newjerseynewsroom.com

BY ERIC MODEL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM


JOURNEYS INTO NEW JERSEY

March Madness has many folks thinking about basketball – the college variety. We've been thinking of basketball, too – but in our case the Teaneck variety, circa 1967.

For the last few years we've been hearing a lot about the desire of the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association to flee the Garden State for downtown Brooklyn.

Just recently they staged a photo-op by the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues to trumpet that ground had finally been broken (after some 34 lawsuits) to build their new home there. Given the Nets' won-loss record these days it's understandable that the Nets might desire to run away.

If they were, in fact, to leave our state it would not be for the first time.

At that time the New Jersey team was called the Americans, and they called Teaneck their home.

The franchise was established in 1967 as a charter member of the American Basketball Association, with trucking magnate Arthur J. Brown as the owner. Brown wanted his team to play at the 69th Regiment Armory on Manhattan's east side, but pressure from the New York Knicks forced the Armory to back out three months before opening day.

The team was forced to move to the Teaneck Armory, and changed its name to the New Jersey Americans.

Their home was and remains quiet an interesting place even though pro basketball has not been played there in over four decades.

A New Deal project was built in 1938 on 13 acres and part of the money for the Armory came from the Works Progress Administration. It was designed to house the 104th Engineers Battalion National Guard, which saw action in the Alsace during World War I and later helped create rescue trails for the Palisades Interstate Park Commission.

Down through the years the Armory played host to conventions, dances, home shows, and numerous sporting events, including roller derby and professional wrestling, professional tennis, midget auto racing and amateur boxing. It opened with a dog show. Midget-car rallies were held there. Chubby Checker and Mitch Miller sang there. And a host of political candidates, among them John F. Kennedy and Barry Goldwater, stumped there.

It was once thought of as the Madison Square Garden of Bergen County.

As for the Americans on the court, they entered that first season under head coach Max Zaslofsky, and did fairly well, averaging 2,054 fans per home game while finishing with 36 wins and 43 losses.

The Americans tied with the Kentucky Colonels for fourth place in the Eastern Division, 18 games behind the Pittsburgh Pipers, 14 games behind the Minnesota Muskies and two games behind the Indiana Pacers. (The Americans would have claimed fourth place outright in the Western Division, which was weaker that season.)

A one-game playoff between the Americans and Colonels was scheduled, to be hosted by the Americans, to determine which of the two teams would advance to the playoffs in the Eastern Division semifinals.

However, the Armory was booked, forcing the Americans to scramble for a last-minute replacement. They found one in the Long Island Arena in Commack, N.Y. When the Americans and Colonels arrived for the game, they found the playing floor full of missing boards and bolts. League commissioner George Mikan forfeited the game to the Colonels due to the conditions.

In the summer of 1968, Brown decided that the Americans could not survive in New Jersey. He announced his plans to move the team into the New York area – where he had intended to base the team in the first place. They would play as the "New York Nets." Nine years later they would return to the Garden State – first in Piscataway, and then at the newly opened Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands.

As for the Armory, in the late sixties, the building was declared unsafe because of inadequate fire exits and was closed to public events. For a long time it was used exclusively by the National Guard. The building has now come back to life as the Soccer Coliseum, a multi-field indoor soccer facility.

And what fate awaits the Nets? Once they do or don't break the NBA record for fewest wins in a season in a couple of weeks, they'll be leaving the Meadowlands to join the Devils in Newark's Prudential Center – at least for a little while.

And will the New Jersey Nets ultimately become the Brooklyn Nets? Though it's starting to look like that scenario is getting closer to reality, only time will tell. There's still a case to be made either way.

Yes, they've broken ground for a new "Barclays Center" (no one calls it an arena anymore) at the site that a new stadium for the Brooklyn Dodgers was proposed over 60 years ago. At the same time, these are tough times and perhaps there are more pressing needs for scarce dollars than to invest in another professional sports palace.

We'll see.

In the meantime, New Jersey fans (yes, there are a few) wait and see whether history will repeat itself from an earlier time when the Nets were known as the Americans.

Eric Model explores the "offbeat, off the beaten path overlooked and forgotten" on SIRIUS-XM Radio and at www.journeysinto.com.