Don't Ever Mess Up
Title
Don't Ever Mess Up
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"Don’t ever mess up. Because if you do, that is all they will talk about when you are gone."
Date
2010-01-27
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Coverage
1945/2010
Identifier
Don't_ever_mess_up
Text
Don’t Ever Mess Up
Don’t ever mess up. Because if you do, that is all they will talk about when you are gone. Or at least that is what the headline will be in your obituary.
Case in point: New York Times January 23, 2010: “Irwin Dambrot, 81, Dies; Caught in Gambling Scandal.” Irwin went to CCNY with me. (So did 26,000 other students.) But Irwin was a great basketball player. In fact, he was the co-captain of the CCNY basketball team that won the NIT and NCAA championships in March 1950, something that no other college basketball team ever did. In fact, Irwin scored a game-high 23 points to give CCNY the win over Bradley in the NIT. Ten days later, CCNY played number one Bradley again, and Dambrot hit a basket, blocked a shot, and threw a long pass leading to another basket in the final minute, and another victory, 71-68. As Stanley Cohen writes in his book “The Game They Played” about the series (and the scandal): “Five street kids from the city of New York—three Jews and two blacks—were about to whale the shit out of middle America.”
Back to Irwin: He was named the NCAA tournament’s most valuable player, and CCNY coach Nat Holman called him “the greatest player I ever coached.” All this was in March 1950. In April 1950, Irwin was the Knicks first round choice in the NBA draft. He chose to go to Columbia dental school instead.
The 1949-1950 CCNY basketball team was the Cinderella team. The starting five consisted of one senior—Dambrot—and four sophomores—Warner, Roman, Layne and Roth. They beat the seven best teams in the country in the NIT and NCAA playoffs. . CCNY was ranked 27th and was a seven to one underdog. During the NIT and NCAA games, the school went wild. There were rallies all the time. One particularly enthusiastic cheerleader completely lost his voice. Someone else camped out on campus throughout the playoffs. Everybody at City was caught up in the excitement. I was a graduate student trying to decide whether to teach or work for the ILGWU, but I laid that all aside to root for my school.
The players on City’s basketball team were always the BMOC (Big Men On Campus), literally and figuratively. The guys I remember, and who impressed me, from the time I entered City in the fall of 1945, were Lionel Malamed, Hilty Shapiro, Sid Trubowitz, Sonny Jameson and Joe Galiber. What I also remember about Joe Galiber was his cashmere coat. I suspected that someone may have been “underwriting” his basketball career. In fact, I am sure all the athletes were given token jobs, enabling them to have some “pocket money,” but this was nothing like the under-the-table payments to the sought-after athletes at other schools. All of our guys came from New York City high schools (Taft, Clinton, Franklin, Erasmus Hall). None of them came from wealthy homes. And they put in a lot of practice time, driven by Nat Holman.
Intercollegiate basketball had become big time in the ‘40s. The games were no longer played in the college gyms in New York. They were featured at Madison Square Garden. And they became the focus of professional gamblers. Everybody bet on college basketball. It was the most heavily bet sport in the country. And what you bet on was the “point spread.” Bookmakers picked a team to win by 5 points. If you bet on that team, and it wins by 5 or better, you win. However, if it wins by 4, you lose. Gamblers had been approaching key players on teams and paying them not to make the point spread. It was called “point shaving.” You still play to win, but not by the point spread. You have to be good to pull it off.
In June 1950, Irwin graduated and went on to the Columbia University dental school. In February 1951, Irwin and six other CCNY players were arrested. The month before there were several other arrests. The obituary reported that Irwin and the six other players “…pleaded guilty to misdemeanor conspiracy charges and all received suspended sentences in November 1951 except Warner who was sentenced to six months in jail. Dambrot was accused of agreeing to bribe offers in two 1949-50 regular season games and receiving $1000.”
The obituary did mention that Irwin practiced dentistry in Forest Hills and Manhattan and that, in his words, “a lot of us just wanted to do things for people, to help.” It didn’t mention the organizations or synagogue he belonged to, the charities that he supported, his hobbies and other interests, It did mention that Irwin had been married and divorced twice, had two sons and three grandchildren, and was suffering from Parkinson’s. His nephew, who coaches basketball at the University of Akron commented that he never really recovered from the gambling scandal.
Don’t ever mess up.
January 27, 2010
Jacob Schlitt
Don’t ever mess up. Because if you do, that is all they will talk about when you are gone. Or at least that is what the headline will be in your obituary.
Case in point: New York Times January 23, 2010: “Irwin Dambrot, 81, Dies; Caught in Gambling Scandal.” Irwin went to CCNY with me. (So did 26,000 other students.) But Irwin was a great basketball player. In fact, he was the co-captain of the CCNY basketball team that won the NIT and NCAA championships in March 1950, something that no other college basketball team ever did. In fact, Irwin scored a game-high 23 points to give CCNY the win over Bradley in the NIT. Ten days later, CCNY played number one Bradley again, and Dambrot hit a basket, blocked a shot, and threw a long pass leading to another basket in the final minute, and another victory, 71-68. As Stanley Cohen writes in his book “The Game They Played” about the series (and the scandal): “Five street kids from the city of New York—three Jews and two blacks—were about to whale the shit out of middle America.”
Back to Irwin: He was named the NCAA tournament’s most valuable player, and CCNY coach Nat Holman called him “the greatest player I ever coached.” All this was in March 1950. In April 1950, Irwin was the Knicks first round choice in the NBA draft. He chose to go to Columbia dental school instead.
The 1949-1950 CCNY basketball team was the Cinderella team. The starting five consisted of one senior—Dambrot—and four sophomores—Warner, Roman, Layne and Roth. They beat the seven best teams in the country in the NIT and NCAA playoffs. . CCNY was ranked 27th and was a seven to one underdog. During the NIT and NCAA games, the school went wild. There were rallies all the time. One particularly enthusiastic cheerleader completely lost his voice. Someone else camped out on campus throughout the playoffs. Everybody at City was caught up in the excitement. I was a graduate student trying to decide whether to teach or work for the ILGWU, but I laid that all aside to root for my school.
The players on City’s basketball team were always the BMOC (Big Men On Campus), literally and figuratively. The guys I remember, and who impressed me, from the time I entered City in the fall of 1945, were Lionel Malamed, Hilty Shapiro, Sid Trubowitz, Sonny Jameson and Joe Galiber. What I also remember about Joe Galiber was his cashmere coat. I suspected that someone may have been “underwriting” his basketball career. In fact, I am sure all the athletes were given token jobs, enabling them to have some “pocket money,” but this was nothing like the under-the-table payments to the sought-after athletes at other schools. All of our guys came from New York City high schools (Taft, Clinton, Franklin, Erasmus Hall). None of them came from wealthy homes. And they put in a lot of practice time, driven by Nat Holman.
Intercollegiate basketball had become big time in the ‘40s. The games were no longer played in the college gyms in New York. They were featured at Madison Square Garden. And they became the focus of professional gamblers. Everybody bet on college basketball. It was the most heavily bet sport in the country. And what you bet on was the “point spread.” Bookmakers picked a team to win by 5 points. If you bet on that team, and it wins by 5 or better, you win. However, if it wins by 4, you lose. Gamblers had been approaching key players on teams and paying them not to make the point spread. It was called “point shaving.” You still play to win, but not by the point spread. You have to be good to pull it off.
In June 1950, Irwin graduated and went on to the Columbia University dental school. In February 1951, Irwin and six other CCNY players were arrested. The month before there were several other arrests. The obituary reported that Irwin and the six other players “…pleaded guilty to misdemeanor conspiracy charges and all received suspended sentences in November 1951 except Warner who was sentenced to six months in jail. Dambrot was accused of agreeing to bribe offers in two 1949-50 regular season games and receiving $1000.”
The obituary did mention that Irwin practiced dentistry in Forest Hills and Manhattan and that, in his words, “a lot of us just wanted to do things for people, to help.” It didn’t mention the organizations or synagogue he belonged to, the charities that he supported, his hobbies and other interests, It did mention that Irwin had been married and divorced twice, had two sons and three grandchildren, and was suffering from Parkinson’s. His nephew, who coaches basketball at the University of Akron commented that he never really recovered from the gambling scandal.
Don’t ever mess up.
January 27, 2010
Jacob Schlitt
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “Don't Ever Mess Up,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed May 3, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/110.