To fully appreciate the moment, you need to remember just how devastated New York City had been by the gambling scandals of 1951. You have to understand how much the gamblers and the sharks had taken from the city, from the old Madison Square Garden, how it felt like college basketball would never again matter within the walls of that wonderful old gym.
So that’s where we start in telling the story of Jack Powers, who died Thursday at age 89 after a near 70-year run as one of the most important college basketball figures the city has ever known.
For it was on March 11, 1958, that the Garden was finally reborn as a college basketball showplace, and it was young Jack Powers, a senior at Manhattan, who made that happen.
The Jaspers had been a surprise choice for the NCAA Tournament that winter at 15-8, and for their troubles they drew mighty West Virginia, led by sophomore superstar Jerry West, 26-1 and the No. 1 team in the nation. The Jaspers were supposed to be an easy mark for the Mountaineers.
“I heard that their fans actually skipped coming to the Garden in order to head to the second-round game in Charlotte,” Powers told HoopsHD.com in 2018.
It’s best they did that. In their place were 13,109 heavily pro-Jaspers fans, maybe 5,000 less than the game would’ve drawn a few years earlier, but still a large enough gathering that when the Jaspers raced to an 84-73 lead the roars made it sound and feel like a full house and then some. But then the Mountaineers came storming back nd when West — held to six points to that point — hit back-to-back shots, West Virginia knotted the game at 84-all.
Then West fouled out when he hacked Powers with 3:56 to go. Powers calmly sank both free throws, and Manhattan — down four of their own players who’d also fouled out — shut the Mountaineers out the rest of the way. It ended 89-84. Powers had been the biggest reason why: 29 points and 15 rebounds.
College basketball in New York City was back. And Jack Powers would devote much of the rest of his life to make sure it stayed that way.
“It was probably the worst day of Jerry’s career,” Powers said before adding with a laugh: “As I am sure that every Manhattan fan who ever sees him reminds him of that game! We all pulled together and it was a great victory for our school.”
That was all just warmup for what came later for Powers, who went 142-114 as the Manhattan Coach from 1968-78, then moved to the athletic director’s office from 1979-88.
From there until his retirement in 2005, he was the executive director of the NIT, where he became a tireless advocate for the nation’s oldest postseason tournament, identifying a host of programs and coaches on the come to fill its brackets, assuring a New York City presence for the game he so loved and fiercely promoted.
“The impact and influence Jack Powers had on our game as a player, a coach and then as an administrator was legendary,” said Quinnipiac coach Tom Pecora, whose teams at Hofstra played in three NITs and who was a longtime friend. “His love for the City Game as well as the number of lives he touched was immense. He was a giant, nothing less.”
Arkansas coach John Calipari was one of the coaches who felt Powers’ influence when he was first starting to build a power at Massachusetts.
“I have always given him credit for helping us build UMass by inviting us to the NIT,” Calipari Tweeted of the bids his Minutemen received in 1990 and ’91, just before they emerged as an annual NCAA regular. “He was a friend to many and helped many of us when we needed a lift.”
Well into his 70s, Powers was known to set bludgeoning screens during noontime runs on the basketball courts at the Downtown Athletic Club, which was also where the NIT offices were located.
“I saw players whose names you’d know stagger away from there,” Pecora said with a laugh about Powers, a member of both the Manhattan College and New York City Basketball Halls of Fame, and whose number 34 was retired and raised to the Draddy Gym rafters in 2016. “Jerry West wasn’t his last victim.”
Visitation will be Sunday from 3-7 p.m. at Edwin L. Bennett Funeral Home, 824 Scarsdale Ave, Scarsdale.
The funeral mass will be Monday at 10:30 am at Immaculate Heart of Mary, 8 Carman Road, Scarsdale.
