A fact from Ben Auerbach appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 June 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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The reason I suspect his birth and death dates from SSDI is two-fold: historical context, and age when graduated. Back in the early days of college basketball, players did not travel all over the country to play for teams except for only the biggest of the big (i.e., in the 1930s and 1940s, a California native would not have gone anywhere but California or Nevada to play college basketball unless it was the University of Kentucky, for instance). A school like NYU especially did not draw talent from the state of Ohio, which would eliminate the one quasi-feasible option. Hence, the New York-born Auerbach is the one who played at NYU. The other reason is if it were the Auerbach who was born on October 31, 1917, that would make him very close to age 24 when he graduated in 1941. That's extremely old to be graduating college (and once again, it wasn't uncommon for students to graduate younger back then, such as 20 years old). The likelihood that (a) he was raised in Ohio but played for NYU, and (b) he was almost 24 when he graduated, made it probable to use the other DOB/DOD option. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:46, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This point seems extremely logical to me. Hmmm...I'd be tempted to put those dates in, unless anyone has evidence to the contrary. There has to be some sort of other confirmation (obituary, etc.) out there as well. I'm not sure how accessible such documents are... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.233.38.213 (talk) 16:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
