Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine

“Harrisburg Houdini”: Bob Davies emerged from the local hardwood to become one of professional basketball’s most famous players.

screenshot-2016-12-28-10-01-16The year was 1938, and spectators at the annual John Harris-William Penn high school alumni basketball game didn’t realize that they were about to witness sports history.

At that game, 18-year-old Bob Davies unveiled the then-unheard of behind-the-back dribble, which he called the “dipsy doodle dribble.”

“Bob began to dribble down the court with his right hand,” wrote Bus Funk in his Harrisburg Patriot’s “Cruising Around” column. “And, when a guard closed in on him, he made a motion as though he would pass the ball backward to a mate, but instead of doing that, he twisted the ball around his back to his left side and continued to dribble down the court without missing a stride…. It was the slickest thing your motor man has seen on the hardwood for many a moon.”

That was just the beginning for Davies. A few years later, he debuted the maneuver before a national audience at the 1942 National Invitational Tournament (NIT) game in New York’s Madison Square Garden before going professional.

“You can take the whole Hollywood lexicon of superlatives and still be at a loss for words to describe the utterly fantastic operations of the Harrisburg Houdini,” remarked a New York Herald-Tribune sportswriter. “The things Mr. Davies does with a basketball have to be seen to be appreciated, but even then you don’t believe them. You think it is a mirage or some optical illusion made possible by side-show mirrors.”

Walter E. Kirker, assistant director of the Harrisburg Central YMCA, gets credit for introducing Davies to the sport. When Davies’ father lost his job after the 1929 stock market crash, however, the family could not afford the 25-cent Y weekly dues. So, he had to be resourceful to continue playing. He and his friends marked off a court in an alley, nailed a 5-gallon paint can to a board on a telephone pole, and used a tennis ball.

As a youngster, unable to afford a ticket to local high school basketball games, Davies peeked through a crack in a door in the Chestnut Street Market House’s second floor Madrid Palestra Ballroom.

“I’d see these great black players jump in the air, throw the ball, hit somebody with a pass, or shoot the ball,” he recalled. “And I guess that stuck in my mind.”  

Davies has also been recognized as a pioneer of the penetration game, driving into the lane and passing off to a teammate, and of the transition game, getting down court fast in superior numbers to get an easy shot.

Davies was John Harris High School’s second four-sport (basketball, baseball, football and track) letterman. The school’s outstanding athlete trophy used to have a lifelike statuette of him wearing a basketball uniform. Athletes at rival William Penn High School compared him to Jack Armstrong, the “All American Boy,” a fictional radio show character who often won games in the last minute for his high school team.

As a two-hand set shooting All-American, Davies led the Seton Hall College Pirates to 43 consecutive wins, tied for the sixth longest streak in NCAA Division I history. The Sports Illustrated book, “100 Years of Hoops,” ranks him as one of the eight most influential players in the first century of college basketball.

According to 1950s-era New York Knicks coach Joe Lapchick, Rochester Royals backcourt ace Bob Davies, Minneapolis Lakers center George Mikan and Philadelphia Warriors jump shooter Joe Fulks were the three stars who saved the early NBA with their crowd appeal.  Compared to today’s NBA icons, Davies was as popular as the Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James and the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.

Davies’ hometown appreciated him as a national sports hero and role model. On Feb. 1, 1950, the John Harris High School-Edison Junior High School Booster Club sponsored “Bob Davies Night” at the Philadelphia Arena. Three hundred Harrisburg residents made the journey to the event.

“We consider this night in your honor a small token of our appreciation in return for the aspirational hopes you have given to the youth of our city,” said Booster Club president Bob Holmes.

The ultimate moment in Davies’ professional career occurred on April 21, 1951, in Rochester’s Edgerton Park Sports Arena. With 44 seconds remaining in the seventh game of the NBA’s first final playoff series and the score tied, Davies drove to the basket, and New York Knicks guard Dick McGuire fouled him hard. A timeout was taken for medical attention. Davies responded by swishing two underhand free throws to clinch the championship.

On April 22, 1990, Davies, age 70, died of prostate cancer. Pennsylvania Gov. Robert B. Casey memorialized him “for not only his athletic achievements, but the joy he brought to others and his devotion to making God’s work here on earth truly his own.” In a proclamation, Harrisburg Mayor Steve Reed urged the city’s residents “to further strive to live their lives in as an exemplary manner as he did.”

Davies’ plaque in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame states that he was considered the “First Super Star Of Modern Pro Basketball.” The road to superstardom began with some tips in the Central YMCA, peeks through a crack in a ballroom door, and pick-up basketball in an alley in Harrisburg.

Barry S. Martin is author of “Bob Davies: A Basketball Legend,” recently published by RIT Press. To learn more about his book and order a copy, visit www.rit.edu/press/bob-davies-basketball-legend, Amazon.com or other bookseller.

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