Jacob Louis Molinas (October 31, 1931 – August 3, 1975) was an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player and a key figure in one of the most wide-reaching

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 ...

scandals in

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

Early life

Molinas grew up in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and attended Stuyvesant High School. His parents owned a bar on Coney Island.

College career

He attended

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

from 1950 to 1953 where he played basketball. In the 1952-1953 season he was the captain of Columbia's team and led the team in scoring. In 1953, he set a team record for most points scored in a game—a mark that was eclipsed a few years later by

Chet Forte Fulvio Chester "Chet" Forte Jr. (August 7, 1935 – May 18, 1996) was an American television director and sports radio talk show host. He was also a standout college basketball player for Columbia and was the UPI Player of the Year in 1956–57. ...

Professional career

The

Fort Wayne Pistons A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

drafted him third in the 1953 NBA draft and played in 32 games before the league banned him for wagering on Pistons games. Molinas was selected for the

1954 NBA All-Star Game The 1954 NBA All Star Game was the fourth NBA All-Star Game. It was held on January 21, 1954, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics was the game MVP. Joe Lapchick of the New York Knicks coached the Eastern ...

but was suspended at the time of the game and was replaced by teammate Andy Phillip. He later sued the NBA for $3 million, claiming the league's ban was an unreasonable restraint of trade. Judge Irving Kaufman ruled against him in the case. Molinas is the NBA career leader in All-Star games per number of regular season games played (1/32). Molinas played in the

Eastern Professional Basketball League 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 ...

(EPBL) from 1954 to 1962 for the Williamsport Billies,

Hazleton Hawks The Hazleton Hawks were a professional basketball franchise in the Eastern Professional Basketball League. The Hawks, based in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, joined the league in 1955, playing as the "Hazleton Professionals"; they were named the "Hawk ...

and

Wilkes-Barre Barons The Wilkes-Barre Barons were a basketball team from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The Barons played between 1933 and 1980 in different American leagues. The team won 11 titles during this time, including while playing in the American Basketball ...

. He was selected as the EPBL Most Valuable Player in 1956. Molinas was a five-time All-EPBL First Team selection (1955–1958, 1960) and two-time Second Team selection (1959, 1961). He served as a

player-coach A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

for the Hawks during the 1960–61 season. After his playing career, he entered the

Brooklyn Law School Brooklyn Law School (BLS) is a private law school in New York City. Founded in 1901, it has approximately 1,100 students. Brooklyn Law School's faculty includes 60 full-time faculty, 15 emeriti faculty, and a number of adjunct faculty. Brookly ...

from where he graduated with a law degree. Before his admission to law school, the Bronx County District Attorney investigated his case and concluded that he had not committed a crime. The bar association also reviewed his case and admitted him to the New York Bar.

Career statistics

NBA regular season

EPBL regular season

Legal issues

In 1973, authorities arrested and charged him with interstate shipment of pornography and furs in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. He was due to stand trial on those charges at the time of his death.

Personal life

Match fixing

Molinas became the central figure in the 1961 point-shaving scandal. The gambling ring went on from 1957 to 1960 and involved 50 players from 27 colleges. Two of the most notable players ensnared in the scandal were future Hall of Famers

Connie Hawkins Cornelius Lance "Connie" Hawkins (July 17, 1942 – October 6, 2017) was an American professional basketball player. A New York City playground legend, "the Hawk" was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. Early ye ...

and Roger Brown. Molinas gave Hawkins $250 during his freshman year at

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

, but never encouraged him to throw games. Although Molinas never implicated Hawkins in any way, both Hawkins and Brown were effectively blackballed from both collegiate and professional basketball, until signing with the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967. Hawkins also played in the American Basketball League (ABL) for its entire existence, 1961–63, and afterwards appealed towards the NBA in allowing him to play again, starting in 1969 with the Phoenix Suns. Meanwhile, Brown spent his entire professional career in the rival ABA, leading the Indianapolis Pacers to three ABA titles before retiring from basketball in 1975; the Indiana Pacers retired his number (#35) on November 2, 1985. In 1963, Molinas was convicted for his role in the scheme and was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. He was paroled in 1968 after serving five years. Molinas was said to have contacts with New York City mobster

Thomas Eboli Thomas "Tommy Ryan" Eboli (June 13, 1911 Scisciano, Italy – July 16, 1972 Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York) was a New York City mobster who eventually became the acting boss of the Genovese crime family. Early life Born in Scisciano, in the P ...

Death

At 2:00 AM on August 3, 1975 at age 43, Molinas was killed while standing in the backyard of his home in Los Angeles. Eugene Connor fired five shots, with at least one shot being a bullet to the head, while standing in the yard of Molinas' neighbor using a long barreled .22 caliber pistol steadied on the fence. Molinas was hit in the neck, and his girlfriend and dog were both wounded as well. Police did not rule out a mob-related murder. His business partner Bernard Gusoff had been beaten to death in November 1974. Molinas and Gusoff both had life insurance policies worth $500,000 on each other due to them being partners in a fur importing business at the time.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Molinas, Jack 1931 births 1975 deaths American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players American sportspeople convicted of crimes Banned National Basketball Association players Basketball players from New York City Columbia Lions men's basketball players Deaths by firearm in California Eastern Basketball Association coaches Fort Wayne Pistons draft picks Fort Wayne Pistons players Male murder victims Murdered American Jews National Basketball Association All-Stars People murdered in Los Angeles Power forwards (basketball) Small forwards Sportspeople involved in betting scandals Stuyvesant High School alumni Match fixers