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6 MAY 5, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Philadelphia SPHAs,
Eddie Gottlieb Left
Basketball Legacy
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
T here is only one Jewish player
in the National Basketball
Association today, Washington
Wizards forward Deni Avdija. But if it
wasn’t for his Jewish predecessors in
professional basketball, the Israeli and
his non-Jewish contemporaries might
not even have a league.

In the 1920s, ’30s and early ’40s —
the decades predating the launch of the
NBA — Jewish players abounded in
leagues like the American Basketball
League, helping to establish pro basket-
ball in America.

One all-Jewish team, though, still
stands as the pinnacle of Jewish success
on the hardwood. The Philadelphia
SPHAs, who grew from the city’s Jewish
neighborhoods to the pro circuit, won
seven championships in 11 years in the
ABL and Eastern Basketball League.

The team was named after the South
Philadelphia Hebrew Association, an
early sponsor.

Now, the team that history keeps
forgetting is cemented in it ... at least in
Jewish circles.

On May 1 at Temple Israel in
Lawrence, New York, the Philadelphia
team and its Jewish coach/owner,
Eddie Gottlieb, one of the fathers of
the NBA, too, were inducted into the
Jewish Sports Heritage Association’s
Hall of Fame.

The Jewish Sports Heritage
Association is a national nonprofit that
educates Jews about their own history
in sport. Director Alan Freedman vis-
its synagogues and Jewish community
centers, among other locations, to talk
about Jewish sports legends and teams
to religious school students, men’s club
members and other groups.

Freedman has a memorabilia col-
lection, too, and while his hall of fame
does not have an official location, it
is official. Sportswriters vote on the
inductees, and family members of hon-
orees attend the annual ceremony.

Eddie Gottlieb
Gottlieb and the SPHAs joined
other Jewish luminaries, like former
New England Patriots receiver Julian
Edelman, in this year’s class.

“These guys had love of the game,”
Freedman said of the SPHAs. “They
weren’t doing it for any great amount
of money.”
That statement was especially true
of Gottlieb, who served as the team’s
coach, manager and promoter, accord-
ing to author Douglas Stark, who wrote
“The SPHAS,” a book about the team.

Gottlieb’s nickname was “the mogul”
long before Jay-Z made the concept
cool, and he is known as one of the
key figures behind the early NBA, even
writing the league’s schedules by hand.

But decades before the NBA even
started, Gottlieb was driving his
SPHAs around the Midwest to play
games. Players would ask the mogul
why they were doing that, Stark said.

He would answer that they were
trying to grow professional basketball.

“He understood the sport’s potential
as a business and as entertainment,”
Stark added.

Later, before Red Auerbach and Bill
Russell brought the fast break to the
NBA with the Boston Celtics, Gottlieb
pioneered it with his Jewish players.

“They would run,” the author said.

The SPHAs would get a rebound and
pass the ball up court before the oppo-
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
P R E S E N T S



Jewish Sports Heritage Association
Director Alan Freedman, center, with
former NFL players Mitchell and Geoff
Schwartz Photo by Gene Lesserson
The Philadelphia SPHAs 
nent could get back. They would often
score without the ball touching the court.

Moe Goldman was the athletic cen-
ter that started the break. Red Wolfe
and Louis “Inky” Lautman would help
Goldman control the paint. Shikey
Gotthofer, Gil Fitch and Harry Litwack
(the future Temple University coach)
would handle the ball and score. And
Cy Kaselman and Red Rosan used
their old-school two-handed set shots
to keep opponents honest from the
outside. “They were very talented,” Stark said.

Courtesy of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
But as talented and successful as they
were, the SPHAs did not reap the kinds
of benefits you would expect for profes-
sional athletes.

Jay Rosan, a Philadelphia resident
and Red Rosan’s son, said his father
made $25 or $50 a game. He was a tile
contractor when he wasn’t playing.

Later, Jay wanted to put up a basket-
ball net at their house, and his father
wouldn’t let him. He felt that basket-
ball didn’t leave him with much; so
he didn’t want his son to fall in love
with it.

“He wanted me to have a profession,”
Jay Rosan said.

The SPHAs are not mentioned among
the great teams in basketball history,
but history hasn’t forgotten them: They
have a photo exhibit in the Naismith
Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in
Springfield, Massachusetts, and are the
subject of Stark’s book. But it has not
fully appreciated them, either.

That’s why both Rosan and Stephen
Goldman, Moe Goldman’s son,
attended this latest hall of fame cer-
emony via Zoom. Both sons feel it’s
important to help the SPHAs live on.

“Most people aren’t aware of it, and
I think it’s important to keep alive,”
Goldman said. “When my friends say
‘What did your dad do? And I say,
‘He was this great professional bas-
ketball player,’ at first they think I’m
kidding.” JE
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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