Explaining and Going Beyond the CCNY 1950 Point-Shaving Scandal
Words and photograph by Matthew Romano
Illustrations by Katie Herchenroeder
Have you ever taken a tour of the gloriouscampus of City College? Chances are if you have, you’ve likely been bombardedwith the fun fact that Nat Holman, aka Mr. Basketball, led the CCNY Beavers tothe NIT and NCAA championship titles in 1950. Admissions Ambassadors, who give toursto prospective students, never forget to mention this and always manage tosneak in that we are still the only college to have accomplished this feat.
Despite all this history, if you filled out abracket this year, or any of the past 60 years for that matter, you may wonderwhy you haven't seen the Beavers there - celebrating a seeding on selectionSunday, excited to pick them as a Bracket-busting Cinderella team even if onlyout of biased pride. Well, there’s a part of this history that some studentsaware of Holman’s legacy believe the college has tried its hardest to erase. Thereseems to be a stigma around any discussion of CCNY’s athletics history, as itpertains to the eponymous point-shaving scandal of 1951, aside from theoft-repeated boasts of winning the championships a full 69 years ago.Unfortunately, the taboo seems to have pervaded any discussion of Athletics oncampus, especially affecting the status, recognition, and respect of thecollege’s 17 varsity sports teams.
The Beavers’ Men’s and Women's Basketball teamsare of specific focus here, however, in the wake of the 2019 March Madnesstournament. For a quick recap, the tournament concluded on April 8th with No. 1seed University of Virginia's 85-77 win over third-seeded Texas Tech. This endcame as a surprise for most after their infamous loss to 16 seeded UMBCRetrievers in the first round of this year’s tournament and a huge, perhapsunsurprising, 11 point first half deficit to the, again 16 seeded, Bulldogs ofGardner-Webb University.
Now, think about this.
Have you ever been to a CCNY Basketball game?Have you ever even seen them advertised, can you feel a buzz around campus, inclasses, ahead of a big game? Do you know the players, the captains, thecoaches personally? Although we, a Division 3 school, may not be able to reply“yes” to any of the questions posed above, speak to anyone from a Division 3school and chances are they may not even be able to imagine a situation wherethe answers to these questions could be anything other than a vehemently proud“Of course!” Alicia Veasy, a recent graduate of the University of Miami, hometo the Hurricanes Division 1 sports teams, weighs in on what she says was a“chaotic” atmosphere and “insane” and “contagious” energy that enveloped thecampus and the neighboring community around the time of March Madness.
Veasy admits that while she isn't a huge sportsperson, “you could just see the energy that our sports teams brought to ourcampus. It made us just feel like, something more to be proud of and I know theUniversity of Miami has a huge fandom and you could really sense it… You justreally have that sense of community even not being directly at any of theseevents taking place.”
Now, returning to our present reality, out ofMiami and back to the streets of Harlem that enclose and encircle City College,the difference between the two are now stark and almost palpable. At UM,knowledge about the games is ubiquitous; meanwhile, here, it is subtle to thepoint of scarcity. For UM students, going to at least one sport’s game is arite of passage. Here, it is a luxury. For the person reading this: chancesare, you haven’t been to a Beavers game and don’t expect to ever go to one. Bythis time, in 2019, it is mutually commonplace and accepted that athletics takethe back-seat on a campus that still seems to hang its head in shame. Despitethis, it is time that the point-shaving scandal is unearthed and stolen awayfrom the shadows and solitude that the college has tried so hard to sustain.So, we turn back time now to a moment in history that although momentary, wouldprove to be momentous.
It was the 1950 - 51 season in the world ofDivision 1 college Basketball. As teams scraped and clawed for every win inhopes of inking their spot in the March Madness tournament, Manhattan CollegeCenter, Junius Kellogg, was asked to point-shave or ensure his team did not cover the point spread of the upcomingmatchup. On February 18th, 1951, seven men were seized on indictment ofconspiracy to fix NCAA games in this way. Among the notable schools implicatedwere City College, LIU Brooklyn, and to a lesser extent, the University ofKentucky, NYU, and others. In the case of CCNY, although Nat Holman wasexonerated of any wrong doing, the players of the 1949 - 50 Beavers team wereheld responsible and with that, so was the whole campus.
Since the marring exposé, CCNY has been held down to D.3 status whileother schools, University of Kentucky in particular, maintained their D1ranking and has continued to be a dominating force in the NCAA - providing anilluminating glimpse at what could have been. For Sadaab Rahman, this is betterlooked at as what still could be. He reminds us, “This took place during a timeperiod where spreads and illegal gambling was rampant. Personally, I don'tthink it should be taboo because colleges today are doing far worse things andnot paying nearly as big a price on the heels of the recent admissions scandalinvolving the 1% and Michigan State's abhorrent culture of assault.”
Rahman notes a few thingsthat need to happen for us to, on one hand, learn to celebrate our teams andtheir accomplishments under our Div. III status - one such accomplishment beingour winning 55 CUNY AC championships since 1966. First, we have to break thestigma around the point-shaving scandal and absolve our students, faculty,players, coaches, and the Harlem community of the burdens they have had to bearas a result of just a few player’s crimes of over 60 years ago. Second,“Beavers need to hang their hat on following the footsteps and legacy ofoutstanding figures like Nat Holman, whom our gym is named after,” he suggests.Third, we need to reinvigorate our teams, their players, and their coaches who,as a result of what he sees as complacency, have grown inconsistent when continuityand stability is needed. Finally, he cites an “overhaul in college sports” asnecessary in improving the product and increasing mobility between thedifferent divisions of NCAA that have formed an immutable hierarchy of sorts.
Interestingly enough, thevoice of the insider of all of this contention and controversy, ElizabethZullo, who serves as Captain of the CCNY Women’s Basketball Beavers, lies incontrast to Rahman’s commentary on the issue. If the latter’s assertions are tobe construed at idealistic, the former’s are. When approached with the questionof whether CCNY Athletics, after all this time, should dispute its relegatedstatus as a D.3 school and at least try to get their foot on the ladder andstart climbing up, Zullo nixed the notion. As has been a common theme of thisarticle, Zullo cited reasons of complacency and its pervasiveness through alllevels of the Athletics Department as why this will not and probably should notever happen.
She says that everything fromthe coaching, the funding, the training, the recognition, the outreach, thefacilities, the equipment and uniforms, and ultimately, the campus as a whole,would require a massive, inconceivable overhaul to allow CCNY to even entertainentering Div. II.
However, there is optimism inher honesty.
Zullo highlights the leapsand bounds taken by the College of Staten Island which has submitted a formalapplication to the NCAA for Division II membership effective for the upcomingathletic year as an accomplishment for all of CUNY to be proud of. Getting backto ‘Beaver business,’ Zullo mentions that the female Beavers have reached atleast the Quarterfinals each year since the 2014-15 season, an achievement thatshould be equally recognized around CCNY. She admits that it would be great forthe Beavers to make a bigger name for themselves around campus, even if thatseems insignificant compared against the miles and years of regression, atleast in terms of recognition, that the Athletic Dept. has taken on campus. Shesays that the way to do this is to ensure that these steps, even if short ofthe overhaul called for by Rahman, are taken in all sectors of the Athleticsumbrella: the coaching, the funding, the training, the recognition, theoutreach, the facilities, the equipment, and uniforms.
The first step is consensually agreed upon. Both sides display that CCNY should explore this uncharted territory of the CCNY Point-Shaving Scandal of 1950, spill the secrets secured within, and tear down the walls created by this stigma between the student body, the Beavers teams, and the NCAA. Maybe in doing this, CCNY can finally move past the scandal, pick heads up, open eyes and give current, hardworking teams the attention they deserve.
