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This is Ed McCauley, coach of the St. Louis Hawks, and in a few moments I'll tell you about my greatest sports thrill.
This is Harry Wismarke, but you're about to hear as a transcribed story of one of Pro Basketball's outstanding players,
and an event our special guest, Ed McCauley, considers his greatest sports thrill, and Ed himself is here to tell us all about it.
But first, here is Bill Reddick with a message of interest from your United States Air Force.
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See your local Air Force recruiter soon. Now, back to Harry Wismarke.
Easy Ed McCauley's niche in basketball history is unmistakably secure. His accomplishments as a collegian at St. Louis University,
and in 10 seasons of professional play for the St. Louis bombers, Boston Celics, and St. Louis Hawks are deeply etched in the game's records.
Now comes a new contribution by Ed McCauley to the game's lore.
In February of 1959, Easy Ed wrote one more chapter in the St. Louis basketball biography when he signed a sixth-figure contract as vice president and coach of the Hawks for three years.
Most of the brilliant chapters in St. Louis basketball history have been authored by the self-same Easy Ed McCauley.
Like the night in 1948, when Easy Ed led the St. Louis Billikens to a 68-51 victory over Notre Dame, snapping an Irish home floor winning streak at 38 games.
By the time he led the Billikens to the national invitational tournament and sugar bowl championships.
Unfortunately for St. Louis fans, Easy Ed spent his heyday far away from his native city.
When the St. Louis bombers folded following the 1949-1950 season, he was tossed into the NBA grab bag and was acquired by the Boston Celics where he starred for six seasons.
During his period with the Celics, McCauley's average range from 17.5 to 20 points per game, and in one four-year stretch in the pros, he was disqualified only once on personal fouls.
That is one of the select few who have scored 10,000 or more points in the NBA.
On March 2, 1951 in the East-West All-Star Game, the first ever played in the NBA, Ed McCauley was chosen as the outstanding player.
On March 6, 1953, he had his greatest night as an NBA scorer when he racked up 46 points against the then-defending champion Minneapolis Lakers.
In the next of his first six years in the pro ranks, he was voted a place on the East All-Star Team.
It was in his junior year at St. Louis University that practically every All-American team listed Ed McCauley unanimously as a ranking member for the first time.
He was the only junior selected.
In the first place, basketball writers regarded him as the outstanding player on the National Invitation Tournament that year and the number one star of the Madison Square Garden season.
In the Helms Foundation's estimation, he was the player of the year.
Ed McCauley realized his desire to make basketball a career when he was signed by the St. Louis Bombers after his graduation in June of 1949.
Here in the NBA, EZ-Ed finished fifth in scoring with 1,081 points in 67 games, an average of 16.1 a game.
With Boston in 1950-51, EZ-Ed averaged 20.4 points per game to finish behind only George Miken and Alex Groza among the Loops top scorers.
In his first ten years of Pro Ball, he never finished lower than tenth in scoring and in seven of these years, he never finished lower than fifth.
As a member of the Boston Celics, he teamed up with Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman to form one of the most prolific scoring trios in all basketball history.
For six years, each of the trios scored 1,000 or more points.
Because of his lender frame, Ed couldn't hold his own in the battle of rebounds with the 230 and 240 pound mammoths of the NBA.
But there was hardly any big man who could come close to him in ball handling or match his record of assists.
At the end of the 1955-56 season, after McCauley, Sharman and Cousy had led the Celics to a then-record shattering average of 106 points per game,
Crouch Red Arbach faded McCauley to St. Louis for the Hawks' draft rights to San Francisco's six-foot-ten-inch Bill Russell.
When Ed McCauley, after being named coach of the St. Louis Hawks in 1958-59, decided to devote nearly all his time to master-minding from the bench,
he had accumulated more than 11,500 points.
When owner Ben Kerner of the St. Louis Hawks made the decision on November 20, 1958 to replace Andy Phillip,
he offered the job to Ed McCauley, who had first shot at it the spring before but refused.
Previously, he had rejected an offer from St. Louis University to be coach and athletic director.
Kerner virtually forced Ed to take the job.
He gave him three choices, take the job, go to Philadelphia in a deal with the Warriors, or retire.
So Ed McCauley became the new coach.
Ed didn't do badly either.
Under his direction, the Hawks won 23 of their first 30 games and easily swept to a divisional championship.
A stooped basketball man who have watched Ed McCauley operate from the bench are firm in the belief that with experience,
the ongoing bean pole from St. Louis, Missouri will become a top coach in the pro ranks,
just as he was a top performer as an active player.
Now before you meet our special guest, easy Ed McCauley in person,
and hear about his greatest sports thrill,
here is a message of interest to all young men with an eye on the future.
High school graduates, have you ever met your local Air Force recruiter?
If not, you'll be favorably impressed when you do.
First of all, your local recruiter has all the facts and figures about the new age of space
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For example, the radical new jet bombers and fighters, the X-15 space plane, the Titan intercontinental missile.
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If after seeing your local recruiter you decide to join, you will serve with a fine group of men.
So see your local recruiter today, and find out about your place in the expanding space age of tomorrow
in the U.S. Air Force.
And now, back to Harry Wismer.
Ed McCauley, what was your greatest sports thrill?
Well, actually, Harry, I can think of quite a few in my sports background,
but I think the two thrills that stand out most in my mind were number one in the 1958 season.
The wind-up of the 1958 season, my greatest thrill probably came when I was a member of the St. Louis Hawks team,
which won the national championship.
I've been in basketball, pro basketball, it is for nine years,
but this was the first time that I'd ever played on a championship ball club,
and Harry, I think you can understand what a great thrill that was.
And actually, there was another one in January of 1959.
As coach of the Western All-Stars in the NBA East-West All-Star game,
I was fortunate enough to lead the Western Club, which was victorious that night,
and that too gave me a tremendous thrill.
Ed, do you recall the first game you ever played as a professional?
Well, I'd like to forget it, but I'm afraid I do recall it.
When I came with the St. Louis Bombers, this was in the year 1949, in October of 1949,
we played against the Minneapolis Lakers,
and the first man that I guarded in my pro debut was Mr. George Miken of the Minneapolis Lakers,
who at that time was the greatest basketball player that ever played the game.
I came out of college about six foot eight inches tall, weighed about 185 pounds,
and played against Mr. Miken, who was at that time six foot ten and two fifty.
So, Harry, you can imagine what an impression.
He really made an impression on me that night.
As a matter of fact, he almost broke me in half.
But that was the first game I played.
As I say, I didn't do too well in the first ball game,
but after that, we had our Sheriff's success against the Minneapolis Lakers,
and George Miken, who in my impression, by the way, is one of the greatest basketball players that ever lived.
Ed, what is the most difficult thing you've had to overcome in making the change from the player to the coaching ranks?
I think you'll find, Harry, that any time you make a change from the player to the coaching ranks,
the most difficult thing you have to overcome is the attitude of your own ball players.
You know, it's a funny thing. When you're a player, you're just one of the boys.
You have a job to do. You have to keep yourself in top shape.
You have to go out and play the best ball you're capable of every night.
But there's actually only one person you have to worry about, and that's yourself.
And when you transfer and you go into the coaching profession, however, you have everything to worry about.
You have each one of your ball players individually and collectively that you have to think about.
You have to think about things that affect them.
You have to think about planning strategy and how to use your ball players.
And then also, you have the problem to a certain point of how the ball players are going to react to the teaching
and to the guidance and to the control that you try to have over them.
Because it's very difficult to one day be one of the gang and the next day to be the leader of the gang more or less
and be responsible for all the decisions and in making the decisions and carrying out the orders,
it's kind of tough to get this across when you've been so close with the ball players.
Ed, you played with Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics and against him. What makes him so great?
Well, Harry, I don't think there's any one thing that you can put your finger on that makes any ball player great.
But I think there's a combination of things. With Cousy, first of all, any great ball player has to have great dedication.
He has to have the ability to concentrate. He has to have the willingness to work so very, very hard, which Cousy does.
Then he has to have certain God-given natural talents.
Cousy, for example, has tremendous hands for a basketball player, tremendously long arms, and his vision is just fantastic.
It's unbelievable. He does things that other ball players can't do, can't possibly do,
because they don't have the physical attributes that Cous possesses.
He's got that wonderful vision, got the great hands, the great speed, and these combinations put together,
I think, easily make him the greatest backcourt man that's ever played the game.
Ed does Bob Pettiter the Hawks rate as highly as George Miken among the outstanding big men in the history of pro basketball.
Well, Harry, I think you've touched on a subject that is kind of a controversial one, and it's one that's very difficult to resolve.
People say to me, who was better, George Miken or Bob Pettiter?
I say this when people ask me about the greatest ball players who ever lived.
I think that George Miken was the greatest pivot man. I think that Bob Pettiter is the greatest corner man,
and I think that Bob Cousy is the greatest backcourt man.
What was the most exciting basketball game you were ever involved in as a player?
Harry, there have been, oh boy, that's a real tough question because there have been any number of tremendously exciting games that I've been involved in.
Just recently, I guess they get more exciting as your coach, but oh, there were ones this year in the 1958-59 season,
one that I particularly remember up in New York City where Jack McMahon tied the ball game with one second to go on the clock.
We had the ball out of bounds, there was one second on the clock, and Jack took a shot almost from midcourt,
made the basket to tie up the game, put it into overtime, we eventually won the ball game.
Then, two, as I mentioned before earlier, the East-West All-Star game was a tremendously exciting basketball game.
And the finals last year, in the 1957-58 season, the finals of the NBA playoffs when the St. Louis Hawks won it,
and Bob Pettiter scored 50 points, this was the championship game, the one we had to have, and this was a tremendously exciting ball game.
So I guess you can enumerate, oh, at least a dozen, but those are just a few of the ones that I've had.
Thank you very much, EZ Ed McCauley, coach of the St. Louis Hawks.