1926-27

Men's Division 1 National Champion:

HELMS ALL-AMERICANS

Bennie Oosterbaan, Michigan 

* Victor Hanson, Syracuse 

John Thompson, Montana State 

Gerald Spohn, Washburn 

John Nyikos, Notre Dame 

Ross McBurney, Wichita 

George Dixon, California 

John Lorch, Columbia 

Harry Wilson, Army 

Syd Corenman, Creighton

* Player of the Year

1927 Jan 07 Harlem Globetrotters play 1st game (Hinckley IL). Ref: 5

College Basketball expanded rapidly in the 1920s and 1930s, and there seemed to be a major rules change about every year.  A watershed moment in the sport occurred in 1927, when Doc Meanwell led a movement to eliminate the dribble.  Meanwell believed the gamed moved better with several short passes and proposed a one-dribble-per-possession rule to basketball’s joint rules committee, made up of AAU, NCAA and YMCA members.  The motion passed 9-8.

Phog and other prominent college coaches like Nat Holman of City College of New York were outraged.  Phog believed dribbling down the floor was as exciting as an open-filed run in football and flayed the committee while speaking at the national Education Association at Drake University in April.  His comments made the newspapers and in two weeks he received 169 telegrams from college and high school coaches throughout the nation supporting his stance.

At the Drake Relays the next month, Phog invited his coaching friends to meet and hash out their problems with the joint rules committee.  He was elected chair of the group which agreed to meet the next month in Chicago.  Word spread, and at 9a.m., Friday, June 10 at the Auditorium Hotel, the first meeting of the National Association of Basketball Coaches was called to order.  Most of the nation’s top coaches showed up:  Holman, Meanwell, Washington’s Hec Edmundson, Ohio State’s Harold Olsen, Purdue’s Piggy Lambert, Notre Dame’s George Keogan and Iowa’s Sam Barry were among the early supporters.

Phog called the meeting to order and Creighton coach Art Schabinger, the NABC’s first secretary-treasurer, read the monutes from the Des Moines meeting.  A constitution was drafted, and the first stated purpose of the group was “To further dignify the basketball coaching profession.”  Annual dues were set at $2.  The temporary labels were removed from Phog’s and Schabinger’s titles, and Illinois coach Craig Ruby was named vice president.