Executives on the Court

Denver had seen nothing like it since the '30s when basketball buffs kept the cramped old city auditorium bursting at the seams and the fire department turned out regularly to turn away late arrivals. Even Colorado's Governor Steve McNichols showed up last week to watch the Denver Chicago Truckers take on the Phillips 66ers, the pride of Bartlesville, Okla. and perennial champions of the nine-year-old National Industrial Basketball League. Along with 6,500 shouting constituents, the governor got all the excitement he bargained for.

Rookies of the N.I.B.L., the cocky Truckers showed no more respect for the champs than big-rig drivers barreling through Sunday traffic on their way to the loading platforms. Wyoming's little Joe Capua and North Carolina's Jerry Vayda gave it the old college try, kept the Truckers in contention all the way. Marquette's Terry Rand almost broke up the ball game in the final minutes with a curling hook shot from the keyhole. This was competition the like of which Phillips Olympic Veterans Chuck Darling, Bill Houghland, Jim Walsh and Burdy Haldorson had never seen in Melbourne. The 66ers strained their gaskets to squeeze out on top, 86-82.

Different Pitch. This was fast-breaking basketball, a cut above the collegiate brand and only a thin slice below the deadly precision of the best pros. Technically, at least, the players of the National Industrial Basketball League are amateurs.

In the burgeoning world of amateur industrial ball--there are bush-league teams of no mean ability from Florida shipyards to Massachusetts textile mills and West Coast aircraft plants--the N.I.B.L. is the big time. Denver Chicago President George Kolowich may be a few years away from the world-beating team he wants, but last week showed that his expensive investment in amateur basketball is beginning to pay off.

Building a team as good as the Truckers in one season meant competing for talent with the five other fine N.I.B.L. teams* and bargaining against the moneymen of pro basketball as well. Kolowich hired former Notre Dame Footballer Jerry Groom to beat the drum and brought aggressive Johnny Dee from the University of Alabama to coach. Backed by the generous assets of DC Trucking's multimillion-dollar business, Groom and Dee peddled some convincing arguments in the fleshpots of college basketball.

When the Minneapolis Lakers made lanky Terry Rand their second-draft choice and offered him a $7,500 contract, Groom and Dee made a somewhat different pitch: Did Rand want to study law? Well, Denver U. had a fine law school, and an executive trainee with DC Trucking would have time for classes as well as practice sessions and some 30 games of basketball a season. A trainee would get $400 a month salary plus all the fringe benefits, including a sizable bonus. And who knows? Rand might like Denver Chicago and go on to make transcontinental trucking his career. In fact, 80% of the trainee basketball players of the N.I.B.L. have stayed on in executive jobs; the turnover of non-athletes is far higher. Impressed with the promise of future security, Rand decided on Denver.

Plenty of Promise. Other N.I.B.L. teams try the same lures with equal success. The Phillips team has been able to add the lure of travel--some of its stars went to the Olympics in 1948, 1952 and 1956. Understandably, such "amateur" proselytizing irritates the pros. "At least we admit we're pros," says National Basketball Association President Maurice Podoloff. But the A.A.U. keeps close tabs on the industrial players and has yet to see any crass commercialism in the operation.

"Everybody thought A.A.U. ball was dying," says Trucker Coach Dee, "but now it's coming back strong. There's plenty of room for both of us, the pros and A.A.U. ball." And as long as Dee and Groom continue their active recruiting, there is plenty of promise that the Truckers will climb out of their third-place position in the league and fulfill President Kolowich's dream of going to the 1960 Olympics.

*Milwaukee's Allen-Bradleys, Peoria's Cats, Akron's Goodyear Wingfoots, Wichita's Vickers, and the 66ers, who have won the N.I.B.L. championship eight times in eight years in the league.

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