Published in Sports stars Magazine, April 1950, pp. 8-9, 84.

The ex-Kentucky great, now a co-owner of the Indianapolis Olympians, threatens to unseat Mikan

ONE OF co-bosses of the Olympians. Groza helps Babe Kimbrough (right) in the office.

BABE Kimbrough was on the phone from 626 Peoples Bank Building, Indianapolis, Indiana.

"The guy is out to break Mikan's mark," he confided.

"Yes, the big man likes the pro game, and he's going to play as long as he can hold up," the basketball Babe continued.

This "big" fellow that J. R. Kimbrough, jack-of-all-executive positions with the newly-created Indianapolis Olympians, was referring to, of course, was not Primo Camera or Gargantua, but a durable young man by the name of Alex Groza.

The name Groza has been in the sports limelight for the past five or six years partially because of the accomplishments of Lou Groza, Alex's brother, who has made a remarkable specialty of punctiliously kicking extra points and field goals for the Cleveland Browns.

However, large Alex, who is six feet, seven inches tall, and easily 220 pounds is as expert a pot-shotter of basketball field goals as frater Lou is adept at splitting cross-bars with pigskins.

Now playing his first year as a professional basketballer with the Olympians in the 17-team National Basketball Association, Groza is expected to be a persistent pursuer after all-time marks. Early in the campaign the long-faced ex-Kentucky center went on an eagle-eye tear and boosted 41 points through the open-jawed baskets in a Madison Square Garden tilt with the strong New York Knickerbockers.

A bit later in the season he went on another spree and mangled the Rochester Royals with a total of 43 points -- up to that time a new NBA mark.

Setting the mathematicians to wearing out pencils and adding machines has long been Alexis chief stock in trade. For three years with Adolph Rupp's all-powerful Kentucky Wildcats Groza was acknowledged to be an All-America performer, and in his final year with the Lexington larrupers he scored a total of 698 points -- 259 FGs, and 180 fouls -- to lead one of the greatest hoop units in history in the scoring column. In that season (1948-49) his success percentage from the field was a truly fine 42.3, and at the foul line it was a more-than-competent 72.5.

To show the way to the Wildcats in that campaign, during which Kentucky won 32 and lost only two games, and emerged winning a second successive NCAA title, Alex had to be good enough to top the bid of such stalwart Wildcat performers as Ralph Beard, Wallace Jones, and Cliff Barker. Beard, another All-America operator, was second in the point list -- and he trailed Groza by 328 markers.

WHEN KENTUCKY won finals of East'n NCAA by crushing Illinois in '49, Wildcat players lifted 2-point scorer Groza to their shoulders.

The aforementioned Beard, Jones, and Barker are now all part of the Olympians. Cliff Barker is the coach. Groza and the militant Kentuckians are co-owners of the club, as well as its outstanding players. Babe Kimbrough, an ex-Sports Editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald, formed the team with the aid of the Ruppmen last Summer. Kimbrough is President, General Manager and Publicity Director. His Kentucky boys do the rest on the playing court. Occasionally, however, Groza, along with the others, takes a crack at helping to run the administrative machinery. But for the time being, Alex much prefers the boards to office typewriters.

Unfortunately for Groza, the Olympians are not larded down with capable replacements. Outside of the material from Kentucky, which would tend to make any basketball team great for at least a half, the Olympians have a paucity of useable substitutes. In a talent-heavy loop like the NBA that can mean uninterrupted failure.

Because of this adverse condition, Groza is again, as in college, an iron-man athlete. He has already played on sucsive nights without relief -- and this is murder when you're competing against pros who approach giraffe-like proportions. The pace was so rough that Alex dropped over 15 pounds at the outset of the season. Tall as far as ordinary mortals go, Groza is the shortest pivot man in the pro business.

Groza hails originally from Martins Ferry,Ohio. He's always been extremely popular with members of his own team, and in '49 was the Kentucky Captain. After ten games at Kentucky in his frosh year, "The Beak" -- an affectionate appellation that friends have bestowed on him -- went into the Army. Returning to school after his discharge in 1946, the "big guy" proceeded to win all kinds of hardwood honors.

Representing the United States in the '48 Olympic Games in London, Groza was a stellar performer. He was named the most valuable player in the NCAA tourney in 1948 and '49. And his own teammates, more justified, perhaps, than any others in assaying the value of the man, selected Groza as the most valuable Kentucky player in both '48 and '49.

PRESENT OLYMPIANS are really Kentucky "Old Grads." Wah Wah Jones, Cliff Barker, Groza, Ralph Beard (L to R) played for Wildcats.

Before deciding to cast his lot with his old Kentucky pals in the Olympian business enterprise, it would have been possible for Groza to have plied some of the weightiest money offers in pro court annals out of any number of clubs now merged in the NBA. But Groza's first loyalty was to his friends. He signed on with the Olympians without a second thought.

Unmarried, and devoted curcurrently to the Olympians and to the proposition that his scoring can go as high as the great George Mikan's -- and possibly higher -- Alex Groza has stolen the thunder and headlines from brother Lou and is destined to keep right on stealing 'em for the next few years.

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