Dr. Fred Pollock announced that the 2009 Summer WV Jewish Film Program will take place at The Cultural Center at the WV State Capitol on Sunday, July 19th, at 7 PM. Admission is free. The film to be shown is “The First Basket,” a new film about the Jewish obsession with basketball, some players becoming some of the first professional players.
Before the film, Charleston’s own Nemo Nearman, who starred for the University of North Carolina Tarheels, winner of this year’s national collegiate basketball champsion, will speak. Nearman told me last Saturday that he acted in a B-Hollywood film called “The Time Travelers.” He will be showing a few clips from the film during his presentation.
This event is sponsored by the Federated Jewish Charities of Charleston.
I watched a preview of “The First Basket” recently and found the film to be incredibly interesting, fun, insightful, and exciting. I would rank it as the best film I have ever seen about sports.
I enjoyed this film much more than “Olympia” by Leni Riefenstahl, often considered the greatest sports film ever. WV’s own “From Ashes to Glory” is definitely one of the greatest sports films ever made. One film, “Watermarks,” shown by the WV Jewish Film Festival several years ago, shows how important diving was to Jewish women in Germany before the Nazis took over. The WV Jewish Film Festival has also shown “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” about the great pro baseball player.
No film that I have ever seen shows how a sport could become such an important way for hundreds of thousands of immigrants to learn their place in the American meltingpot. Anyone who loves sports should see this amazing film.
From the film’s website - On November 1, 1946, in the opening game of the fledgling Basketball Association of America (BAA), Ossie Schectman scored the opening basket for the New York Knickerbockers against the Toronto Huskies. Schectman and his teammates Sonny Hertzberg, Stan Stutz, Hank Rosenstein, Ralph Kaplowitz, Jake Weber, and Leo “Ace” Gottlieb went on to win the opening game 68 – 66 and finish the season with a 33 – 27 record. In 1949, the BAA became the National Basketball Association (NBA), and Schectman’s shot is considered the first basket in the NBA.
I was fascinated not only with the history and interviews with the living founders of pro basketball, but also how popular basketball has become in Israel. I certainly did not know that this particular sport has become perhaps the dominant sport in the new country. I always thought that soccer played that role, not only in Israel but all other countries outside the U.S.
I myself played basketball in junior high school, 8th grade, playing in the city championship game, losing. I also played in the city football champsionship game the same year, winning. I latter played on a church team in high school, becoming the second highest scorer in the league, and finished my basketball career in college playing in a basketball course taught by John Kundla, one-time coach of the Minneapolis Lakers, now the LA Lakers, and the inventor of “the fast break.” I scored from half court in triple overtime to win. I have always loved basketball much more than football. I really enjoyed this film, and hopefully everyone who loves sports, especially basketball, will get to see this film. Maybe PBS or ESPN will broadcast it some day.
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