"Don't Stink It Up"

Basketball loves headlines, but last week it got a bellyful of the wrong kind. Gamblers had tried, and failed, to fix a big-time college game in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. As the fixers' trail unraveled, it led straight back to last year in the Garden, when the gamblers had tried and, it seemed, succeeded very well.

The hero of the story was Junius Kellogg, 23, a Negro, sophomore center on this year's Manhattan College team. Gamblers had approached him (as the team's high scorer), offered him $1,000, he said, to make sure that Manhattan lost last week's game to De Paul University by ten points or more (basketball gamblers bet on point margins, not just results).

Junius was shaken, said no. What shook him particularly was that the man who put the deal up to him was Henry Poppe (Manhattan '50), one of the co-captains of last year's team. Junius told his coach, and the coach called in college authorities who summoned the police.

Following instructions, Junius talked to Old Grad Poppe again. Poppe told Junius what to do against De Paul: miss baskets, slow down the game, "but don't stink it up." Junius was too jittery to play very long. Manhattan Coach Ken Norton had to take him out. But his substitute had a great night, sank eight baskets in eight tries. To the distress of gamblers betting on a sure thing, Manhattan upset De Paul, 62-59.

The gamblers' distress was just beginning. Later the same night, the police picked up Old Grad Poppe. The story that Poppe told stole the basketball headlines last week: Co-Captain Poppe, working with his teammate, Co-Captain John A. Byrnes, had helped to throw three Manhattan games last year (against Bradley, Siena, and Santa Clara); each co-captain had collected $5,000 for his cooperation, plus a $40-a-week salary.

Arrested along with Poppe and Byrnes were two bookmaking brothers, Irving Schwartzberg (Sing Sing '46) and Benjamin Schwartzberg (Sing Sing '37), and the man police named as the go-between, Cornelius Kelleher, of no known alma mater.

The new scandal was the third in six years, all three tied up with games in Madison Square Garden.*

*The others: a plot (that failed) to have Brooklyn College lose to Akron (TIME, Feb. 12, 1945); a plot (that failed) to have George Washington lose to Manhattan (TIME, Jan. 17, 1949).

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