"The 1950s sit nestled between two much-examined decades," author Jim Newton wrote, in his story of the Eisenhower presidency, "the 1940s with its great war, and the 1960s, with its cultural upheaval.  One result has been to overlook this deceptively eventful, tumultuous time."  Eventful for tiny Saint Francis College since it marked the start of the Golden Era of the school's men's basketball program - an era spanning over 20 years and more than 200 players and 543 games, an era when a small Catholic college could make its mark on the national collegiate scene and did.



EASTERN ROOTS

In the assimilation of the game of basketball into the nation's consciousness, much of the early awareness of it centered on its role as part of the educational experience in America. It was an easy-to-place activity for colleges, with its minimal need for space, equipment and players. As James Naismith found in his reasoning for developing the game, basketball was a wintertime diversion that kept the attention of students as a rallying point for school spirit.

Naismith was a YMCA instructor in Massachusetts and the game was born and bred in the Northeast.  Consequently, the best players were often city kids from New York, Philadelphia and other metropolitan areas along the eastern seaboard and they naturally migrated to nearby colleges.  The city game played in New York in the 1940s was basketball at its best. CCNY and NYU teams had the attention of a growing audience. LIU, Seton Hall, Fordham, St. John's and St. Peter's were consistently competitive. By the 1950s, Philadelphia could claim a share of the country's growing interest with the birth of the Big Five (LaSalle, Penn, St. Joseph's, Temple, Villanova). Elsewhere, Pittsburgh could point to Duquesne and nearby little Saint Francis College had begun to attract attention.  

Saint Francis began playing competitive basketball in 1919, but it wasn't until the arrival of Dr. William T. "Skip" Hughes in early 1945 that anyone took notice. Hughes had been a standout basketball player for the legendary Doc Carlson at the University of Pittsburgh and had gone on to attend dental school there before moving back to Hollidaysburg to begin his practice.  His love of basketball still evident, he took on the role as head coach of Saint Francis as a sidelight to dentistry but legend has it he opted to receive no compensation.  It was to be that way for the next 21 years and 293 victories.

The basketball court was the same size in the 1950s as it was in the 1970s. But the game was different. It was played below the rim. The premium was on dribbling, not dunking. That gave smaller schools a chance.  Saint Francis was one such school.  Back in the 1950s and up through the 1960s, college basketball powers Georgetown, Villanova, Temple, Xavier, BYU and Arizona all played Saint Francis.  All left with losses.... - Rick Gosselin, columnist, Dallas Morning News

Basketball helped transform Saint Francis in many ways, but none more important than giving it a profile, an image on which it built a reputation as a molder of young men, as a school following a Franciscan tradition which sought to extend opportunities to all races, and as an institution looking to develop pride from a student body facing a new world in the years following World War II.

Issues of race and race relations remain dominant features in college basketball. Today, racial diversity permeates the game from the playgrounds, to college, to the professional level both in American and abroad.  But in the 1950s college teams were still predominantly white and professional basketball a struggling entity ranking in interest far below the other major leagues. Progress in integration was slow and it happened mainly in schools in the large urban centers. In 1946, Tennessee could still refuse to play its scheduled game with Duquesne without a guarantee that Chuck Cooper, a black student, would not see action.

Along with the slow but steady march of a few black players into more college programs, there were moments that accelerated the process. Bill Russell and K.C. Jones led the University of San Francisco to back-to-back national championships in 1955 and 1956. Wilt Chamberlain dominated college basketball from the fall of 1956 through the spring of 1958. Oscar Robertson, at the University of Cincinnati, and Elgin Baylor, at Seattle University, were college basketball's best players in the late 1950s. And little Saint Francis, it came into its own with the arrival of Maurice Stokes in 1951.



What is The Golden Era?
From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Saint Francis College ranked among the upper tier of the nation's college basketball programs. Between 1947 and 1971, SFC teams turned in 19 winning seasons, six 20-win campaigns and were selected to participate in the elite National Invitational Tournament on three occasions.

The Golden Era Series
The Golden Era series is a 12-part narrative of the history of the Saint Francis University men's basketball program.  The first eight parts are a chronological overview of the program's heyday, which spanned from the late 1940s to the early 1970s.  The last four parts detail themes or events that are woven through the mid-century Saint Francis teams.

PART I: Eastern Roots (7/26/13)
PART II: Stokes Sets The Standard (coming 7/27/13)
PART III: A Most Complete Team
PART IV: Gold Medal Guard Play
PART V: Simply Sandy
PART VI: Stormin' Norman In Control
PART VII: Porter's Pulse
PART VIII: A Changing Game, A Changing Environment

The Meaning of Fellowship: Saint Francis vs. Jim Crow
The Jaffa Mosque: "Home of the Frankies"
The Rivalry: Saint Francis vs. Duquesne
The 'Spirit' That Was Saint Francis