During the ‘20s and ‘30s, before the formation of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1946, several companies across the country sponsored amateur basketball squads made up of their own employees to compete in Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) sanctioned tournaments. Since there was no professional basketball league, many of the country’s top collegiate stars chose this route to keep their playing dreams alive. One such player was Carl Shy, who played for Universal Pictures. An American film studio, Hollywood-based Universal Pictures sponsored one of the premier amateur basketball teams in the nation.
Shy was born in Los Angeles on Sept. 13, 1908, and was a standout college player at UCLA in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s. Standing 6’ 1” and weighing 170 pounds, he became a pivotal playmaking guard in the Bruins’ game plan and following graduation went on to play for the Universal Pictures club team with fellow UCLA teammates Sam Balter, Carl Knowles, Don Piper and Frank Lubin. As it turns out, their team wound up winning a national AAU tournament in New York City in the spring of ’36 that allowed them to field half of the 1936 U.S. Men’s Olympic Basketball Team.
Presented here is Shy’s Olympic gold medal from the 1936 Berlin Summer Games. It is made of gilt silver with gold plating (as are all golds after 1912), designed by Giuseppe Cassioli and measures 55mm in diameter, 3mm in thickness and weighs 72 grams. The obverse features Nike, Goddess of Victory, seated above the stadium holding a winner's crown and palm branch with "XI OLYMPIAD Berlin 1936" scripted on the right. The reverse shows a winner being carried off by jubilant athletes. The minter and 99% silver hallmarks (“B.H. Mayer Pforzheim 990") are engraved on the bottom edge. Well-preserved in both color and texture, the medal remains in good condition, although the recipient’s wife years later re-chained the medal so she could finally wear it around her neck. It now has a whole at the very top through which a 24-inch, gold-filled chain resides.
Once they arrived in New York, the Universal Pictures team eventually won an eight-team national final at Madison Square Garden. In the finals, Universal Pictures defeated the Globe Oilers, a team sponsored by the Globe Oil Refinery of McPherson, Kansas. Though they had lost to the “Oilers” in Denver, the “Universals” turned the tables in New York and eked out a 44-43 victory. Seven players from the Universal team, including their coach, James Needles, joined with players from the Globe Oilers to form the first U.S. Men’s Olympic Basketball Team. In July, the 14-man team set out on a well-deserved trip to Berlin aboard the S.S. Manhattan.
When the basketball competition finally started, all games were played outdoors on courts consisting of clay and sand. The U.S. team earned a first-round forfeit win over Spain whose team had been called home because of the start of the Spanish Civil War. The Universals then trounced Estonia, 52-18, in the second round, before the MacPherson Oilers, led by Joe Fortenberry, followed with a 56-23 victory over the Philippines. A 25-10 U.S. triumph over Mexico in the semi-finals set the stage for a gold-medal encounter between basketball inventor James Naismith’s native Canada and his adopted United States. Instead of a fiercely fought battle, however, it turned out to be what Balter later described as a “priceless bit of Chaplinesque comedy.”
In the championship game, which was played in a torrential downpour, the U.S. coaches decided to go with a squad that included Fortenberry, Francis Johnson, Jack Ragland and Bill Wheatley from MacPherson; Carl Knowles and Shy from Universal; and Ralph Bishop, the team's only college player. Balter, who reluctantly sat out the final, remembers the soggy game as less-than-memorable. “A dribble was not a dribble,” he said. “It was a splash.” After leading 15-4 at halftime, the U.S. team spent the majority of the second half simply playing catch with a waterlogged sphere that must have felt like a medicine ball. The final score was 19-8 with Fortenberry matching the total output of the entire Canadian team.
When the Games ended, the United States Men’s Basketball Team had an undefeated record of 5-0 (including the forfeit) and had outscored its opponents 152 to 69. Carl Shy played in three of the games including the championship final.
Includes Letter of Authenticity from the Shy Family.