooklyn College directly while he was playing for the team. In response, Manhattan assemblyman William J. A. Glancy raised the possibility that "dummy students", who joined teams despite not meeting admission and scholastic requirements, could be planted by gamblers. Jack Laub of CCNY was raised as one of those students in question. The Brooklyn Five scandal led the New York State Legislature to pass the 1945 Wilson-Moritt Bill on April 9, which made it a felony to extend or accept a bribe to throw a game in a wide number of amateur sports, including basketball.
The NCAA addressed concerns following the 1945 scandal by creating the Principles for the Conduct of Intercollegiate Athletics, known colloquially as the "Sanity Code". The "Sanity Code" was made in an early attempt to help get rid of any early point-shaving or other gambling-related problems with the NCAA, especially in the college basketball scene, but it would ultimately prove to be a failure in the end. By the end of the 1940s, according to author Stanley Cohen, even children and casual spectators began to suspect corruption was rampant in college basketball.
Origins During the 1944–45 season, City College of New York player Lenny Hassman, who was reported to be a "dumper", attempted to bribe star player Paul Schmones, but Schmones reported the offer to head coach Nat Holman, who immediately removed Hassman from the team and reported the attempt to Frank S. Lloyd, the university's hygiene chairman. However, neither Holman nor Lloyd took further action on this situation or made the incident public following Hassman's removal from the team. During the same season, CCNY player William Levine was approached by gamblers before a game against the University of Syracuse, but Levine declined their offers to rig games. On January 14, 1948, Leonard Cohen of the New York Post reported another attempt to fix a game between CCNY and the University of Syracuse at the Madison Square Garden, but the bettors favoring Syracuse lost $50,000 (equivalent to $651,815 in 2024) that night. CCNY athletic director Sam Winograd admitted that he had received a telegram warning him of the fix, but had not commented to the press on it.
At a sportswriters' meeting in 1948, Holman claimed another scandal similar to the Brooklyn Five would break out during the season. Holman's claim was suggested to have occurred before the January 14, 1948 game against Syracuse took place. Later in the year, Maude Stewart, the director of information services for the New York Board of Education, wrote to CCNY president Harry N. Wright regarding gambling influences at Madison Square Garden. Wright considered Stewart's suggestions unacceptable, given the results of the 1945 Brooklyn College scandal.
The apex of the cheating occurred on a double-header night at the Madison Square Garden on December 28, 1950. Salvatore T. Sollazzo, a jeweler-turned-gambler, attempted to fix games by both CCNY and Long Island against the underdogs at the University of Arizona and Western Kentucky University, respectively. CCNY, who were favored by six points, attempted to win by less than that, but ultimately lost to Arizona by a meager 41–38 final. Meanwhile, Long Island actually double-crossed Sollazzo by winning their match over Western Kentucky by only 7 points, with Western Kentucky scoring 13 unanswered points in the final two minutes of the game. Spectators left both games furious, with some of them claiming the games felt like "slot machines on wheels".
Investigations and arrests