Basketball has
become a billion-dollar industry and
the man who gave the sport one of
its most effective offensive weapon,
the jump shot, continues to be
ignored on the national scene.
The late
Glenn Roberts Sr. was again
overlooked by the Naismith Memorial
Basketball Hall of Fame when the
Enshrinement Class of 2009 was
announced.
Roberts became a
legend playing for Emory & Henry
College from 1932 to 1935 and for
the semi-pro Firestone team at
Akron, Ohio, in the National
Basketball League - a forerunner to
the NBA.
"Our high
school (Pound, Va.) did not have an
indoor court when I played,''
Roberts said before his death.
"Because of our eagerness to play
basketball, we practiced in all
kinds of weather. At times it was
too muddy to dribble. We would often
congregate under the basket and
practice in an unorganized way.
Whoever recovered the ball after a
missed shot was on his own to get
off the next one - against the
combined efforts of everyone.
"By
jumping as high in the air as I
could, I started to get the ball to
the basket consistently. Before
long, I succeeded in making some
shots. I became accurate with the
jump shot in high school but it was
in college that I developed multiple
moves such as the forward and
backward pivot and dribble to
maneuver into a better shooting
position.''
At Emory &
Henry he averaged 16.2 points and
earned all-state honors, an almost
unheard-of feat as a freshman.
Roberts raised his scoring clip to
22.3 points during a 17-1 sophomore
season.
He got
19.7 per game as a junior when the
Wasps went 20-1 and 18.3 the next
year while the team was going 19-4.
Roberts' innovative release became
so popular, it ended the two-hand
set shot era.
During his
career, E&H had a 68-12 record.
Playing for the small college in
Southwest Virginia obviously was a
disadvantage in getting national
publicity even though the Wasps
competed against Virginia Tech, the
University of Tennessee, Richmond
and William & Mary.
He hit
around 60 percent from the field and
80 percent on the foul line, and
gathered in a majority of the Wasps'
rebounds.
Roberts'
image was illustrated in Ripley's
Believe It or Not after he completed
his college career with 1,531
points. This total was exceptional
considering team scores were
generally low during that era.
After
turning down numerous offers, he
finally agreed to play for Firestone
in 1938 while employed by the tire
company. He played against legendary
UCLA coach John Wooden, who was with
Indianapolis.
In his
only season with Firestone, Roberts'
team won the NBL championship with a
24-3 regular-season record and beat
the Oshkosh All-Stars in a
best-of-three series.
He later
enjoyed playing on a touring team
with his five brothers - Percy,
Darrell, Harry, Ola and Wallace. All
had been standouts at Pound.
To no
avail, Tennessee sports editors Tom
Siler (Knoxville News Sentinel) and
Edgar Allen (Nashville Banner) were
involved in a push to get Roberts
elected to the Hall of Fame.
More
recently, the Virginia Sports Hall
of Fame and more than 100
luminaries, including Hall of Famers
Denny Crum and Ben Carnevale as well
as sports columnists, game
officials, former teammates and
opposing players and coaches, have
written letters to the organization
on his behalf.
It's
interesting to note that no Hall of
Fame player born before 1930
represents the nine heavily
populated Southern states -
Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Its list of inductees is heavily
weighted toward the Northeast and
Midwest.
Readers
interested in seeing Roberts receive
his due by not getting benched again
by the selection committee are urged
to send e-mails to Hall of Fame
president John Doleva and
curator/historian Matt Zeysing.
Those addresses are:
jdoleva@hoophall.com
and
mzeysing@hoophall.com
