Post by Commissioner on Oct 23, 2018 23:04:52 GMT -5
A Tribute to Bob Calihan: Seventy Years Ago This Fall, The Titans Hired a Big Name Coach
In part because I’m very interested in history in general and Titan history when it comes to hoops, it often surprises me how little most people know about the man for whom the Titans home arena is named—Bob Calihan, hired as Titan coach 70 years ago this fall.
Not counting the 48 hour hire of UTEP coach Don Haskins in 1969, Mike Davis is probably the most high-profile coaching hire in Detroit since Calihan was hired in 1948. Most coaches Detroit has hired since (Dick Vitale, Willie McCarter, Don Sicko, Ricky Byrdsong, Perry Watson, and Bacari Alexander) were assistants getting their first head coaching job. Ray McCallum had been head coach at two prior schools, with both NCAA and NIT appearances, and Jim Harding (hired after Haskins reneged and scurried back to El Paso) had some profile after leading La Salle to an NCAA bid two years before (and being promptly fired for violating NCAA rules and getting the school placed on probation), but neither had the national recognition of Bob Calihan in 1948. In fact, Calihan, like most of the hires since, was actually taking his first head coaching job, too. But his situation was a bit different.
After a standout prep career in Chicago, Robert “Dusty” Calihan enrolled at UD in the fall of 1936. While at UD, Calihan was a sports writer for the Varsity News, and according to the News, was quite the ladies’ man. And he played basketball. That first winter, he led the freshman basketball squad to a 10-2 record, while averaging 12 points per game, a big number in those years (freshmen were not eligible for varsity ball at that time). A 6-3 center (my how the game has changed!) Calihan was an excellent post-up offensive player. He liked to set up to the right of the basket, and once the ball was in his hands, he tended to cross the lane and either pivot back and lay it in from the right, or knock it down with a wicked left-handed hook shot (does anyone learn, teach, or regularly use a hook shot anymore?). Calihan led the Titans in scoring over each the next three years and broke every Titan single-season and career scoring record in the process. As a junior in 1939, he was a consensus Second Team All-American; he was an Honorable Mention choice his senior year.
After graduating, Calihan joined the Detroit Eagles of the National Basketball League (NBL). In those pre-NBA days, there were several semi-pro and professional leagues around the country, but the NBL was the best, rivaled only by the American Basketball League. As a rookie in the 1940-41 season, Calihan was 10th in the league in scoring at 7.9 ppg and was a second team all-league selection at year-end. In 1941-42, Detroit chose to play as an independent barnstorming team. They were invited to play in the World Basketball Tournament, held each spring in Chicago and featuring the best teams from leagues around the country, as well as the best independents. Those independent "barnstorming" teams included the Harlem Globetrotters, who in those days played serious basketball and did so very well. The winner was generally recognized as the national champion. Detroit reached the finals in 1941, where it lost 43-41 to the Oshkosh All-Stars, who had also won the NBL championship.
Uncle Sam then called on Calihan to help handle some ruckus on the world stage, and Calihan missed the 1943, 1944, and 1945 seasons for military service. For the 1946 season, Calihan signed with the NBL’s Chicago Gears. Calihan was one of the stars of the Gears, who finished third in the World Basketball Tournament in 1946. With George Mikan joining the team out of college, the Gears won the NBL title in 1947. Before the 1948 season, Gears’ owner Maurice White pulled his team from the NBL and formed the National Professional Basketball League, in which he owned all 16 teams. The Gears, led by Mikan, Bobby McDermott, and Calihan, dominated the league, starting out 8-0, at which point the new league folded. Calihan then ended up back in the NBL with Flint, and finished second in the league in scoring to his former teammate Mikan (who had signed with the Minneapolis Lakers), with 14.3 ppg. For the 4th time in his 4 years in the league, Calihan was a second-team all-league selection.
After the 1948 season, Calihan accepted an offer to return to UD and coach his alma mater. This was a big deal—the #2 scorer in the best professional league, still in his prime, taking over as head coach at UD. The equivalent today would be New Orleans Pelicans center Anthony Davis, last year’s #2 scorer and a 5 time all-star in the NBA, leaving to coach in college. Of course, that would be unheard of, in part because the players make so much money today. And yet, in a sense, even that understates the stir Calihan’s hiring created on the national hoops scene, because in 1948 most hiring of basketball coaches was still a very low-key affair.
Before the war, UD had been a respectable team, known but not a major factor in national hoops. There were no national rankings until the 1949 season, but the Titans’ undefeated 1913 team was probably among the 10 best in the country, and the Titans were a combined 45-18 during Calihan’s three varsity seasons, scoring wins over several of the period’s national powers, including Kentucky, DePaul, Butler, Marquette, Santa Clara and others. The 15-5 1943 squad led the nation in scoring defense. Still, we weren’t thought of as a national power.
The hiring of Calihan as head coach was one of several steps the University took after the war in an effort to place itself among the elite of college ball. A second was joining the Missouri Valley Conference, then considered one of the top collegiate basketball conferences, before the 1950 season. Other steps included breaking ground on Memorial Hall, which opened in 1952 as one of the largest, most up-to-date college arenas in the country, and soon that year launching the Motor City Classic, an important event on the college hoops calendar in the 1950s, and one that lasted into the 1980s.
Calihan would coach the Titans for 21 seasons. The Titans were, from the time of Calihan’s hiring through the Dick Vitale/Smokey Gaines era, until Willie McCarter and Don Sicko ran the program into the ground in the 1980s, a serious player on the national scene. Calihan’s best teams were nationally ranked, rising as high as #3 in the AP poll in 1961 after beating #6 Utah State and #3 Indiana to open the season, and reaching #7 after a 10-0 start, including a win over 10th ranked St. Bonaventure, in 1968-69. The 1951 Titans beat two #1 ranked teams in one year, first Bradley, and later Oklahoma A&M (nee Oklahoma State). Calihan’s Titans made 4 post-season appearances in an era when those were hard to come by. Under Calihan, Titan players regularly figured in All-America balloting, including Norm Swanson (Honorable Mention in 1952, 1953), Guy Sparrow (HM 1955), Bill Ebben (HM 1956, 3rd team 1957), Dave DeBusschere (third team in each of 1960, ’61, and ’62), Dorie Murrey (HM 1966), and Spencer Haywood (1st team 1969). The Titans’ top rivals were Marquette, Michigan State, and Dayton, and the home schedule regularly featured national powers such as Villanova, Indiana, Boston College, and Notre Dame.
But while the Titans were a player in the long Calihan era, they never quite established themselves as a major national power and title contender along the lines of Villanova, Marquette, San Francisco, or St. Bonaventure in the 1950s and 1960s. By the time the Spencer Haywood-led 1969 squad finished a disappointing 16-10 and missed out on the post-season, there was a feeling that Calihan would never get the Titans over the hump—and that with a unique talent like Haywood, the Titans needed to make the effort at that time. So Calihan, who was then among the winningest major college coaches of all-time, was pushed upstairs to be AD. Then, when his mentor Will Robinson wasn’t hired and Haskins, who had coached UTEP to the 1966 NCAA title, reneged, Haywood made his move to go pro. Jim Harding got the nod to succeed Calihan and while he had some success on the court, he alienated most everybody around Detroit, including his players, who twice quit en masse.
Before the 1978 season, Calihan retired from his position as Athletic Director. Memorial Hall was given a facelift that fall and renamed Calihan Hall in honor of the Titans' first All-American player and all-time winningest coach. Calihan died in 1989 at age 71.
I suppose it is only a matter of time until Calihan Hall is either demolished to make way for a new building, or renovated again, and in either case a major donor may at that time get naming rights. As for me, I like the tradition of still having the building named for someone other than a corporate donor.
Anyway, if anyone asks why the Titans play in Calihan Hall, now you know. And let’s hope that Mike Davis surpasses all of Calihan’s Titan coaching records.
In part because I’m very interested in history in general and Titan history when it comes to hoops, it often surprises me how little most people know about the man for whom the Titans home arena is named—Bob Calihan, hired as Titan coach 70 years ago this fall.
Not counting the 48 hour hire of UTEP coach Don Haskins in 1969, Mike Davis is probably the most high-profile coaching hire in Detroit since Calihan was hired in 1948. Most coaches Detroit has hired since (Dick Vitale, Willie McCarter, Don Sicko, Ricky Byrdsong, Perry Watson, and Bacari Alexander) were assistants getting their first head coaching job. Ray McCallum had been head coach at two prior schools, with both NCAA and NIT appearances, and Jim Harding (hired after Haskins reneged and scurried back to El Paso) had some profile after leading La Salle to an NCAA bid two years before (and being promptly fired for violating NCAA rules and getting the school placed on probation), but neither had the national recognition of Bob Calihan in 1948. In fact, Calihan, like most of the hires since, was actually taking his first head coaching job, too. But his situation was a bit different.
After a standout prep career in Chicago, Robert “Dusty” Calihan enrolled at UD in the fall of 1936. While at UD, Calihan was a sports writer for the Varsity News, and according to the News, was quite the ladies’ man. And he played basketball. That first winter, he led the freshman basketball squad to a 10-2 record, while averaging 12 points per game, a big number in those years (freshmen were not eligible for varsity ball at that time). A 6-3 center (my how the game has changed!) Calihan was an excellent post-up offensive player. He liked to set up to the right of the basket, and once the ball was in his hands, he tended to cross the lane and either pivot back and lay it in from the right, or knock it down with a wicked left-handed hook shot (does anyone learn, teach, or regularly use a hook shot anymore?). Calihan led the Titans in scoring over each the next three years and broke every Titan single-season and career scoring record in the process. As a junior in 1939, he was a consensus Second Team All-American; he was an Honorable Mention choice his senior year.
After graduating, Calihan joined the Detroit Eagles of the National Basketball League (NBL). In those pre-NBA days, there were several semi-pro and professional leagues around the country, but the NBL was the best, rivaled only by the American Basketball League. As a rookie in the 1940-41 season, Calihan was 10th in the league in scoring at 7.9 ppg and was a second team all-league selection at year-end. In 1941-42, Detroit chose to play as an independent barnstorming team. They were invited to play in the World Basketball Tournament, held each spring in Chicago and featuring the best teams from leagues around the country, as well as the best independents. Those independent "barnstorming" teams included the Harlem Globetrotters, who in those days played serious basketball and did so very well. The winner was generally recognized as the national champion. Detroit reached the finals in 1941, where it lost 43-41 to the Oshkosh All-Stars, who had also won the NBL championship.
Uncle Sam then called on Calihan to help handle some ruckus on the world stage, and Calihan missed the 1943, 1944, and 1945 seasons for military service. For the 1946 season, Calihan signed with the NBL’s Chicago Gears. Calihan was one of the stars of the Gears, who finished third in the World Basketball Tournament in 1946. With George Mikan joining the team out of college, the Gears won the NBL title in 1947. Before the 1948 season, Gears’ owner Maurice White pulled his team from the NBL and formed the National Professional Basketball League, in which he owned all 16 teams. The Gears, led by Mikan, Bobby McDermott, and Calihan, dominated the league, starting out 8-0, at which point the new league folded. Calihan then ended up back in the NBL with Flint, and finished second in the league in scoring to his former teammate Mikan (who had signed with the Minneapolis Lakers), with 14.3 ppg. For the 4th time in his 4 years in the league, Calihan was a second-team all-league selection.
After the 1948 season, Calihan accepted an offer to return to UD and coach his alma mater. This was a big deal—the #2 scorer in the best professional league, still in his prime, taking over as head coach at UD. The equivalent today would be New Orleans Pelicans center Anthony Davis, last year’s #2 scorer and a 5 time all-star in the NBA, leaving to coach in college. Of course, that would be unheard of, in part because the players make so much money today. And yet, in a sense, even that understates the stir Calihan’s hiring created on the national hoops scene, because in 1948 most hiring of basketball coaches was still a very low-key affair.
Before the war, UD had been a respectable team, known but not a major factor in national hoops. There were no national rankings until the 1949 season, but the Titans’ undefeated 1913 team was probably among the 10 best in the country, and the Titans were a combined 45-18 during Calihan’s three varsity seasons, scoring wins over several of the period’s national powers, including Kentucky, DePaul, Butler, Marquette, Santa Clara and others. The 15-5 1943 squad led the nation in scoring defense. Still, we weren’t thought of as a national power.
The hiring of Calihan as head coach was one of several steps the University took after the war in an effort to place itself among the elite of college ball. A second was joining the Missouri Valley Conference, then considered one of the top collegiate basketball conferences, before the 1950 season. Other steps included breaking ground on Memorial Hall, which opened in 1952 as one of the largest, most up-to-date college arenas in the country, and soon that year launching the Motor City Classic, an important event on the college hoops calendar in the 1950s, and one that lasted into the 1980s.
Calihan would coach the Titans for 21 seasons. The Titans were, from the time of Calihan’s hiring through the Dick Vitale/Smokey Gaines era, until Willie McCarter and Don Sicko ran the program into the ground in the 1980s, a serious player on the national scene. Calihan’s best teams were nationally ranked, rising as high as #3 in the AP poll in 1961 after beating #6 Utah State and #3 Indiana to open the season, and reaching #7 after a 10-0 start, including a win over 10th ranked St. Bonaventure, in 1968-69. The 1951 Titans beat two #1 ranked teams in one year, first Bradley, and later Oklahoma A&M (nee Oklahoma State). Calihan’s Titans made 4 post-season appearances in an era when those were hard to come by. Under Calihan, Titan players regularly figured in All-America balloting, including Norm Swanson (Honorable Mention in 1952, 1953), Guy Sparrow (HM 1955), Bill Ebben (HM 1956, 3rd team 1957), Dave DeBusschere (third team in each of 1960, ’61, and ’62), Dorie Murrey (HM 1966), and Spencer Haywood (1st team 1969). The Titans’ top rivals were Marquette, Michigan State, and Dayton, and the home schedule regularly featured national powers such as Villanova, Indiana, Boston College, and Notre Dame.
But while the Titans were a player in the long Calihan era, they never quite established themselves as a major national power and title contender along the lines of Villanova, Marquette, San Francisco, or St. Bonaventure in the 1950s and 1960s. By the time the Spencer Haywood-led 1969 squad finished a disappointing 16-10 and missed out on the post-season, there was a feeling that Calihan would never get the Titans over the hump—and that with a unique talent like Haywood, the Titans needed to make the effort at that time. So Calihan, who was then among the winningest major college coaches of all-time, was pushed upstairs to be AD. Then, when his mentor Will Robinson wasn’t hired and Haskins, who had coached UTEP to the 1966 NCAA title, reneged, Haywood made his move to go pro. Jim Harding got the nod to succeed Calihan and while he had some success on the court, he alienated most everybody around Detroit, including his players, who twice quit en masse.
Before the 1978 season, Calihan retired from his position as Athletic Director. Memorial Hall was given a facelift that fall and renamed Calihan Hall in honor of the Titans' first All-American player and all-time winningest coach. Calihan died in 1989 at age 71.
I suppose it is only a matter of time until Calihan Hall is either demolished to make way for a new building, or renovated again, and in either case a major donor may at that time get naming rights. As for me, I like the tradition of still having the building named for someone other than a corporate donor.
Anyway, if anyone asks why the Titans play in Calihan Hall, now you know. And let’s hope that Mike Davis surpasses all of Calihan’s Titan coaching records.