John Moir (May 22, 1915 – November 15, 1975) was a professional basketball player between 1938 and 1946 in the United States' National Basketball League.

Early life

Moir was born in

Rutherglen Rutherglen (, sco, Ruglen, gd, An Ruadh-Ghleann) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, immediately south-east of the city of Glasgow, from its centre and directly south of the River Clyde. Having existed as a Lanarkshire burgh in its own ...

, Scotland, to parents John and Elizabeth Moir. His father was a carpenter by trade, and Moir also had two siblings. In 1923, their family immigrated to the United States and chose to live in Niagara Falls, New York. As a freshman at

Niagara Falls High School Niagara Falls High School is a public high school located at 4455 Porter Road in Niagara Falls, New York, United States. It was established and dedicated on September 1, 2000 and opened 5 days later, becoming the city's only public high school, ...

, Moir stood only tall. When he graduated from NFHS he enrolled at Trott Vocational School, at which point he had finished growing to and 184 lbs. It was at Trott where Moir first played basketball. When he finished his vocational education, Moir got a job at American Sales Book Company as their bookkeeper. He played on the company's industrial league basketball team, but it was actually his job performance that afforded him the opportunity to attend college.

College

Moir decided to enroll at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...

South Bend, Indiana South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...

. Back then,

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

rules prohibited freshmen from playing varsity sports, so it was not until Moir's sophomore year of 1935–36 that he was able to play basketball for coach

George Keogan George E. Keogan (March 8, 1890 – February 17, 1943) was an American football, basketball, and baseball coach, most known for coaching basketball at the University of Notre Dame from 1923 to 1943. Keogan never had a losing season in his 20 year ...

. Despite having not played basketball until the interim period between high school graduation and college, Moir led the

Fighting Irish The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 23 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Divisi ...

to a 22–2–1 record and the Helms Athletic Foundation NCAA National Championship in his first season of eligibility. He played the

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 ...

position and led the team in scoring at 11.3 points per game (ppg). Moir was also named the

Helms Foundation College Basketball Player of the Year The Helms Foundation College Basketball Player of the Year was an annual men's college basketball award given to the most outstanding men′s player in the United States. It was awarded by the Helms Athletic Foundation, an organization founded in ...

. Over the next two seasons, he led the team in scoring at 13.2 and 10.5 ppg, respectively, while also being named a consensus All-America selection in each of his three years playing for Notre Dame. Moir had broken every single school scoring record that Edward "Moose" Krause had set during his three-time All-American career earlier that decade.

Professional

After graduating from Notre Dame, Moir played professionally in the National Basketball League. In his first two seasons in the league, he won two NBL championships as a member of the Akron Firestone Non-Skids in 1938–39 and 1939–40. Over the course of those two championship seasons Moir averaged 7 ppg, and in the 1940 playoffs he led all players with an 11 ppg average. He spent one more season playing for Akron before joining the Rochester Seagrams in 1942. However,

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

suspended Rochester's ability to play. When Moir resumed play in 1945–46, he joined the Cleveland Allmen Transfers for whom he played his final season. When his NBL career ended, he had played for four years, won two league championships and scored 562 points in 89 total games.

Later life

In his post-basketball life, Moir lived in

Carlisle, Pennsylvania Carlisle is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2020 United States census, ...

and worked for the Carlisle Tire and Rubber Company. He and his wife Marjorie raised two daughters and one son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moir, John 1915 births 1975 deaths Akron Firestone Non-Skids players All-American college men's basketball players American men's basketball players Basketball players from New York (state) Cleveland Allmen Transfers players Forwards (basketball) Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball players People from Carlisle, Pennsylvania British emigrants to the United States Sportspeople from Niagara Falls, New York Sportspeople from Rutherglen