Haskell Cohen (March 12, 1914 – June 28, 2000) was the public relations director of 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 ...
(NBA) from 1950 to 1969. He is known as the creator of the
NBA All-Star Game
The National Basketball Association All-Star Game is a basketball exhibition game hosted every February by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and showcases 24 of the league's star players. It is the featured event of NBA All-Star Weekend, a ...
.
He was inducted to the
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere arou ...
for his contributions in basketball.
Career
In 1951, Cohen joined the NBA as the league's publicity director. He teamed up with NBA President
Maurice Podoloff
Maurice Podoloff ( yi, מוריס פודולוף; August 18, 1890 – November 24, 1985) was an American lawyer and a basketball and ice hockey administrator. He served as the president of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) between 1946 ...
, forming a two-man office. At that time, the basketball world had just been stunned by the
college basketball point-shaving scandal. Cohen came up with an idea of hosting an
All-Star Game
An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or div ...
featuring the league's best player, similar to the
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
's
All-Star Game
An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or div ...
. He believed that such showcase would regain fans' interest in basketball.
Podoloff and the majority of team owners were pessimistic that the idea would go bad and taint the league's image. However,
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of t ...
owner remained confident with Cohen's idea. He offered to host the game and to cover all the expenses or potential losses incurred from the game. The
first NBA All-Star Game was held on March 2, 1951 at the
Boston Garden
The Boston Garden was an arena in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built the third iteration of New York's Madison Square Garden, it opened on November 17, 1928, as "Boston Madison Square Garden" (lat ...
. The game became a success, drawing a crowd of 10,094, much higher than that season's average attendance of 3,500. Since then, the All-Star Game became an annual mid-season tradition in the NBA.
Before joining the NBA, Cohen was a writer for the ''
Pittsburgh Courier
The ''Pittsburgh Courier'' was an African-American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the ''Courier'' was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States.
It was acqu ...
'' and also a scout for the
Duquesne Dukes
The Duquesne Dukes are the athletic teams of Duquesne University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Dukes compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association as members of the Atlantic 10 Conference. Football and bowling, however ...
. While scouting for Duquesne, he discovered Fletcher Jones. Jones became a professional basketball player before becoming a medical doctor. He later teamed up with Cohen, NBA player
Jack Twyman
John Kennedy Twyman (May 21, 1934 – May 30, 2012) was an American professional basketball player and sports broadcaster. Twyman is a namesake of the NBA's Twyman–Stokes Teammate of the Year Award. Twyman was inducted into the Naismith Basketb ...
and hotel owner Milton Kutsher in 1958 to create the
Maurice Stokes
Maurice Stokes (June 17, 1933 – April 6, 1970) was an American professional basketball player. He played for the Cincinnati/Rochester Royals of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1955 to 1958. Stokes was a three-time NBA All-Star, ...
charity game. The game was intended to raise money for Stokes, who had just suffered
encephalopathy
Encephalopathy (; from grc, ἐνκέφαλος "brain" + πάθος "suffering") means any disorder or disease of the brain, especially chronic degenerative conditions. In modern usage, encephalopathy does not refer to a single disease, but r ...
, a brain injury that damaged his motor control center. That game became an annual tradition to raise money for other former players in financial need. The Maurice Stokes games were held at
Kutsher's Hotel
Kutsher's Hotel and Country Club in Thompson, Sullivan County, near Monticello, New York, was the longest running of the Borscht Belt grand resorts in the Catskill Mountains region of New York State. While the region was open to any and all ...
in
Monticello, New York
Monticello ( ) is a village located in Thompson, Sullivan County, within the Catskills region of New York, United States. The population was 7,173 at the 2020 census. It is the seat for the Town of Thompson and the county seat of Sullivan Count ...
or at their camp, the
Kutsher's Sports Academy.
In 1948, Cohen founded the United States Committee Sports for Israel. The committee sponsored American participation in the
Maccabiah Games
The Maccabiah Games (a.k.a. the World Maccabiah Games; he, משחקי המכביה, or משחקי המכביה העולמית; sometimes referred to as the "Jewish Olympics"), first held in 1932, are an international Jewish and Israeli multi-sp ...
in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, an Olympic-style competition for Jewish athletes. He later became the president of the committee from 1961 to 1969. In 1981, he became the first chairman of
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere arou ...
Selection Committee.
He held the position until 1989 and in 1991 he received the
Hall of Fame Pillar of Achievement, an honor given to a person who have made significant contributions to sports.
He was a longtime contributing editor to ''
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually ce ...
'', an American national Sunday newspaper magazine. He originated its high school all-American teams in football and basketball. He was also the sports editor for the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web ...
for 17 years. He was also a member of the
Basketball Hall of Fame
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pre ...
Board of Trustees, a member of the
United States Olympic Basketball Committee, and a member of the Amateur Basketball Association USA.
Personal life
Haskell Cohen was born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
. He graduated from
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
with a journalism degree.
Cohen died on June 28, 2000 in his home in
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee is a borough at the eastern border of Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated along the Hudson River atop the Palisades.
As of the 2020 U.S. census, the borough's population was 40,191. As of the 2010 U.S. census, th ...
at the age of 86. He is survived by two daughters, three grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Hakell
1914 births
2000 deaths
Boston University College of Communication alumni
National Basketball Association executives
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
Writers from Worcester, Massachusetts
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Sportswriters from Massachusetts