By Matthew Stoss
James Rudin, BA ’55, today a rabbi, scholar, author, and professor at Saint Leo University in Florida, was a GW Hatchet sports editor in 1953-’54 and he covered the first GW men’s basketball team to make the NCAA Tournament. The Colonials, Southern Conference champions that season and ranked as high as seventh by The Associated Press, went 23-3 overall and 10-0 in the conference, and lost in the NCAA Tournament’s first round to North Carolina State, 75-73.
Rudin, then 19 years old, carpooled with players to road games as part of multi-car caravans and he got to know the team, as well as then-GW coach Bill Reinhart.
On the 65th anniversary of GW’s first NCAA Tournament team, the now-84-year-old Rudin remembers the laconic Reinhart, the man who (purportedly) invented the fast break and built Oregon’s program in the 1920s, mentored future Hall of Fame Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, BS ’40, MA ’41, HON ’93, and finished with a 319-237 record at GW over 24 seasons between 1935 to 1966*. No coach has won more basketball games in GW history.
Rudin, then 19 years old, carpooled with players to road games as part of multi-car caravans and he got to know the team, as well as then-GW coach Bill Reinhart.
On the 65th anniversary of GW’s first NCAA Tournament team, the now-84-year-old Rudin remembers the laconic Reinhart, the man who (purportedly) invented the fast break and built Oregon’s program in the 1920s, mentored future Hall of Fame Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, BS ’40, MA ’41, HON ’93, and finished with a 319-237 record at GW over 24 seasons between 1935 to 1966*. No coach has won more basketball games in GW history.
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