Gene Melchiorre obit

Bradley legend Gene 'Squeaky' Melchiorre dies at 92

 

He was not on the list.

Perhaps the most renowned Bradley basketball player of all time passed away Friday morning.

Gene “Squeaky” Melchiorre, the only No. 1 NBA draft choice to never play in the league, died at his Highland Park home at the age of 92.

The two-time all-American who led Bradley to the championship games of both the NCAA and NIT tournaments in 1950 will be more remembered in Bradley lore for his involvement with several teammates in the widespread college basketball point-shaving scandal that rocked the sport following that season.

“The memories are good and the memories are bad,” said Paul Unruh, his Bradley teammate. “It’s one of those things with two sides to it — a wonderful side and a terrible side.”

We send our condolences to the family of Bradley Hall of Famer Gene Melchiorre, who passed away this morning. A two-time All-American, Melchiorre is still 12th all-time in scoring at BU with 1,608 career points.pic.twitter.com/lc3UR0F2CI

— Bradley Braves (@BradleyBraves)September 27, 2019

Although Unruh and Melchiorre never spoke again after the scandal, Unruh looks back fondly on the time he spent at BU playing with the 5-foot-8 wizard with the basketball.

“He’d drive into the middle, and it was unbelievable how he could manage his body and get a shot off,” Unruh said. “I treasure the time I had to play with a guy like that. We lost an original. There was nobody else like him.”

Said another Melchiorre teammate, Joe Stowell, who went on to coach the Braves: "I learned so much on how to guard the post just by trying to guard Squeaky in practice that I taught my big men later. He was so good inside. We played Western Kentucky, and they had three big guys who were 6-7, 6-9 and 6-11. And Squeaky fouled ‘em all out."

In an interview with Look Magazine in 1953, Melchiorre admitted to taking bribes from gamblers. But he denied trying to manipulate the point spread.

“Why did we do it?” Melchiorre said in the 1953 article. “Well, none of us had any money. We justified ourselves, I guess, by saying the colleges were making plenty out of us. We argued to ourselves that what we were doing was wrong, but not too wrong, because we weren’t going to throw any games.”

Soon after being chosen first by the Baltimore Bullets in the 1951 NBA draft, Melchiorre was banned for life by the league for his role in the scandal.

“It's not disappointing at all when I look back on it," he told the Journal Star in 2003. "I could understand why I couldn't play. I had to move on. I had a wife and a family."

Melchiorre moved on successfully in all areas of his life.

He and wife Kay, a Pekin native, raised five kids who produced 15 grandchildren. The couple stayed together for 62 years until Kay’s death in 2013. Gene was Kay’s loving caregiver in her final years after she became partially paralyzed following a stroke.

Gene made a good living as a small businessman in the Highland Park area, working in insurance, appliances, trucking, real estate and construction.

He stayed active playing golf and tennis and won a 45-and-under tennis doubles tournament in his 50s. He never played basketball again other than a short stint with a semi-pro team.

"My family is my greatest accomplishment," Melchiorre said in that 2003 interview. "I'm very proud of them. I've got good kids."

Melchiorre was inducted into the Bradley athletics Hall of Fame in 1979, but his No. 23 jersey was never retired. Several times over the years, Melchiorre contemporaries lobbied BU presidents to retire Melchiorre's number. But it never came to pass.

"He was truly one of a kind," Stowell said. "He was the best player on the No. 1-ranked team in the country. He made a mistake, but he was a good man. He deserved to have his number retired a long time ago."

Melchiorre and two of his teammates (Bill Mann and Mike Chinakas) pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in New York State. Though the players faced three years in prison, the assistant District Attorney praised the trio's cooperation, and they were given suspended sentences.

Melchiorre would never play a minute of NBA basketball, however. Not long after he admitted his role in the scandal, NBA President Maurice Podoloff banned all players involved in the point shaving scandal, including Melchiorre, from the NBA for life.