Sam Schoenfeld
| Sam Schoenfeld | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 1906 or 1907 Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, New York |
| Died | March 3, 1956 Freeport, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Contributions to the game of basketball |
Sam Schoenfeld (September 1906/1907 – 3 March 1956) was an early pioneer in the game of basketball.
Sam Schoenfeld was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, New York. His parents Benjamin and Sarah were Austrian Jews. Originally named "Schuster", they changed their name to "Schoenfeld" when they immigrated to America. Benjamin was a kosher butcher. He died at age 37 in April 1913. Sam was the youngest of three children. He had an older sister, Jean ("Jenny"), and an older brother, Herman. Later, when Sarah remarried, she had another son, Jacob ("Jack").
Schoenfeld showed early aptitude for sports and especially loved basketball, even from a very early age. He was a star player at Commercial High School, later known as Alexander Hamilton High School; it no longer exists.
In college, known as "Sammy", he played forward on the varsity basketball team alongside Lou Bender and George Gregory at Columbia University in Manhattan. Although mediocre his sophomore and junior year, by Schoenfeld's senior year with the addition of Lou Bender, the team won the Ivy League championship in 1930. He and Bender were named first team All-Ivy League. He graduated in 1931.
Schoenfeld played professionally in the American Basketball League (the top professional league in the East) in the 1930s.
Schoenfeld was a basketball coach at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn. He coached the team to a first-place tie in the 1941–42 season and a divisional crown in 1942–43.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Schoenfeld was among the top college referees in the nation. From 1946 to 1951, Schoenfeld was a referee for the National Basketball Association.
Schoenfeld became the founder and first president (1948–50) of the Collegiate Basketball Officials Association.
In 1936 Sam began developing a prototype for the first full-size basketball stop-clock. The clock was tested at Thomas Jefferson High School and The Brooklyn Jewish Center.
...
Wikipedia