Otto Graham was a member of the 1945-46 Rochester Royals’ NBL championship team and the 1946 Cleveland Browns AAFC championships squad.

The National Basketball Association is in its 80^th year of operations starting in 1946 as the Basketball Association of America and becoming the NBA in 1949 after a consolidation with the National Basketball League. Unlike other sports who make it a point to highlight its history, the NBA office seems to think nothing happened prior to the arrival of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan in the late 1970s and in the 1980s. But there was life before that and there was one player who won pro titles in football and in basketball in 1946.

After World War II, Rochester Royals owner Les Harrison brought athletes to Rochester, New York. His collection included baseball players Del Rice and Chuck Connors and an eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer, Otto Graham who led the Cleveland Browns to championships in both the All America Football Conference and the National Football League. Graham is the answer to a trivia question. He is the only athlete to win “major league” championships in basketball with the 1945-46 Royals of the National Basketball League  and the 1946 Cleveland Browns of the All America Football Conference in the same calendar year.

The NBL was not a fulltime enterprise. Graham ended up with the Browns and Quarterbacked Paul Brown’s championship squad. Graham became a football superstar and one of football’s highest paid performers, something that was no going to happen in Rochester playing basketball.
 
“We won the championship in all four years there,” said Graham. “We played in the championship game six straight years in the NFL and won three of the six there. I went to college on a basketball scholarship. I didn’t even play football I played intramural football,” he said. I played with the Royals the season before the All America Football Conference had started. My teammates were Del Rice, Chuck Connors, the Rifleman of TV fame (both of whom also played Major League Baseball) Bob Davies, Red Holtzman, Fuzzy Levane and we won the championship.
 
“I think I’m the only guy to have played on a championship basketball team and football team in the same year (1946). I played in Fort Wayne, Indiana and in fact they did dominate professional basketball at that time. We knocked them off. It was fun. But basketball took up too much time and I couldn’t play football and basketball both, so I stuck with football.
 
“The NBL was the best league in the world. The Browns hadn’t started yet and the Browns and the All America Football Conference didn’t start until the fall of 1946. So I had nothing to do at that time, so after I started football, it overlapped with basketball and I didn’t go back.”

Both Bobby Wanzer and Graham agreed. The NBL caliber of ball was better than the BAA.

“Actually our league (the NBL) had the best teams,” Wanzer explained. “Us, Fort Wayne, Minneapolis, that was the savior.”

Rochester had been a strong basketball outpost. The Rochester Seagrams basketball team was one of the strongest independent operations in the United States and the team barnstormed the nation. The Seagrams became the Pros and the team was asked to join the National Basketball League in 1946 after the end of World War II. The team was renamed in Royals in a name the team contest and won the NBL Pennant in 1946-47. The Royals took home another flag in 1947-48 but lost a playoff game to Chicago and went home. The following season, the Royals finished with the best record in the NBL but lost to George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers in the NBL Finals three games to one.

The Royals and Lakers were BAA powerhouses. The Royals were 45-15 in 1948-49 but the team’s playing facility, the Edgerton Park Arena was strictly third rate and possibly dangerous for opposing players finishing lay ups. If the arena’s side doors were open, the player might have ended up in his uniform in the parking lot freezing during a cold and snowy Rochester winter.

“It was a regulation court but there was very little space between the end of the court and the swinging doors, you can run right out and end up in the snow,” Wanzer laughed. “You were lucky if it didn’t lock on you, you were out in the snow. The arena was a little way from the lake (Ontario) but it wasn’t the coldest building.”

Wanzer’s Royals did win a BAA championship despite the presence of Mikan in the league. The Royals beat the New York Knickerbockers in seven games in 1951. Mikan’s team had eliminated the Royals in the previous three playoffs.

“Well we had to beat them once in a while,” Wanzer laughed. “He (Mikan) was a great player. As I said the two best teams in basketball in those days was Minneapolis and us. Each year we would win the division or they would win it. In the playoffs, they always managed beat us but the one year we beat them and we went onto win the championship.”

Otto Graham might have continued his basketball career if the money was right with Rochester in the NBL although his teammate Fuzzy Levane said Otto planned to play just two years of pro basketball.

Graham was the highest paid player in the National Football League when his career ended in 1955. He made $25,000. In mid-1990s dollars, that $25,000 would have been worth about $400,000 according to Graham. The Browns received less than a $1,000 per man for winning the 1946 AAFC championship.
 
Graham said the entire the 1950 NFL championship season was the highlight of his career. Travel was limited to buses and trains in both football and basketball.
 
“Rochester is now out in Sacramento after going to Cincinnati and Kansas City and Fort Wayne is in Detroit. I remember one train trip. We played a ballgame in Rochester; we spent the night on a train, not a sleeper but sitting up all night long. I was so mad and we had to go to Oshkosh two nights later. That’s the way it was in those days. Our owner (Lester Harrison) wanted to save money.
 
“It’s tough to do both sports,” he said of Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson who played Major League Baseball and were in the NFL at the same time. “But if I was paid they kind of money they got, I would be tempted.”

Otto is not an afterthought in the history of the NBA. Graham is not even mentioned in the same conversation with Tom Brady and Joe Montana in the greatest Quarterbacks ever conversation. But Graham accomplished something that neither Brady nor Montana ever did. Win championships in the same year in two different sports.

From the book by Evan Weiner “From Peach Baskets to Dance Halls and the Not-so-Stern NBA”.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191

Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com

A Familiar Stadium Question Resurfaces in Kansas City

A new year has arrived, but the same unresolved issue continues to hover over the owner of the Kansas City Royals. John Sherman still must decide where the franchise will call home in the future. The options remain split across state lines, with potential stadium sites in Kansas or somewhere in Missouri, including Kansas City proper or North Kansas City. As of now, no clear path has emerged, and Sherman may be forced to reset discussions on the Kansas side after a key funding mechanism expired at the end of 2025.

The lapse of that plan does not eliminate Kansas from contention. It simply means state lawmakers would need to revisit the issue and approve a new financing structure. Stadium negotiations rarely move in straight lines, and this one appears no different.

Missouri Pushes to Keep the Royals

Political leaders in Missouri, particularly in Kansas City, continue to press for keeping the Royals within state borders. Mayor Quinton Lucas has publicly identified a potential downtown location near Washington Square Park. He believes the site offers several advantages, including minimal disruption to existing businesses and proximity to tourism and entertainment districts. The area also benefits from substantial nearby parking, which remains a critical factor in any stadium discussion.

Identifying a site, however, is only part of the challenge. Financing remains the central issue. Lucas has emphasized that any proposal must balance ambition with fiscal responsibility. City leaders want to avoid a plan that places unexpected burdens on taxpayers or diverts resources away from essential public services. While the mayor has indicated that several financing concepts have already been explored, no final proposal has been approved.

Options Explored, Answers Still Missing

Sherman has reportedly examined other locations as well, including North Kansas City and Overland Park, Kansas. Those conversations have yet to produce a concrete agreement or a clear funding roadmap. With each potential site comes a new set of political, financial, and logistical hurdles.

For now, the Royals remain in stadium limbo, caught between competing jurisdictions and unfinished plans. As Kansas and Missouri continue to jockey for position, the long-running stadium debate shows no signs of slowing. For Sherman and the region’s political leaders, the game is still in progress, and the next inning has yet to be played.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191

Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com

A Familiar Second Chance for Sam Darnold

Sam Darnold, who has had his share of second chances, gets a second chance again this week.

Darnold, originally the third overall pick of the draft by the New York Jets in 2018 and has bounced to Carolina, San Francisco and Minnesota, is in almost the exact situation this year with Seattle as he was with the Vikings a year ago.

Seattle faces San Francisco Saturday night with the NFC West title, the NFC’s No. 1 seed and home field advantage throughout the playoffs on the line. The winner gets all of that. The loser becomes a road wild-card team.

That’s what Darnold faced the final week of the 2024 season when his Vikings played the Detroit Lions with the NFC North title, the No. 1 seed and home field on the line.

It didn’t work out so well.

When It Went Wrong

Darnold completed just 18 of 41 passes as the Lions blew out the Vikings, 31-9. That loss forced the Vikings, despite being 14-3, to drop to the fifth seed where they would face the NFC West champion, Los Angeles Rams.

Wildfires forced the game out of the Los Angeles area to a neutral site in Glendale, Arizona. And again it didn’t work out so well.

Darnold went 25-for-40 with a touchdown and an interception and was sacked nine times in a 27-9 rout by the Rams.

Two big games and a total of nine points in each made Darnold look more like the bust he was in New York than he was the reclamation project that won 14 games with the Vikings.

A New Opportunity in Seattle

In Seattle this year, Darnold has looked decent again for the 13-3 Seahawks, who are the current No. 1 seed. He has completed 67 percent of his passes for 3,850 yards with 25 touchdowns and 14 interceptions for a QB rating of 99.2.

In a season-opening 17-13 loss to the 49ers he was 16-for-23 for 150 yards.

Saturday night in one of the biggest games of the season Darnold gets another chance. Seattle is a one-and-a-half point favorite.

Other Key Games to Watch

Here is a look at the other important games on the NFL’s final regular season weekend.