| City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | George Roy Steven Hilliard Stern |
Production company | Black Canyon Productions |
| Distributed by | HBO |
Release date | 1998 |
Running time | 60 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal is a 1998 American documentary film about the City College of New York basketball point-shaving scandal. It was produced by George Roy and Steven Hilliard Stern. It was made for HBO. [1]
Jews and blacks composed the CCNY team and their coach was Nat Holman. [1] The team was found guilty of point-shaving; gamblers would pay money for players to lose points or not play as well as was expected. [2] The revelation of the CCNY point-shaving scandal led to other scandals: other basketball teams were caught point-shaving around the country. [1]
Black Canyon Productions produced the film with multiple players, broadcasters, and alumni of the college being interviewed. [1] The content was compiled by Ross Greenburg who was HBO Sports' senior vice president and executive producer. [3] The film opens with a statement from Burt Young and is narrated by Liev Schreiber. Game play footage is included in the documentary. [2] None of the six then-living CCNY players wanted to be interviewed. [1] The film did not portray the players in a disparaging way, but how they were influenced by the complexity of the corruption. The film shows the background of the multicultural team and its successes as well. [1] It premiered in 1998 on HBO during March Madness as an hour-long documentary. [3]
Tex Cox of The Daily Herald wrote, "City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal might just be the most beautiful sports documentary I've ever seen." [3] Ed Bark, writing for the Sun-Sentinel said the film "is a lush filmic swish, even if some of its narrative gets gaudier than a Dennis Rodman dye job." [2]
Daniel A. Nathan gave a mixed review for The Journal of American History , saying that "City Dump glosses over and simplifies too much" and concluding with "City Dump debunks the popular notion that the 1950s was a time of wholesomeness, integrity, and traditional values." [1]
Isaac Liev Schreiber is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and narrator. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s after appearing in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the first three Scream horror films (1996–2000), Ransom (1996), Phantoms (1998), The Hurricane (1999), Kate & Leopold (2001), The Sum of All Fears (2002), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), The Omen (2006), Defiance (2008), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Taking Woodstock (2009), Salt (2010), Goon (2011), Pawn Sacrifice (2014), Spotlight (2015), The 5th Wave (2016), and The French Dispatch (2021). He has also lent his voice to animated films such as My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), Isle of Dogs, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
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 published point spread, where gamblers bet on the margin of victory. The practice of shaving points is illegal in some countries, and stiff penalties are imposed for those caught and convicted, including jail time.
Nat Holman 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 Invitation Tournament (NIT) championships in the same season.
The 1950 NCAA basketball tournament involved 8 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA college basketball. It began on March 23, 1950, and ended with the championship game on March 28 in New York City, New York. A total of 10 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game.
Floyd Layne is an American former basketball player and coach. He played college basketball for the City College of New York (CCNY) and was implicated in the point shaving scandal in 1951. Layne was instrumental in the team that won the NIT and NCAA championship in 1950 for CCNY.
Eugene "Squeaky" Melchiorre was an American basketball player. A point guard, he was drafted by the Baltimore Bullets and was the first overall pick in the 1951 NBA draft. Melchiorre never played an NBA game due to his lifetime ban from the league for point shaving when he was a college player.
The CCNY point-shaving scandal of 1950–51 was a college basketball point-shaving gambling scandal that involved seven American schools in all, with four in the New York metropolitan area, two in the Midwest, and one in the South. However, most of the key players in the scandal were players of the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team.
Irwin Dambrot was an American basketball player, best known for his college career at the City College of New York.
Steven Hilliard Stern was a Canadian television and documentary director, producer and writer.
William Edwin Spivey was an American basketball player. A 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) center, he played college basketball for the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Kentucky Wildcats from 1949 to 1951. After his high school career, Spivey was recruited by the University of Kentucky. During his time with the Wildcats, he led the team to the 1951 NCAA tournament championship, and was voted Most Outstanding Player of the event. When a point shaving scandal was revealed that year, Spivey was accused of being involved, which he denied. He left the Wildcats in December 1951, and the university banned him from the squad in March 1952.
The 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team represented the City College of New York. The head coach was Nat Holman, who was one of the game's greatest innovators and playmakers. Unlike today, when colleges recruit players from all over the country, the 1949–50 CCNY team was composed of "kids from the sidewalks of New York City," who had been recruited by Holman's assistant coach Harold "Bobby" Sand from Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) schools such as Taft, Clinton, Boys, Erasmus, and Franklin High Schools.
Sherman White was an American basketball player at Long Island University (LIU) who is best remembered for being indicted in a point shaving scandal that resulted in him being stripped of numerous honors and awards, having to serve an 8-month jail sentence, and being prohibited from ever playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA). As a college senior in 1950–51, White was the nation's leading scorer at 27.7 points per game and was only 77 total points shy of becoming the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) all-time single season leading scorer when he was caught, thus forcing him to prematurely quit and never getting to finish his college basketball career.
The First Basket is a 2008 documentary film on professional basketball's influence on Jewish culture.
The Basketball Fix is a 1951 noir sports drama film directed by Felix E. Feist and starring John Ireland, Marshall Thompson and Vanessa Brown. The film is also known by the alternative title The Big Decision in the United Kingdom. It is based on the CCNY point shaving scandal.
William J. Walker Jr. was an American basketball player. He was a native of Queens, New York and played the guard position. Walker played collegiately for the Toledo Rockets from 1948 to 1951. He was known as an excellent dribbler and passer, and was the first officially recorded national season assists leader with his 7.24 per game average during the 1950–51 NCAA men's basketball season. However, Walker's collegiate accomplishments were overshadowed by his involvement in a point shaving scandal during his senior year.
Edward L. Warner was an American college basketball player. He was one of the stars of the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team, the only team to win both the NCAA tournament and the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in the same year. He was also a central figure in the point shaving scandal that came to light in the aftermath of that season.
Edward Roman was an American college basketball player. He was the leading scorer of the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team, the only team to win both the NCAA tournament and the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in the same year. He was also a central figure in the point shaving scandal that came to light in the aftermath of that season.
George Roy is an American sports documentary director, producer, and editor. Among his twenty two films for HBO are Mantle,When it was a Game, Curse of the Bambino, Broad Street Bullies, Babe Ruth, Fists of Freedom, Hitler's Pawn, and City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal. He has directed and edited numerous films for Showtime, Fox, CBS, NBC, A&E, ESPN and WWE. A graduate of Emerson College, he is the winner of six Emmys and three George F. Foster Peabody Awards.
The 1952–53 NCAA men's basketball season began in December 1952, progressed through the regular season and conference tournaments, and concluded with the 1953 NCAA basketball tournament championship game on March 18, 1953, at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The Indiana Hoosiers won their second NCAA national championship with a 69–68 victory over the Kansas Jayhawks.
The 1950–51 NCAA men's basketball season began in December 1950, progressed through the regular season and conference tournaments, and concluded with the 1951 NCAA basketball tournament championship game on March 27, 1951, at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Kentucky Wildcats won their third NCAA national championship with a 68–58 victory over the Kansas State Wildcats.