[...]... within the year The latter circuit was called the National Basketball League and featured teams from Ohio and Indiana, highlighted by the Akron Goodyears, the 1932 National Industrial League Champions.12 In 1935 Paul Sheeks, the coach and manager of the Akron Firestone teams, and Frank Kautsky, coach and owner of the Indianapolis Kautskys, decided to try again They recruited six other squads to form the. .. Marshall — the Washington Palace Five — named for 14 The National Basketball League his Washington Palace Laundry; Max Rosenblum the Cleveland Rosenblums after his department store of the same name; and the Toledo Redmen after their owners— Red Man Tobacco Marshall was from an upper middle class background and was able to begin a string of laundromats in the Washington, D.C., area He later purchased the. .. game League play began in December and the Indianapolis Kautskys started off strongly in the league, posting a 6–2 record in mid–January and finishing the league season at the end of February with a 9–3 mark and first place in the West The squad also played outstanding touring teams that came to Indiana, most notably the famous New York Renaissance team, an African American squad considered by many to... capacity crowds That same year, another professional league began, and this ultimately spelled doom for the NBL The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was begun by National Hockey League owners who also owned or had exclusivity rights to the large arenas in major metropolitan areas of the Northeast They sought to utilize their arenas on nights when their NHL team was on the road Most had little or... Non-Skids (a great name for a tire, but not as attractive a name for basketball players), which had been Industrial League champs the prior year; the Indianapolis Kautskys, sponsored by a wholesale grocer, Frank Kautsky, and a team that had been playing regularly as a barnstorming squad since 1931; the Pittsburgh Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA) squad and the Buffalo (New York) Bisons Kautsky loved basketball. .. international basketball league The Season of 1935-36 Scheduling the league games would prove to be a challenge, but the plan for the season was that most of the league games would be on the weekends, 20 The National Basketball League usually Sunday afternoons, so that other non -league games could be scheduled freely on other nights As noted, this meant that great squads like the Rens were often playing league. .. teams and usually beating them, but most of the league teams also played regional squads, many of which were quite good There were other touring African American teams, such as the Chicago Crusaders, who played throughout the Midwest The Indianapolis teams both played the Jasper Coca-Colas (sponsored by a local bottler) of Jasper, Indiana, a town in southern Indiana near Evansville The Jaspers featured... which played visiting barnstorming teams and their rival tire company in Akron Generally these company teams did not travel because their employees were expected to be at work in various areas of the company each day An exception was the annual AAU basketball tournament, held in Kansas City and, later, Denver each year.2 The consistently best professional basketball in the 1930s was played by barnstorming... to a company, while others were independent or operated by an owner-businessman who was also infatuated with the game and would support the team and use it to advertise his store or product There was a recent history of this in professional basketball; the American Basketball League (the first real geographically national league in basketball) had teams that reflected the ownership of George Preston Marshall... Buffalo had players from the University of Buffalo, Canisius College, and a former star for the Buffalo Colored Giants, Hank Williams Williams was the first African American to play in an established professional league since the early 1900s when African Americans played in both the New York State League and the New England League. 34 The Pittsburgh YMHA squad featured college stars from both Pitt and Duquesne .