Even in ‘30s, Recruiting Game Had One Rule: Win

Fifty years ago, before TV turned college basketball into a big business, one would guess that recruiting was conducted on a more refined level.

Not always. George Pasero of the Portland Oregonian, quoting from the book “Shooting Ducks,” by former Oregon Coach Howard Hobson, reveals how Hobson slickered Oregon State Coach Slats Gill in the battle to land 6-8 center Sam Wintermute from Portland.

Wintermute agreed to visit Eugene, but when Hobson went to pick him up in Portland, the youngster had gone to the dentist and Gill was in the waiting room. When Wintermute emerged, Gill took him to the apartment of Wintermute’s mother. Hobson followed and waited outside.

When Wintermute emerged an hour later, he told Hobson he had decided to go to Oregon State. Hobson managed to talk him out of it, however. Wintermute wanted to go back to the apartment and tell Gill he had changed his mind, but Hobson said, “No, you wait here and I’ll tell Mr. Gill.”

Wrote Hobson: “That’s the last time Gill saw Wintermute until he was safely enrolled at Oregon. It took me seven trips from Portland to Eugene the following week to take Wintermute back for dental appointments and to move his mother to Eugene. Jobs had been arranged for both her and her son.”

Four years later, in 1938-39, the Oregon Ducks, with Wintermute at center, defeated Ohio State, 46-33, in the championship game of the first NCAA tournament.

Add Recruiting: In 1937-38, USC set a record which can’t be broken when it started a team made up totally of Indiana high school products. The team had Ralph Vaughn and Clem Ruh at forwards, Carl Anderson at center and Bill Remsen and Hal Dornsife at guards.

The transplanted Hoosiers turned out to be no match for Hank Luisetti and the Stanford Indians, who won the conference title. Luisetti, the first of the one-hand shooters and the first man to score 50 points in a game, was a product of San Francisco’s Galileo High, the same school that gave baseball Joe DiMaggio and later gave football O.J. Simpson.

When former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta got married in Las Vegas last week, the best man was Sugar Ray Robinson.

LaMotta told Ira Berkow of the New York Times: “I fought Sugar Ray six times. I only beat him once. This is my sixth marriage, and I ain’t won one yet. So I figure I’m due.”

Asked about his first marriage, he said his wife left him.

Why?

“Because I clashed with the drapes.”

When New Jersey Generals running back Herschel Walker gained 164 yards in 27 carries against the Memphis Showboats, it was his third straight game over 100 yards.

Said Coach Walt Michaels, a former linebacker for the Cleveland Browns: “I haven’t seen three games like that in a long time. I was fortunate to be around Jim Brown, and I think Herschel’s running is more punishing than Jim Brown’s. Somebody is taking a beating out there, and it’s not Herschel.”

Said Memphis strong safety Barney Bussey: “What can I say about him. He was absolutely awesome. I played against him in a high school all-star game, and he’s even better than I thought he was. I had some good shots at him but he always broke loose. The guy’s a runaway freight train, and I don’t know of another back who’s even close to being in his class.”

Quotebook

Ted Giannoulas, the San Diego Chicken, on why he’s turned down all film offers: “They’ve offered only a poultry sum.”