Edward L. Warner (July 5, 1929 – September 7, 2002) was an American college

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player. He was one of the stars of the

1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team The 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team represented the City College of New York. The head coach was Nat Holman, who was one of the game's greatest innovators and playmakers. Unlike today, when colleges recruit players from all over the c ...

, the only team to win both the NCAA tournament and the

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitational Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Played at regional sites and traditionally at Madison Square Garden (Final Four) in New York City ...

(NIT) in the same year. He was also a central figure in the point shaving scandal that came to light in the aftermath of that season.

College career

Warner came from

DeWitt Clinton High School , motto_translation = Without Work Nothing Is Accomplished , image = DeWitt Clinton High School front entrance IMG 7441 HLG.jpg , seal_image = File:Clinton News.JPG , seal_size = 124px , ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

to play college basketball for

Nat Holman Nat Holman (October 19, 1896 – February 12, 1995) was an American professional basketball player and college coach. He is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and is the only coach to lead his team to NCAA and National In ...

at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

. A 6'3"

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

, he regularly battled with bigger men to average 14.8 points per game as a sophomore for the Beavers during their championship year. In the 1950 NIT, he upped this average to 21.7 per game and was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player as CCNY defeated

Bradley Bradley is an English surname derived from a place name meaning "broad wood" or "broad meadow" in Old English. Like many English surnames Bradley can also be used as a given name and as such has become popular. It is also an Anglicisation of t ...

in the final at

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...

. A couple of weeks later, the Beavers again beat Bradley, this time in the 1950 NCAA tournament, to become the only team to win both tournaments in the same year.

Point shaving scandal

The next season, Warner and teammate Ed Roman were named co-captains for the Beavers and were poised to defend their championship titles. On February 18, 1951,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

District Attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

Frank Hogan Frank Smithwick Hogan (January 17, 1902 – April 2, 1974) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He served as New York County District Attorney for more than 30 years, during which he achieved a reputation for professionalism and ...

arrested seven men for

point shaving In organized sports, point shaving is a type of match fixing where the perpetrators try to change the final score of a game without changing who wins. This is typically done by players colluding with gamblers to prevent a team from covering a p ...

, including Warner. While most convicted players received suspended sentences, he was sent to prison for six months. A lawyer in the case remarked:

"(Judge Saul) Streit considered Warner to be incorrigible and uncontrollable. Warner was too flamboyant and he also had a record as a juvenile delinquent. Streit believed in rehabilitation by deprivation"

For his involvement in fixing games, Warner was permanently banned from playing in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

EBA, prison, high school, paralysis and death

After serving his sentence at

Rikers Island Rikers Island is a island in the East River between Queens and the Bronx that contains New York City's main jail complex. Named after Abraham Rycken, who took possession of the island in 1664, the island was originally under in size, but has ...

prison, Warner played several years in the

Eastern Basketball Association The Continental Basketball Association (CBA) (originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association) was a men's professional basketball m ...

. In the 1960s, he was again imprisoned, for attempting to sell

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...

. He then officiated high school basketball games until he was partly paralyzed in a 1984 car accident. He died on September 7, 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warner, Ed 1929 births 2002 deaths American men's basketball players Banned National Basketball Association players CCNY Beavers men's basketball players DeWitt Clinton High School alumni Sportspeople from Harlem Basketball players from New York City Power forwards (basketball) Sportspeople involved in betting scandals