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Joe Cephis Fortenberry (April 1, 1911 – June 3, 1993) was an American basketball player who competed in the
1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
. He was a captain of the American basketball team, which won the gold medal in the first Olympics to include basketball. After college, Fortenberry played for the Ogden Boosters in Utah, and then with the McPherson Oilers in McPherson, Kansas. This was the team that won the AAU National Championship in 1936, prior to the Olympics. He played two games at the Olympics, including the final. He was the high scorer in the gold medal game, scoring 8 points in a 19–8 victory, and averaged a tournament-leading 14.5 points per game. The game was held in appalling conditions, outdoors on a muddy clay court, that made dribbling almost impossible, in steady rain and with winds that "blew the ball around wildly". After he played in the Olympics, Fortenberry played five seasons with the Phillips 66ers, the perennial power in the AAU basketball league, the premier basketball league in the United States before the NBA. He played from the 1936–1937 season through the 1940–1941 season, winning an AAU national championship in 1940. He is credited with being one of the first to slam dunk the basketball; this appeared in a '' New York Times'' article by Pulitzer Prize winning sports reporter, Arthur Daley, in 1936. He could still dunk when he was 55 years old, according to his son.Interview with his son, PBS, ''Antiques Roadshow'' #2103, Fort Worth, Hour Tree, first airdate January 16, 2017. His Olympic gold medal was appraised on ''Antiques Roadshow'' on PBS. The estimated value of the medal was $100,000 to $150,000.


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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fortenberry, Joe 1911 births 1993 deaths American men's basketball players Basketball players at the 1936 Summer Olympics Basketball players from Texas Medalists at the 1936 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball People from Wise County, Texas Phillips 66ers players United States men's national basketball team players West Texas A&M Buffaloes basketball players Centers (basketball)