The college basketball star that picked Cat & living in Peoria over the NBA

[capecod]

Bertran H (BH) Born was a 6'9 center for Kansas U

In 1952, Born played on the National Championship Kansas team

In 1953, Kansas went back to the NCAA finals -with Born as Kansas' star player.

The Jayhawks lost the championship to Indiana when they missed a last second potential game winning shot (69-six eight)

In that game, Born had scored 23 pts, grabbed 16 rebounds and blocked 13 shots!

Born was named the Final 4 Most Valuable Player

As a senior in '54, Kansas failed to get back to the NCAAs- though Born was named All American(he was twice named All Big Eight.

This was the year that Bradley finished runner-up to LaSalle in NCAA finals.

Born then led the USA team to the championship in the FIBA World Championship.

He was the 22nd player taken in the NBA draft-by the Ft Wayne Pistons.

In the summer after his senior year, Born worked in the Catskills at Kutsher's Hotel (as he had every summer since his soph yr)....many college players worked in the Catskills....working by day & playing basketball after work with some of the top players from around the Country...all of whom came to work (and play) in the Summers.

Another summer employee in those Catskills resorts was Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach.

Auerbach arranged for Born to play a 'one on one' game vs a high school star who was working his first year in the Catskills as a bellboy.

In that 1 on 1 game, the HS phenom destroyed Born 25-10!

A dejected Born decided that if a HS player was already that much better than him, Born had no chance to make it in the NBA. So Born came to Peoria and got a job at Caterpillar.

Born played AAU ball for the Caterpillar from 1954-59...& twice was named All AAU.

He worked at Caterpillar for 43 years & died in Peoria in 2013.

The name of the HS star who beat Born in that one on one game in the Catskills? = Wilt Chamberlain


https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comment...lain_play_1v1/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._H._Born

[Tommy]

Wow! What a great story! Thanks for posting that capecod. What could have been and what we'll never know with this guy, right!

[Da Coach]

Thanks for the history, capecod. I will add that way back in the early days of the NBA in the early 1950's, the NBA did not pay players very much money. In 1954 when Bert Born graduated, the average starting salary for rookies in the NBA was around $5,000 or less per season. That was usually not enough for guys to live on, especially of they had a wife or children. $5000 in 1954 is equivalent to about $48,000 in today's dollars
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inf...54?amount=5000

Virtually every NBA player held second jobs for the other half of the year when they were not playing in the NBA. Those "summer jobs" were usually in farming, general labor, construction, sales, or other lower-paying jobs. Getting a good paying career-type job for just half the year was not possible. So the amount of money the NBA players could earn in a year turned out to be no more, and often less than a college graduate could earn with a good full time job like Caterpillar was offering college grads. And, players also had to worry that the NBA was early in its existence and might not survive and would leave them without a job at all. The average player usually only lasted a couple years before they were replaced by new college players at a lower salary. Only a few top stars made really good money. They really had to love playing basketball, and not have families dependent on them to be willing to dedicate several years of their life playing basketball. Thus, Bert Born was not alone in choosing the security of a good paying full time job like he had at Caterpillar. Plus, as capecod mentioned, AAU basketball was almost as big as the NBA back then, and big companies like Caterpillar could offer guys like Born the ability to continue playing basketball and have a year-round job. There are also stories that even though the AAU was an "amateur" circuit, many of the star AAU players of the caliber of Bert Born were offered salaries well above what they normally would have received, just to "recruit" them to that company which had a nationally ranked AAU program. One other perk was playing AAU basketball like Caterpillar offered, allowed players to retain eligibility to compete on the US National team and in the Olympics, which many of the Caterpillar guys did.
The 1952 US Gold Medal Olympic basketball team included 5 players from the 1951-52 Caterpillar Diesels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_U...asketball_team

Bert Born played for 6 seasons (1953-59) for the Peoria Cats (they changed their name from Caterpillar Diesels to Peoria Cats for the 1952-53 season)-

https://www.nasljerseys.com/EBA/Players/B/Born.Bert.htm

https://www.nasljerseys.com/EBA/Rost...BL_Rosters.htm

[Tommy]

Fun fact - when I first read the title of this thread, I thought that this guy decided to stay home in Peoria with his cat instead of going into the NBA.

[capecod]

Fun fact - when I first read the title of this thread, I thought that this guy decided to stay home in Peoria with his cat instead of going into the NBA.

Ha, sorry Tommy, I didn't think 'Caterpillar' would fit in the subject line...so I shortened it to 'Cat'

PS
I believe that is Born standing next to Chamberlain in the linked picture...whoever it is was pretty tall


http://www.espn.com/30for30/film/_/p...t-belt-bellhop

[Chico]

That is not Bert. I saw Bert at Cat quite a bit.