User:Keith Ellis/Jack Mann

ARTICLE entitled Jack Mann (black pro basketball player)

File:Jack Mann.jpg Jack Mann, Chicago Crusader, 1935 Jack Mann (born in Tennessee in 1914, died 8 June 1983) was an early Harlem Globetrotter who gained fame in the Indiana high school state basketball tournament in 1930. As a 6-7 sophomore center for the Muncie Central BearCats Mann started in the 1930 final game against rival David "Big Dave" DeJernett's Washington High Hatchets and lost in the celebrated matchup. Mann avenged that loss with Muncie's 21-19 win over Washington in the 1931 state finals en route to a state title. His BearCats made the finals again in 1932 and finished runnerup.

After high school Mann signed with Wilberforce University, an historically black college, along with celebrated Chicago schoolboy star Agis Bray of Phillips High of Chicago. He shortly afterward quit to turn pro with the influential Wheatley Center of Fort Wayne. Mann then played with his hometown Muncie Monarchs and later with Detroit's Central Big Five in December 1933 before joining Dick Hudson's Savoy Big Five later that same season. In early 1935 the Harlem Globetrotters reported that Jack Mann had "broken his contract" to play for another team, which was surely the enigmatic Chicago Crusaders. Mann was a Crusader/Savoy from 1934 through 1937, except for the stint with the Globetrotters.

In 1937 Mann not only played as a Crusader/Savoy but also as a Palmer House Indian and a NY Ren for some contests in Wisconsin, where he impressed so much that the Sheboygan Art Imigs (later to be renamed the Sheboygan Red Skins of the NBA) signed him as one of the first African Americans to integrate the pro ranks. As the Depression deepened Mann lost interest in Sheboygan after 1938 and became a fulltime police officer and later a bail bondsman. In 1974 Mann suffered a tragic accident on a golf course that left him practically 100% paralyzed. Mann's scoring and ballhandling expertise made him one of early pro basketball's greatest showmen.