CCNY point-shaving scandal

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),[1] 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.

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.

[17][18] Newspapers and magazines began covering the sport in syndicated columns, with writers depending on coaches and athletic administrations to provide stories.

[19] 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.

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.

[25] 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.

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.

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.

After hearing rumors of widespread corruption in the late 1940s, Kase assigned a crime reporter to obtain evidence of match fixing during the 1948–49 season.

[31] Kase's own story eventually being released would help shed light on not just the scandal coming to light, but also on having other college players report on gamblers trying to bribe them in games played, such as with University of Southern California player Ken Flower reporting to head coach Forrest Twogood that a gambler offered him $1,500 (equivalent to $18,125 in 2024) to throw a game against UCLA;[3] former University of San Francisco All-American Don Lofgran revealing he had multiple calls from Portland, Oregon inquiring if he and his teammate Frank Kuzara were interested in "doing business" with them and that threats of violence could have happened to them if they reported the calls to head coach Pete Newell; University of Oregon head coach John A. Warren revealing a gambler came into his team's dressing room in Kansas City, Missouri during the 1945 NCAA basketball tournament to offer star player Dick Wilkins $500 to lose their game against the University of Arkansas (which Oregon did lose on that night); University of Colorado head coach Frosty Cox reporting to Ned Irish that Lee Robbins had gamblers try to proposition him, but he denied them and reported them to Cox (though Irish claimed not to remember the conversation); and Barry F. Sullivan from the University of Georgetown would also see gamblers try to proposition him, with Sullivan denying them all as well.

[33] Parallel to the January 1951 case that led to the arrests of multiple college players, a report released by the Brooklyn Eagle in February 1951 revealed that the New York City Police Department suppressed around forty recordings of telephone conversations before, during, and after the 1949–50 season that detailed accounts of a substantial fix involving players from every major college in and around New York City.

To obtain evidence, Kellogg wore a wire when he was approached again in a nearby bar by Henry "Hank" Poppe, who explained the point-shaving scheme in great detail and claimed professional players were involved as well.

[37] After the DePaul game, Poppe and co-captain John Byrnes were arrested alongside fixers Cornelius Kelleher and brothers Benjamin and Irving Schwartzberg.

However, Levy would also admit to associating with Salvatore Sollazzo and Eddie Gard, one of the implicated players from Long Island who also became a fixer himself, during this period of time.

The three players had accepted a total of $18,500 (equivalent to over $244,210 in 2024) for eight games in the two most recent seasons, including their NIT opening round loss against Syracuse, and were arrested themselves.

[33] On March 26, three more players from the CCNY championship team were arrested: Herb Cohen, Irwin Dambrot (then a dental student at Columbia University), and Norm Mager (then a rookie season for the original Baltimore Bullets franchise of the NBA).

[1] On July 20, four players from the University of Toledo (Jack Feeman, Bob McDonald, Carlos Muzi, and Bill Walker) were arrested on charges of point-shaving in New York City and the surrounding area.

The three players, along with teammates Charles Grover, Jim Kelly, Aaron Preece, and Fred Schlictman, admitted that they also fixed four games during the 1949–50 season.

On August 27, Hogan obtained indictments against the Bradley players, along with gamblers Nick and Tony Englisis of Brooklyn; Marvin Mansberg; Jacob Rubinstein; Joseph Benintende of Kansas City, a known narcotics dealer suspected of murdering Charles Binaggio and Charles Gargotta; and Jack West, who had also been questioned in 1947 for allegedly offering a $100,000 bribe (equivalent to $1,408,856.50 in 2024) to boxer Rocky Graziano.

The arrests came just months after Kentucky won the 1951 NCAA tournament and head coach Adolph Rupp claimed gamblers "couldn't touch [our] students with a ten-foot pole.

"[50][51] Despite his initial comments, the suspicions were first raised by Rupp himself, when he told assistant coach Harry Lancaster and athletic director Bernie Shively that "something was wrong with [this] team" after the Loyola game.

Hogan also alleged that while the team was in New York, the Englisis brothers and former Harvard Law School student Saul Feinberg plotted with the three Kentucky players to fix more games.

Tony Englisis alleged in a 1952 True magazine article that more games had been rigged, but the players denied it, and the New York courts declined to hear cases of match fixing which occurred entirely outside the state.

[55] While no charges were ever filed against Hirsch and Line since all of their match fixing had occurred in states without anti-bribery laws for amateur sports at the time, Assistant District Attorney Vincent A.G. O'Connor indicted Spivey for first degree perjury for failure to truthfully testify that he received $1,000 (equivalent to nearly $13,040 in 2024) for the Sugar Bowl from Jack West.

[58] By early October, Chianakas, Melchiorre, and Bill Mann would plead guilty to a misdemeanor, while the rest of the Bradley players would find themselves acquitted in the case.

Hogan countered claims of pro-Catholic bias by stating that the main players and gamblers involved were apprehended and that further punishments would be given out in order to help prevent future corruption.

In November 1952, the New York Board of Education's Committee on Intercollegiate Basketball made further revelations that ultimately led to the demise of the CCNY program, including fourteen fraudulent transcripts, an illegal recruiting mechanism in the Student Athletic Academic Council, and plans for a South American tour that would have paid players.

Following a surprising Final Four appearance amidst the subsequent 1961 scandal implicating New York University in the early 1960s, the Violets would disband their athletics programs for financial reasons in 1971 before reinstating them in 1983 as a Division III team.

In 1954, Jack Molinas of the Fort Wayne Pistons was suspended and later permanently banned for gambling by the NBA for betting on games involving his own team.

[88] However, Junius Kellogg and the now former Assistant District Attorney Vincent A.G. O'Connor would appear in the documentary, with archived footage of Frank Hogan also being shown as well.