Irwin Dambrot (May 24, 1928 – January 21, 2010) was an American

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, best known for his college career 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 ...

Early life

Dambrot was born in the Bronx and attended William Howard Taft High School in the South Bronx.

Basketball career

Dambrot was a first-round draft pick of the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

and the Most Outstanding Player of the 1950 NCAA basketball tournament. A 6-foot–4, 175–pound forward, He played for coach

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

(CCNY), where he was a senior captain in 1950 and led the Beavers to a 24–5 record and the NCAA basketball championship, earning

MVP In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

honors in the tournament. After the season, Dambrot was named to the

Helms Athletic Foundation The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his ownership ...

Basketball All-America team. Dambrot's CCNY team also won the 1950

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), the only time that one school has won both the NCAA and NIT tournaments in the same season. Dambrot was the only senior starter on the CCNY roster that season. A January 19, 2003, article in the

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...

described Dambrot as "a sharp-shooting forward known for his relentless enthusiasm." Dambrot was selected in the first round (seventh overall) by the New York Knicks in the 1950 NBA draft, though he chose a career in dentistry after graduating from Columbia University Dental School. On March 26, 1951, Dambrot and his CCNY teammates Ed Roman, Ed Warner, Norm Mager, Al "Fats" Roth, Herb Cohen, and Floyd Layne were arrested on charges of shaving points in three games during the 1949–50 season. They pleaded guilty to

misdemeanor A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than adm ...

charges of

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 ...

. All received suspended sentences, except for Warner, who received a six-month prison sentence because he had a prior run-in with the law. According to a March 20, 1996, article in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

by Ira Berkow, "the CCNY players who were convicted had accepted bribes from gamblers not to throw games, but to keep them under the point spreads. The players received just a few thousand dollars for their efforts, which took place during the season, but not during tournament games." Dambrot's nephew,

Keith Dambrot Keith Brett Dambrot (born October 26, 1958) is an American college basketball coach and the current men's basketball head coach of Duquesne University. During his high school head coaching career, he coached future NBA star LeBron James for two y ...

, coached

LeBron James LeBron Raymone James Sr. (; born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he is widely considered one of the greatest pl ...

when the future NBA star was at St. Vincent–St. Mary High School, and he is the current head basketball coach at the

Duquesne University Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit ( or ; Duquesne University or Duquesne) is a private Catholic research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened as the Pittsbu ...

Later life and death

Irwin Dambrot lived his final years in Mendham, New Jersey. He died at age 81 at a hospital in Summit, New Jersey, after having suffered from

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

for some time. He is interred at Locust Hill Cemetery in Dover, New Jersey.

References

External links

Daily News Tribute to Irwin Dambrot
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dambrot, Irwin 1928 births 2010 deaths American men's basketball players Basketball players from New York City CCNY Beavers men's basketball players Forwards (basketball) New York Knicks draft picks Sportspeople from the Bronx

Early life

Basketball career

Later life and death

See also

References

External links