The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-04-26
EzLis And Turcotte NaturaL' Set For Outdoors
PRO QUINTETS BELIEVED DUE
 TO COME BACK
"Nig" Rose of Cleveland Cites Big Money Of=
 fered Stars
BY ROBERT I. FITZHENRY United Press Staff Correspondent

BY ROBERT I. FITZHENRY
 United Press Staff Correspondent
 Cleveland, Ohio, April 26-(UP)- Professional basketball has seen hap pier days, but the sport is coming back.
 The bullet-passing, ball-hawking play-for-play teams which used tt roam the country, rough and tumb' ling all corners and invariably walking off the floor on the paying end of a distorted score have vir. tually disappeared.
 But I. s. CNig) Rose, who has beer a pro basketball promoter, packer and fan for 21 years, does not des- pair for the professional game; future.
 Sure, times have changed" said the volatile general manager of a Cleveland department store, who is regarded by many as the foremost professional authority in the coun- try. But the games coming back It travels in cycles, like everything else"
 Collegians Vastly Stronger "It isn't like the Floradora days when the pro boys were the only ones who knew what the game was all about. Even riot squad like the old Buffalo Germans would have some trouble today repeating their one-time 134 to 0 shutout of Ho- bart College"
 Instead of the collegians leaning on he pros, as in the old days, the reverse is true today. Rose said. The fire department basketball of the college teams is packing them in from Madison Square Garden to the Golden Gate.
 Collega" name" stars, he said, have been a Shot-in- -the-arm to profess sional games because of their press notices, and professional teams will still pay $1,O0O a month for a great star.
 Bob McDermott, former Long Island University star, was bid that amount to go back with the Cleve- land Celtics, but spurned it.
 Birch Outstanding Player
 Paul, Birch, one of the greatest to perform for Duquesne, coached the Homestead (Pa.) high school quintet to a national champion ship and then quit to join the Gel tics at a figure between $500 and $700 a month.
 Hank Luisetti, of Stanford Uni versity, could have named his sal- ary in the pro ranks, after ringing up an incredible 1896 points in in- tercollegiate play and climaxing his point-pushing with 50-point spree against Duquesne.
 The average player in the Amer ican or National league doesn't see a monthly check with four digits waiting for him, but neither does he starve for the sport. The Celtics, oldes top-notch team in the business, pay their players from $3,OO0 to $5,O0O for four to five months of nightly playing. National league players, who see action three times week, receive an average of $125 every payday.
 Dislikes High Scores
 The trouble with modern basket ball, according to the Cleveland cage impresario, is that baskets are too cheap. The bang-bang spray of heaves that hit the back boards like machine-gun fire has reduced the old emphasis on smooth team play.
 Cagers today, he said, are all prima-donnas out after scoring rec ords. Finess on the courts is lost art.
 T wouldn't want to see many games like that Georgetown Homer affair in the Illinois state tourna- ment 10 years ago." he recalled. Homer dropped that one, to O, But neither do like to see the ada ing machine marathons of 60 to 80 points. Keep the scoring down in the POS and sos and you make every point mean something"
 Cites Pro Tourney
 Ample evidence that the profes. sional game is coming back was furnished by the world professional championship tourney in Chicago this year, Rose said. The title was won by the Harlem Globe Trotters over such favorites at the Chicago Bruins, Oshkosh All-Stars, Sheboy- gan Redskins, Syracuse, Washington, Waterloo Wonders and the New York Renaissance.
 Close to 10000 enthusiastic fans turned out every night of play to see some of the finest and fastest ball handling ever produced on a basketball court" he said.
 Nat Holman was the clasSiest of them all," Rose said in recalling the greatest pro players he has seen. That boy had more subtlety than a diplomat, and used finesse more than Culbertson himself.
 For rough-and-ready, anything goes basketball I'll take Johnny Beckman and Marty Friedman every time.
 For smoothness and beautifully coordinated play give me Joe Lob check, Pete Barry and the immor- tai Dutch Wehnert, who really brought the pivot play to basketball.
 "Yes, sir," he concluded. You marke my words. Pro ball is climb ing right back where it used to be in the hearts of the court fans"