Sam Gilbert (1913 - November 23, 1987) [1] was an American businessman who owned a construction company in Los Angeles, California. He is best known as a controversial athletic booster of the UCLA Bruins men's basketball team from the mid-1960s until UCLA was ordered to disassociate from him in 1981. [1] He ran a money-laundering enterprise to finance the now-famous World Poker Tour tour stop called the Bicycle Casino, for which he was posthumously indicted in 1987. He was the husband of a well-known Los Angeles area teacher, Rose Gilbert. [2]
Gilbert was born in the Los Angeles area. [3] His parents had left Lithuania to escape persecution. [4] Growing up in Hollywood, [3] he graduated from Hollywood High School and then attended UCLA in the 1930s, [1] [4] but did not graduate. [5] He was interested in civil rights and was an NAACP activist. [3] Gilbert had two sons, Michael and Robert, from his first wife.
Sam Gilbert met his second wife, Rose, through his younger brother. [2] Rose was a graduate of UCLA, and became a renowned teacher at Palisades Charter High School. She was acknowledged by the Los Angeles Unified School District by a Lifetime Teacher and Golden Apple Awards. Rose was named Harvard University's Impact Teacher of the Year. She has appeared on CBS Television shows 48 Hours and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric . Rose also has appeared on the May 2007 cover of Teacher Magazine. [6] Rose had a daughter, Maggie, from her first marriage, who died of an embolism in 2004 at age 54. [2] Rose died on December 16, 2013 at the age of 95. [7]
Rose was named by Star Wars: The Force Awakens writer/director J. J. Abrams as the influence for the character of Maz Kanata. Abrams told his home town newspaper, the Palisadian-Post , that he based Maz on Rose: [8]
We really wanted the story to feel authentic, despite being a wild fantasy. I mentioned Rose in an early story meeting as a sort of timeless, wise figure that I'd actually known in my life ... While we experimented with many looks and styles before settling on the character's final design, Rose was always at the center of the inspiration for Maz. [8]
Gilbert owned Sam Gilbert and Associates, a construction company that built homes and commercial buildings in the West Los Angeles area. [1]
He developed inventions, including metal studs and a door lock that made him wealthy. [9]
Known as "Papa Sam" and "Papa G" to UCLA players, Gilbert began his relationship with UCLA basketball sometime around 1966-1967, when UCLA player Willie Naulls brought Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Lucius Allen to him for some counseling. [10] He opened up his Bel-Air, Los Angeles home to the players and became an advisor to many. [11] [12] He bought clothes, cars, and even arranged abortions for players' girlfriends. [13]
Gilbert became the sports agent for the professional contracts of Alcindor, Allen, Sidney Wicks, Henry Bibby, Bill Walton and Swen Nater. [12] [14] [15] He and Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro negotiated a $1.4 million contract for Alcindor with the Milwaukee Bucks at no charge to Alcindor. [10] [16]
Coach Gene Bartow, who followed John Wooden as coach of the Bruin men's basketball team, felt his life was threatened by Gilbert. He thanked the NCAA in 1993 for not investigating the UCLA program in 1976. [17]
Following the death of UCLA Athletic Director J.D. Morgan in 1980, Gilbert began to exert more influence on the UCLA basketball team. Coach Larry Brown "ran afoul" of Gilbert according to a 1988 Sports Illustrated article. [18]
A 1981 investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that Gilbert had regularly helped UCLA athletes get discounts on items such as automobiles, stereos and airline tickets, and in so doing, apparently committed numerous violations of NCAA regulations. [5] [19] [20] The investigation did not uncover evidence that Wooden had explicit personal awareness of Gilbert's activities. [5] However, Gilbert's overall influence in the lives of the players was no secret. [21] This led the Times reporters to conclude that if Wooden was not aware of the specifics of Gilbert's favors for players, it was only because Wooden made no effort to discover those details. [5] [22] For his part, Wooden acknowledged that he had always felt uneasy about Gilbert's relationship with the players, but steadfastly denied having knowledge at the time of anything done by Gilbert that was in violation of NCAA regulations. [5] [23] [24] [25] [26] He also asserted that both he and Morgan had advised players to steer clear of Gilbert, but that ultimately they could not control the players' or Gilbert's actions. [27] Given what later came to light, however, Wooden granted that he may have had "tunnel vision" [5] [25] and that he perhaps "trusted too much". Nonetheless, Wooden said that his "conscience [was] clear" with regard to his own role in the matter. [5]
Following the investigation in 1981, in which, according to the Los Angeles Times, 15 years worth of evidence of transgressions had been collected, [13] [28] the UCLA basketball team was given two years NCAA probation. [29] UCLA also was forced to vacate its Final Four appearance in the 1980 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament due to recruiting violations involving Rod Foster and others. [29]
The 2007 film The UCLA Dynasty, produced by HBO, contains a segment on Gilbert. [30] HBO producer George Roy believes he was journalistically responsible to include it or face criticism. [28]
In 1987, Gilbert was the subject of a federal investigation into money laundering and racketeering charges. According to the investigation, a scheme to launder the money received from smuggling marijuana was put together to finance the construction of the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California. [31] According to one criminal complaint,
[Sam Gilbert] a wealthy Los Angeles businessman, was the first Gilbert to establish ties with the Kramer family when he befriended Benjamin Kramer's father, Jack Kramer, in 1978. At that time, Jack Kramer and Sam Gilbert came up with the idea of building a legal card club for the purposes of laundering Benjamin Kramer's dirty money. By 1983, Sam Gilbert was in contact with David Pierson, who was himself thinking of building a card club and was looking for legitimate investors. Pierson gave Sam Gilbert a prospectus, Sam liked what he saw, and Sam agreed to arrange the financing for the project in return for a sixty percent share of Pierson's ownership interest in the Club. [32]
Gilbert was indicted in Miami four days after his death. [33] His son Michael also was indicted.
George Hardie and The Park Place Associates ownership were exonerated in 1990, and they regained their 35% stake. [34] LCP partners Julianne Coyne and former California Assemblyman David C. Pierson settled before the civil hearing. In 1991, they agreed to give up about half of their interest in LCP, which had a 65% stake in the casino. [35]
The Rose and Sam Gilbert Fellowship at UCLA pays fees for two graduate students who attended UCLA as undergraduates for at least two years and participated on men's or women's athletic teams. [36]
The Maggie G. Gilbert Endowed chair in Bipolar disorders, was established in 2008 at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. [37]
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time.
John Robert Wooden was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood", he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships in a 12-year period as head coach for the UCLA Bruins, including a record seven in a row. No other team has won more than four in a row in Division I college men's or women's basketball. Within this period, his teams won an NCAA men's basketball record 88 consecutive games. Wooden won the prestigious Henry Iba Award as national coach of the year a record seven times and won the AP award five times.
Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion, commonly known as Pauley Pavilion, is an indoor arena located in the Westwood Village district of Los Angeles, California, on the campus of UCLA. It is home to the UCLA Bruins men's and women's basketball teams. The men's and women's volleyball and women's gymnastics teams also compete here.
Charles Henry Bibby is an American former professional basketball player who played for the New York Knicks, New Orleans Jazz, Philadelphia 76ers, and San Diego Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also spent a season as a player-assistant coach for the Lancaster Lightning of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA).
Elvin Ernest Hayes, nicknamed "The Big E", is an American retired professional basketball player and radio analyst for his alma-mater Houston Cougars. He is a member of the NBA's 50th and 75th anniversary teams, and an inductee in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The 1968 NCAA University Division Basketball Tournament involved 23 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 8, 1968, and ended with the championship game on March 23 in Los Angeles, California. A total of 27 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game.
The Bicycle Hotel & Casino is a poker cardroom in California.
In men's college basketball, the Game of the Century was a historic National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) game between the Houston Cougars and the UCLA Bruins played on January 20, 1968, at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. It was the first NCAA regular season game broadcast nationwide in prime time. It established college basketball as a sports commodity on television and paved the way for the modern "March Madness" television coverage.
Jackie Robinson Stadium is a college baseball park in Los Angeles, California. It is the home field of the UCLA Bruins of the Pac-12 Conference. Opened 41 years ago in 1981, it is the smallest ballpark in the conference, with a seating capacity of 1,820. It is named after former Bruin athlete Jackie Robinson, the first African-American major league baseball player of the modern era.
The UCLA Bruins men's basketball program represents the University of California, Los Angeles in the sport of men's basketball as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Established in 1919, the program has won a record 11 NCAA titles. Coach John Wooden led the Bruins to 10 national titles in 12 seasons, from 1964 to 1975, including seven straight from 1967 to 1973. UCLA went undefeated a record four times. Coach Jim Harrick led the team to another NCAA title in 1995. Former coach Ben Howland led UCLA to three consecutive Final Four appearances from 2006 to 2008. As a member of the AAWU, Pacific-8 and then Pacific-10, UCLA set an NCAA Division I record with 13 consecutive regular season conference titles between 1967 and 1979 which stood until passed by Kansas in 2018.
The 1994–95 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team represented the University of California, Los Angeles in the 1994–95 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Bruins were led by Jim Harrick in his seventh season as head coach. They played their home games at the Pauley Pavilion as member of the Pac-10 Conference. They finished the season 32–1, 17–1 in Pac-10 play to win the regular season championship. They received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 seed in the West region. They defeated Florida International, Missouri, Mississippi State, and UConn to advance to the Final Four. There they defeated Oklahoma State and Arkansas to win the National Championship, marking the school's 11th title. It was their first title in twenty years and since the retirement of head coach John Wooden.
The 1967–68 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team won a second consecutive NCAA National Championship, the fourth in five years under head coach John Wooden, with a win over North Carolina.
The 1968–69 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team won an unprecedented third consecutive NCAA National Basketball Championship, the fifth in six years under head coach John Wooden with a win over Purdue, coach Wooden's alma mater. The Bruins opened with 25 wins, on a 41-game winning streak, but lost the regular season finale to rival USC on March 8, which snapped a home winning streak of 85 games.
The 1969–70 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team won its fourth consecutive NCAA National Basketball Championship, the sixth in seven years under head coach John Wooden, despite the departure of Lew Alcindor to the NBA, with a win over Jacksonville.
The 1965–66 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team finished the season in second place, under head coach John R. Wooden. It won the Los Angeles Classic Championship and completed the year with an 18–8 overall record.
The men's college basketball program of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was founded in 1920 and is known competitively as the UCLA Bruins. The Bruins have won 11 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men's Division I Basketball Championships, the most of any school. UCLA players have been assigned jersey numbers ranging from 0 to 78 in the team's history. The school no longer issues 10 retired numbers in honor of former players. To qualify, a player must have been a three-time consensus All-American, a consensus national player of the year, or been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The retired numbers are displayed in the rafters of the Bruins' home arena, Pauley Pavilion. UCLA's legendary coach John Wooden generally opposed having numbers retired.
The UCLA Bruins softball team represents the University of California, Los Angeles in NCAA Division I softball. The Bruins are among the most decorated programs in NCAA softball, leading all schools in NCAA championships with 12, 13 overall Women's College World Series championships, championship game appearances with 22, WCWS appearances with 29, and NCAA Tournament wins with 187. They have dominated against top programs like Arizona (92-59), Washington (62-35), and Alabama (9-1).
Jerry Norman is an American former college basketball player and coach. He was an assistant coach under John Wooden with the UCLA Bruins for 11 seasons, helping Wooden earn the first four of his record 10 national titles. He is enshrined in the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame.
William Thomas Sweek is an American former basketball player and coach. He played college basketball for the UCLA Bruins under Coach John Wooden, winning three straight national championships from 1967 through 1969. The guard played professionally in France, and also became a coach in Europe and Africa. Sweek coached Clermont UC and Le Mans Sarthe Basket to national championships in France, and also led the Tunisia national basketball team. He was later a sports agent, and in time also worked as a high school coach and teacher.
John Miles Ecker is a German-American former basketball player and coach. He played college basketball for the UCLA Bruins under Coach John Wooden, winning three straight national championships from 1969 through 1971. Ecker played and coached professionally in Germany, where he also became a naturalized citizen in 1977. He also taught at a high school in Germany.