Today, professional basketball teams are located in “major market” cities, such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
But in the late 1930s, the early days of what would become the National Basketball Association (NBA), professional basketball teams could be found in much smaller venues, such as Whiting, Indiana; Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Akron, Ohio, and Kankakee.
Founded in 1935 as the Midwest Basketball Conference, the professional basketball organization was renamed in 1937 as the National Basketball League to appeal to a wider audience. In 1949, the National Basketball League merged with a rival league, the Basketball Association of America, to form the NBA.
The National Basketball League (NBL) consisted of 13 teams, divided into Eastern and Western conferences. The Kankakee Gallagher Trojans played in the Western conference, which included teams from Whiting, Fort Wayne, and Indianapolis, Indiana; Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, and Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Teams in the NBL created their own schedules, competing against both league and non-league teams, but were required to play at least 12 games against league opponents. Team names represented a variety of sponsors, including industrial firms (the Fort Wayne General Electrics), individual businessmen (the Whiting Ciesar All-Americans, owned by auto dealer Ed Ciesar), and even an educational institution (the Kankakee Gallagher Business School Trojans).
The Kankakee team’s professional basketball debut on its home court, the Kankakee Armory, would take place on Dec. 1, 1937.
“Organized basketball for Kankakee in the future is assured through the acquisition of a franchise in the National league by the Gallagher School Trojans, a team which has met with phenomenal progress during the last few years,” reported the Kankakee Daily Republican-News. “Tonight at 8:30 o’clock when the Trojans march out on the hardwood of the armory it will be to keep pace with the fastest company in basketball.”
The Trojans’ opponent that evening was the Whiting Ciesar All-Americans, which boasted a lineup that included five players who had won All-American honors in their college days. The Gallagher roster, on the other hand, was populated mostly with local high school and college talent.
<strong>A LOCAL LINEUP</strong>
Player/coach Don Betourne (a 1937 St. Viator College grad) and Fred Grafft, a 1933 graduate of Gallagher, were at the forwards, and six-foot-five-inch Johnny Hoekstra, of St. Anne, occupied the center spot. The Trojan guards were “Tarzan” Woltzen from Gridley, Illinois, and Louis Sauer of Herscher, who had played for two years at Valparaiso University.
Regarding the Ciesars, Betourne told the newspaper that “all the teams in the National league are tough, but from the viewpoint of talent, the Ciesars will probably be the greatest stumbling block in his team’s path for a championship. Asked why he didn’t pick on a weaker team to inaugurate the home season, Betourne explained there were no weak teams to choose from.”
The Whiting Ciesar team lived up to its billing, defeating the Trojans by a 50-32 margin. The Kankakee team had come out fighting, leading 13-12 at the end of the first quarter, and posting a 23-23 tie at the half. The Trojans scored only two points in the third quarter, however, while the visiting team added 15. Fourth quarter point production for the Whiting team was 12 points to Kankakee’s 7, resulting in the 50-32 final score.
Before the month of December was out, the Trojans would suffer two more home-court losses to tough league opponents. On Dec. 8, they faced the General Electric team from Fort Wayne, Indiana, losing by a score of 38-19. The loss was particularly painful for Don Betourne, since the Fort Wayne team was led by player/coach Byron “Boob” Evard, a fellow St. Viator alumnus.
Three days before Christmas, on Dec. 22, the Gallagher team discovered a lump of coal in its stocking, as they encountered the Akron, Ohio, Goodyear Regulars. The Regulars, reigning league champions, poured in points for a lopsided 45-26 victory. “The game presented little of interest from the standpoint of competitiveness,” commented the Republican-News.
<strong>A NEW YEAR</strong>
The New Year brought another league loss (a 72-42 defeat on Jan. 4 at the hands of the Oshkosh All-Stars), but also a pair of wins in non-league play. The Trojans defeated Morris, Illinois, 47-40, and Watseka, Illinois, 36-20.
Finally, on Jan. 18, 1938, the Gallagher five recorded its first league victory. Playing on the road at Dover, Ohio, the Trojans defeated the host team by a score of 57-52.
“Close from the outset, Gallagher displayed a powerful attack and an ability to protect its lead in the waning minutes of the thrilling battle,” reported the Republican-News.
Two days later, the team notched its second league win with a 40-32 road victory over Norwalk, Ohio.
Don Betourne and his Trojans returned to their home court on Jan. 25 to face an unusual rival — a team from Hawaii that had been barnstorming across the United States playing exhibition games.
“This is the smallest team in the world,” noted the Republican-News, “its players ranging from 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet six inches, but it no doubt is also the fastest team in the world.”
On the preceding year’s tour, the Hawaiians won 43 games while losing only 4. The contest turned out to be a lopsided 72-52 win for Kankakee, due to an accident that had seriously reduced the roster of the Hawaiian team.
“The Hawaiian all-stars had only five players here against Gallagher on Tuesday night,” explained Republican-News sports columnist Orren Allain, “because several members of the classy club are in a Danville hospital as a result of a train accident in which the entire aggregation narrowly escaped death several weeks ago.”
On Feb. 5, the Gallagher Trojans recorded their third league victory. The Republican-News breathlessly reported the good tidings: “Gallagher business college basketball team, having been brushed about ruthlessly for several months by members of the National basketball league, rose mightily in the armory Saturday night to defeat Dayton, O., a circuit foe, 46 to 44, in a thrilling overtime game.”
<strong>END OF THE SEASON</strong>
The National Basketball League’s 1937-38 regular season would end in mid-February, with Kankakee occupying last place in the Western Conference with a record of three wins and eleven losses. Soon afterward, speculation arose on whether the Trojans would compete in the league’s 1938-39 season.
Columnist Orren Allain reported, on Feb. 22, “E.N. Black, athletic director of Gallagher business college, says the story published elsewhere last week that Gallagher was thinking of giving up basketball next year was not only false, but ridiculous. Gallagher … will be in the National league next year ‘with a much stronger squad than represented us this season.’”
However, the 1938-39 basketball season opened with no mention in the newspaper sports pages of the Trojans competing in the professional league. A Dec. 3, 1938, report noted that “Betourne [player/coach Don Betourne] has a powerful team this year, six regulars from last year’s squad which is well seasoned by the hard knocks received in the national league.”
The story continued with the comment that Betourne had assembled a “pretentious schedule” for the Gallagher team. The schedule included semi-pro teams such as the New York Shamrocks and several Midwestern colleges and universities, in addition to local community teams such as the Manteno Indees.
Gallagher Business School’s basketball tradition, dating back to 1903, possibly ended during World War II — a random survey of Republican-News sports pages during the war years revealed no mention of the school team.
One of the Gallagher Trojans’ opponents in the National Basketball League, the Whiting Ciesar All-Americans, had five All-American players on its roster. One of those five men became a legendary college basketball coach. Who was he?
Answer: John Wooden, who coached the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Bruins from 1948 to 1975. Known as the “Wizard of Westwood,” Wooden coached the Bruins to 10 NCAA national championships in a 12-year period.