Friday, May 18, 2001 Long Forgotten, They Are Left in League of Their Own
By DIANE PUCIN
…He's a former All-American from USC who drove from Los Angeles to Chicago in the fall of 1946--in 72 hours, with his pregnant wife, Rosemary, and two young children--so he could play professional basketball. Seminoff played two years for the Chicago Stags and two years for the Boston Celtics, finishing in 1950. It was a glorious time.
The NBA was just beginning, with the help of young men like Seminoff, many of whom had just come home from war and all of whom loved basketball. "I wouldn't have done it any differently," Seminoff says. "I loved playing those games. But I do think I deserve the pension. I played for four years but it would have been more without the war." Seminoff was a Marine. He fought on Guam and Iwo Jima…
How smart it would be of the NBA to invite Seminoff to visit the playoff teams, to tell of how he and his family lived in a hotel room for six months, of how he traveled by train between games and was thrilled with his $6,000-a-season salary and absolutely ecstatic with a $2,000 playoff bonus one year--and of how he was offered the Celtics' coaching job.
Seminoff turned that down. "It seemed like it would be too hard to get players to do what you want and they had your salary in their hands," he says. So Red Auerbach got the job…
…He isn't wealthy, either, but he did donate part of his lump-sum payment to USC to fund athletic scholarships. "I want others to enjoy what I did," Seminoff says. Mostly, this isn't about the money. It is about doing right. It is about remembering the past and honoring it. It is about thanking men, some of whom came home from the war and took a big chance on basketball, a game they loved. Sharing isn't easy for today's well-paid athletes and executives. Taking time to appreciate history isn't easy either. Both things are worthwhile though.
Pioneer Spirit of NBA Lives - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
James Jack “Jim” Seminoff (1922-2001) - Find a Grave Memorial
Click on the first link