Awarded for | the national men's college basketball player of the year |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Presented by | Helms Athletic Foundation |
History | |
First award | 1943 [a] |
Final award | 1983 |
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 1936 by Bill Schroeder and Paul Helms, the owner of Helms Bakery in Los Angeles. [1]
The award was first presented in 1944, when the Helms Athletic Foundation announced Schroeder's player of the year selection for the 1943–44 season as well as his retroactive picks for the for each season from 1904–05 to 1942–43. [1] Schroeder then began selecting a player of the year annually.
After Paul Helms' death in 1957, his family continued supporting the foundation until 1969, when the bakeries went out of business. [2] Schroeder found a new benefactor in United Savings & Loan, [2] and the foundation's name became United Savings–Helms Athletic Foundation. [3] [4] United merged with Citizens Savings & Loan in 1973, when the foundation became the Citizens Savings Athletic Foundation. [2] It was again renamed when First Interstate Bank assumed sponsorship and was known as the First Interstate Bank Athletic Foundation in the award's final years after 1981. [5] [6] Schroeder made his last player of the year selection for the 1982–83 season, after which the award came to an end.
† | Co-Players of the Year |
Player (X) | Denotes the number of times the player has been awarded the Helms Player of the Year award at that point |
Winners prior to the 1942–43 season were selected retroactively in 1943 [7] and 1957.
The John R. Wooden Award is an award given annually to the most outstanding men's and women's college basketball players. The program consists of the men's and women's Player of the Year awards, the Legends of Coaching award, and recognizing the All-America Teams.
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The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his ownership of Helms Bakery. Bill Schroeder founded the organization with Helms and served as its managing director. The men were united in a love of amateur athletic competition.
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The 1937 California Golden Bears football team, nicknamed the "Thunder Team", was an American football team that represented the University of California in the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) during the 1937 college football season. In their third year under head coach Stub Allison, the Bears compiled a 10–0–1 record, shut out seven of eleven opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 214 to 33.
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Paul Hoy Helms was an American executive in the baking industry and sports philanthropist. He founded the Helms Bakery in 1931 and the Helms Athletic Foundation with Bill Schroeder in 1936.
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These Basketball Player of the Year selections have been made by Helms Athletic Foundation, following careful study of the performances of outstanding players for each season since 1920. Basketball Player of the Year selections will be made by Helms Athletic Foundation at the conclusion of each season in the future.
Selection of CCNY as the nation's top team was not difficult after the Beavers made an unprecedented sweep of the NIT and NCAA tournaments.
David Thompson of North Carolina State and Bill Walton of UCLA were named college basketball Players of the Year Wednesday by the Citizens Savings Athletic Foundation. It was the third consecutive year Walton was cited.
Larry Bird was named college basketball's Player of the Year by the Citizens Savings Athletic Foundation. Sophomore Earvin Johnson of NCAA champion Michigan State finished second in the voting.
Griffith has also been named college basketball player of the year by Citizens Savings Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles an award that goes back to 1905.
DePaul's Mark Aguirre was player-of-the-year and UC Irvine's Kevin Magee (the only other Southlander selected) made it at a forward.
And only the Athletic Foundation funded by First Interstate Bank (formerly the Helms awards) picked Akeem Abdul Olajuwon of NCAA runner-up Houston as its player of the year.