March Madness! - Andrew Maraniss

today okay pierre presents james naismith father alan and how basketball came to the olympics i'm kate mcintyre andrew harris is the author of games of deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in hitler's germany was a mentor that's reverend shawn really excited to be here and wants to go back to july fifteenth nineteen thirty six and you start out with an accent you're like ok so this is from chapter one titled the chapters one man stood on july fifteenth nineteen thirty six new york city it was another scorching hot day in new york but that didn't stop thousands of people from crowding the docks along the hudson river the scene looked and sounded like the fourth of july bands played patriotic tunes as men women and children on both sides of the hudson cheered and waved small american flags even the ss manhattan was dressed for the occasion with its red hall white superstructure and red white and blue finals plane circled overhead and out on the water boats sounded their horns and shot streams of water

high into the air in celebration as far away as kansas in california families gathered around their radios listening to announcers describe the festivities at twelve noon more than four hundred american athletes coaches officials family members and journalists would set sail on a nine day journey to germany for the greatest spectacle in the world the eleventh olympic games among them six players from the globe refiners and amateur team in mcpherson kansas seven from universal's of los angeles in one cause claire from the university of washington the names of these men have been forgotten but they were important and so our group nineteen thirty six mark basketball's debut as an official olympic sport and this was the first ever united states olympic basketball team decades later the us olympic basketball team be dubbed the dream team and a new collection of superstars would command the world's attention at the summer olympics every four years but for oscar robertson and jerry west to win olympic gold in nineteen sixty for michael

jordan magic johnson and larry bird to win in nineteen ninety two or for kobe bryant lebron james and kevin durant's to taste cold war recently there had to be this bunch of no names walking of the plank appear sixty in nineteen thirty six as the ss manhattan pushback just past noon fans toss their caps into the air some even threw them in the river bill weekly looked out of thousands of cheery new yorkers and considered how far we've come as a basketball player he's been cut from his college team the coach told him he was no good now he was sailing to tear up to play the game he loved on the world's largest age the surplus further away and the scene at the pier began to thin out people clutching their flags and came back home to work the pacing along the shore was a man who seemed out of place different from the thousands who surrounded him he walks silently carrying a sign it was an odd sight in the letters were all that neatly written in its message was startling boycott nazi germany land of darkness boycott hitler keep america free fight for a star it's democracy and peace i spent ten months in a nazi jail for defending those

principles boycott it was too late now the ss manhattan have left here sixty it was on its way toward the statue of liberty in the atlantic ocean the people listening at home and turned off the radios in seventeen days the olympics would begin with elaborate opening ceremonies broadcast from berlin the solitary protest of the courageous man with the sign richard rohr with long be forgotten by then i'm the maybe people should have paid closer attention the man who stood alone understood there was more to this olympics than that the eye adolf hitler's berlin all is not as it seemed that's andrew mariners reading from games of deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in hitler's germany and her works bore the nineteen thirty six olympic basketball team in a minute that let's go back even farther as every basketball fan knows and every get cancer knows the game was invented by james naismith back in their eating nineties before

we go into the games unlikely path to the olympics let's talk about the role of sports in the eating hundreds at that time there was a lot of controversy about whether athletics were good or bad talked about must do so james naismith was a student of a stove was those muscular christianity he was a divinity student in his native canada and the idea that time was that serve developing a strong healthy bodies was a sort of a tribute to god you know and this was a form of religion you know and on this idea still exist to some degree today you know it through or organizations like fellowship for christian athletes in that sort of thing that the best way to sort of honor yourself and to honor your creator is to be armstrong in every way strong in your faith a strong healthy body fed into that is the people who had held this belief we're actually sort of pushing back against the view in christianity at that time

that that sports were the low road to the devil you know and so james naismith and embracing basketball i was actually a little bit of controversy or figure within the church at the time he would in college and divinity school have played in a rugby game on saturday's show up on the puppet on sunday with black eyes from playing in these games and he was in all the popular necessarily with his professors there but when he went to college in united states in springfield college as it's known now as the international ymca trains court the time he found like minded people that believe that sports was a healthy exercise that cat young men as they were considering sports really just for men at that time kept them away from the more serious prices that they might spend their time and you make the argument in your book game of deception that and the fact that dr naismith invented the game the air in springfield played an upright securely big role in its rapid ascent from just play a game that you can blame the jam

two the olympics what was so special but the size of this is a place that attracted people from all over the world it was the international trains going what people would come there to be educated to go out and either start or run ymca is all over the world and they face the challenges of the guys would keep busy in the spring playing baseball in the fall played football but in the winter they were terribly bored and so these are young men in early twenties with really nothing to do in the winter they both play leapfrog like regular garden game they are they stretched they marched you know and so they were kind of rebelling against this boredom and one of the professors jones's class somebody wanted to invent a new sport will keep us busy in the winter and that also can be used otherwise around the world to keep people busy in the winter and so james naismith accepted this challenge he had two weeks to come up with an invention unlike any student he waited until the night before it was due to really rough finishes idea for

what became basketball by your question about this the role of the school as people graduated from the school in springfield they travel around the world and i took this new game with them also the train school had a newsletter called the triangle and just like every ymca today as a triangle and its logo that's right i came from and so they printed naismith the original rules of basketball which are now the debris center here in lawrence they printed those in the newsletter and so that was distributed around the world before obviously the internet here you are you know these roles the people around the world that's out even with the technology of that time the game spread so quickly through people leaving springfield themselves and through this this newsletter and that meant that the game they took the game with them us that a bit with them so you know you had it in china i in europe and south america really quickly after naismith invented the game and at ninety one then world war one also help spread the game you had american soldiers in europe they were playing the game and introducing it to that other allies over there there was a

term that those kind of a mini olympics played among allied countries after world war one the us won that turnage and so that military force like so many other sports you know baseball spread that way also the military play important role in spreading basketball i'm visiting with andrew mariners say he's the author of games and deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in hitler's germany and let's jump forward to nineteen thirties the names of dr james naismith the father basketball and fog allen the father of basketball coaching are forever linked in basketball history and certainly here at the university of kansas where they both coached talk about the role that followed allen played in bringing the game to the olympics which i say as you mention they both had served different roles in this early period of basketball and far down was the person who really invisible we would consider modern basketball naismith the sawdust was a form of

exercise you know and that's what he was most interested in fall down is the one that saw this as a spectator sport in the tournaments poor and something that people pay money to come to see and so he was the one that was really pushing for basketball to be included in the olympics and was lobbying for this for years and thought that he was going to succeed with basketball as an olympic sport in los angeles in nineteen thirty two bob taken place united states as an exhibition sport another metal sport but he was turned down in favor of football and hardly a country's playful balaclava soccer american football they played a game at the rose bowl because they knew they could attract a lot of fans and make money on tickets but while he was in los angeles for those olympics are far beyond met with athletic officials from japan and from germany and was really pushing for basketball to be included thirty six in berlin or nineteen forty in tokyo of course it's opulent it's never happened because of world war one but ultimately he was successful in basketball being included in berlin in nineteen thirty six in this day and

age there is a pretty you well defined path for athletes to get to the olympics that wasn't the case for the basketball team back in nineteen thirty six how is it possible that a bunch of guys from mcpherson kansas end up playing in the olympics i was fascinated to learn that side of the story so basketball players today would try out as individuals for the orbiting back then they competed his teens and the idea was that after a national tournament that concluded that madison square garden in new york city which ever two teams advance to the championship game of that term it their rosters it be combined to become the us olympic team and so mcpherson had a great team they're called the globe refiners they're sponsored by global oil company there their coats jean johnson was the real innovator in basketball at a time when most teams are playing a very slow style of basketball he had a full court press or defense in israel a fast break our friends we had really

tall players which was unusual for the time he was also a promoter you know so he built his team as the tallest thing in the world you know they attracted fans by other exciting style of play joe fortenberry a player on their team is considered the first player ever to dunk the basketball he did that in a global game it was clay at madison square garden prior to this tournament and the new york sports media was just in awe of what he was doing had never seen this before and so that turned dark comes from joe forte from mcpherson kansas who the reporters described his shooting motion is like a diner customer duncan they're all in coffee so this team was their actual because they were they were talented but they were different you know so that that's how they found their path to berlin you describe their play as fire department basketball and they don't like criticism for not playing putting for real basketball what's i mean thats it so douglas johnson

he came up with that term also fire department basketball trying to live to the fact that they're like of fire crew and i'm a rush to the fire they played this fast style and other teams walked about the core there very careful with our past and they were criticized jean johnson for plain as bad brand of basketball a nice it'll maybe it's bad the republican ticket but you know the uaw is huge they'll take on all comers and then he was the visionary a minute that the best boss played today is a lot closer to his island then the guys that told him he didn't know what he was doing they were coaches well into the nineteen sixties and seventies that remembered jean johnson in the way his teams played especially his pressure defects in the ads of his name it's not you know one of the all time legendary names that everybody knows like far down or james naismith but that period of time than in the early days of basketball he was a really important figure i'm visiting with enter meredith he is the author of games of the steps in the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen

thirty six olympics in hitler's germany and thirty six olympics would be historic in hosting the first official oh and the game of basketball but it was of course historic in another way it was held in berlin germany in the third year under the rule of adolf hitler how much controversy was there about playing in nazi germany in nineteen thirty six there was quite a bit of controversy and more than i knew before i came into the store i wasn't an expert on on this topic but that a lot of research visited a lot of archives are a lot of old newspaper articles other books about those olympics and calm in the united states there was a very strong boycott effort that ultimately failed of course we did participate in those olympics but there were marches in york city with a hundred thousand people you know protesting hitler and the idea that we would compete in these olympics there was a gallup poll two years before the olympics it showed forty three percent of the american public favor of a boycott which i think is incredibly high considering that we'd never boycotted the olympics before and it was only a year into miller's

regime ii in germany we had people saying how can we go compete in this competition it's supposed to be all about fair play and sportsmanship in hitler's germany you know that makes no sense on the other side though you had a strong figure and avery brundage he was the head of the american olympic committee who has all four us competing there i visited his archives at the university of illinois and opened up a file folders that were overflowing with anti semitic literature and newsletters magazines that you subscribe to and he went on what was supposed to be a fact finding trip to berlin ahead of the olympics to see what conditions are really like they're there was kind of a farce of a trip he was accompanied by nazi soldiers in uniform the whole time he was there he was meeting with jewish athletes to ask you know what's it like for you with a nazi standing right behind what were they going to say he also had his own sort of personal financial motivation to make sure the united states competed in the olympics is

business he was a millionaire was as a building contractor in his company was contracted to build a new german embassy in washington dc any deal is that business in salt away a vote was taken by day you know truly determine whether we would go or not it was a very close vote but on but we went and we competed in those heller olympics obviously i'm just wondering ernest he's the author of games and deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in hitler's germany lest we americans read about those early nazi years with a certain amount of smugness you take an unflinching look at race relations in our own country and i'd like to read a quote from your book into deception regardless of the ways people in the us view the situation in germany the uncomfortable truth is that nazis were looking right back nodding with approval at the ugliest asked backs of american life yes so i thought i was important and this book to acknowledge that the united states was in

india still is that was a pre race is placed back in those days i read a great book by james whitman callers american model and he talked about the fact that the nazis had sent lawyers to the united states as they were developing world become the nuremberg laws that stripped jews of their citizenship they're looking around the world and where the most racist laws that's what they want to divide the most racist laws and they found them here they sense a largely overseen arkansas to really study up on american law and how that was intersected with race nineteen thirty one the year before though but what the nineteen thirty two olympics in los angeles a million mexican americans were deported from los angeles these are mostly american citizens you know the year before the olympics there was a federal anti lynching law that couldn't get through congress at the time of these olympics i found a picture of it from mcpherson of the klan marching through the streets of mcpherson kansas were the sting came from and so there are examples in

la and in mcpherson where the members of this us olympic basketball team came from an incredible racism and it's old and the chapter is called mirror and in a nod to how things were and forcing very similar in both countries at that time and as it was intermarriage as he is the author of games of deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in hitler's germany you might expect that for the very first olympic basketball game that of course it's another seventy four year old james naismith would be celebrated as something a celebrity but that wasn't the case not only was he not honored he didn't even get a ticket to the first game i was stunned to learn that so and the story begins with far down again so far down as the created the national association of basketball coaches coaching lyric a youth he felt like james naismith needed to be there at the olympics when his invention made its olympic debut three

started what was called the pennies for naismith campaign and fancy games all over the country passed pennies and nickels in two blankets they were spread on these courts and they collected enough money to send a smith and his wife to germany for the olympics remains has she had a heart attack but he went anyway none of those the best husband thing to do but after the inventor of the game i guess you got to be there so he shows up in berlin and i think using your typical person at all that there was this expectation that an inventor of the game and we treated well at these olympics and he shows up for the first games and he's basically walked out of the german his name had been taken off the pass list i think by avery brundage he was a little bit jealous of of bassist stature at that time and so there are some other olympic officials were embarrassed by this and they've heard we caught together also have many opening ceremony and niceness honor where all the members of the basketball teams that are competing marched in front of him and it presented him with

gifts including a nazi flag he brought back to united states after the olympics how much did it mean to him to be there for that it said it was one of the highlights of his life it meant a lot to him he spent a lot of time in the olympic village visiting with athletes from around the world and basketball teams many of the teens from the other countries were coached by springfield college graduates we may learn basketball from the source when they got to see the inventor again so he wrote letters back to his family say that he was at a meeting with other players and taking pictures of all these teams and he loved it and after the gold medal game which will talk about which was kind of a farce of a game he still said that this was the greatest moment of his wife will speaking of those games let's talk basketball leave the first usa game was anti climactic tell me about their made of with spain as the united states was supposed to play spain in the first round of the german unfortunately spain had to go home because of the outbreak of the civil war so game called on account lot of rain but of civil war so the spanish

olympians had to go home so we won our first game by forfeit the usa team and dances quickly they beat estonia the philippines and mexico their final game for a battle and he called is against canada and you describe a game as these strangers basketball game ever played yeah so here you had a smiths the land of his birth can against the land of his choice he said the united states and the term it was played outside on the germans in their press releases leading up the olympics and boasted about the fact that the basketball games you played under the open air like that could be a great thing and so they converted to play tennis courts into the basketball courts and it worked fine for most of their early rounds by day before the gold medal game there was a big rainstorm and to continue to rain all the way through this gold medal basketball game so these clay tennis courts turned into big mud puddles and the players would try to dribble the box it would just get stuck in the mud they couldn't dribble the ball itself was a german model of basketball that really

didn't have any grain on episode was real slippery and the players are having trouble passing eventually got so waterlogged that it was really heavy and so even by the standards of the time it was a bad basketball game a low scoring game was nineteen eighty eight us wins the gold medal only eight points total were scored the second half the players were getting this wind and dirt and there their eyes their uniforms are covered in mud one reporter described they keep trying to hold on to the ball is like trying to hold a bar of soap in the butt in the bath tub so you know here we have this the supposedly like grand opening of this great sport that we all love today and what an auspicious beginning of the thirty six olympics did they consider moving it inside the american team wanted them to move inside german say we play soccer outside the ring you can play basketball outside marie they would enter marin as he is the author of games of deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in

hitler's germany for the title of your book games and deception with few weeks of the closing ceremonies of the nineteen thirty six olympics that deception was quickly fallen apart yes so and there was an american basketball player who saw the starting to happen his name was frank lubin he came from the los angeles side of the team his parents were from lithuania and so the country of lithuania hadn't asked him to stick around in europe come back to their country and teach the game of basketball and so he was in berlin for a few days after those olympics and this facade fell apart the berlin that had been there before and that would accelerate in the future star of the show itself and so he saw the anti semitic posters go back up restaurants that he had been to they had welcomed everyone from around the world that had signs up you know for banning jews from entering the park benches were segregated like they had been before and so was only a matter of days that this whole image came crashing down he was there to see and are there is another nuremberg rally shortly

thereafter and then of course the road to the holocaust was was fully underway hillard told his his military officials during the olympics we need to be ready for war within four years and so he is presenting this image of peace by hosting the olympics are behind the scenes of the wheels were in motion there's a really chilling and to your story games and deception and i'd like to read from your book olympic basketball was born in nazi germany nazi germany died on a basketball court so this was a big surprise to me and were discovered why i could say that i knew would make a really interesting sort of full circle moments in the book so the first part olympic basketball was born in nazi germany yes we know that own but ten years after the thirty six olympics the nuremberg trials of nineteen forty six he had german leaders who are set to be executed at the

nuremberg palace of justice and so i was reading about that blow eyes and i discovered that beyond paintings that took place we're occurred on a basketball court so at the palace of justice the american guards would play basketball every day and this was during the world series those in the fall and one day they will be gallows into the basketball court after they had finished their daily game of basketball and early in the middle of the night in the morning or the nazis were brought in one by one hong there and in their bodies we're stupid or stashed behind this big black straight that hung from the backboard of one of the basketball hoops in that gymnasium and i just thought that what an interesting seen this was for so many reasons but for the purposes of my book you have this game thats been invented by james naismith it comes to berlin to see his invention at hitler's olympics ten years later americans

have destroyed nazi germany they're hanging the worst war criminals at nuremberg and the dune on a basketball court of all things i visited intermarriage as his book is games of deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in hitler's germany you becoming aware of this story are interested in the story or happened here in lawrence i was here three years ago to speak about my last book at the dole institute of politics the book is called strong inside it's a biography of the first african american basketball player in the sec and the director of the soloist is a venerable and so he was interested in la jeune yes the lazy and so i was here been a big sports fan i wanted to see allen fieldhouse and so i took a tour at allen fieldhouse abandoned curtis marsh she ran the debris center at that time showed me around so they had a ritual rules of basketball to be a picture of james naismith with japanese basketball players and he said did you know that naismith the inventor of basketball got to see his invention debuted

the olympics i said no i have no idea which olympics or the us and when he said it was the nineteen thirty six olympics in nazi germany i was like well this could be the bottom looking for i need a new subject for a new book and that's where it all started so i have a debt of gratitude to two curtiss into bill into lawrence kansas for giving me this idea for a book i'd been visiting with intermarriage as his latest play games of deception the true story of the first us olympic basketball team at the nineteen thirty six olympics in hitler's germany andrew thank you so much for coming in today and sharing this incredible story of mixture of nuances that are really enjoyable interview