[3] He attended City College of New York (CCNY), where he was an All-American and All-Metropolitan basketball player at the guard position under coach Nat Holman in 1932 and 1933, leading the team to a 32–2 record over those two years.
[2][5] After he graduated, he became an assistant coach at CCNY under Nat Holman, as he worked toward a master's degree.
[2] He played for a number of teams in the American Basketball League (ABL)—the Brooklyn Visitations, the Jersey Reds, and the New York Jewels.
In 1941–42, he was eighth in scoring, for the Wilmington Bombers, who won the regular season to claim the ABL championship.
[6] His son Steve Spahn was an All-Ivy League basketball player for Dartmouth College in the 1960s.
[5] He died of heart failure at the New York University Medical Center in Manhattan at the age of 79.