William G. Mokray (June 6, 1907 – March 21, 1974) was an American

basketball statistician In basketball, a basketball statistician is an official responsible for recording statistics during games, and providing reports to coaches, league officials, and (depending on the competition) media and spectators. In organized competition and at ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

. Born and raised in

Passaic, New Jersey Passaic ( or ) is a City (New Jersey), city in Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city was List of municipalities in New Jersey, the state's 16th-most-populous ...

, Mokray's love of basketball stats began while attending Passaic High School.William G. "Bill" Mokray enshrined as a contributor in 1965
,

Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pres ...

. Accessed July 13, 2007. "Mokray's romance started while a student at Passaic High School during the era of the 'Passaic High School Wonder Teams.'" After graduating from Rhode Island State College (now the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of Rhode Island. The univer ...

), he worked as a public relations director first for his alma mater and, beginning from 1946, for the

Boston Celtics The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NBA), Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), ...

basketball team. He founded and was the editor for The Official NBA Guide, authored the history of basketball article for the

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

and wrote a 900-page Ronald Basketball Encyclopedia. He was considered the number one authority on basketball's history and owned what was considered to be the world's largest basketball library, most of which was donated to the

. He was enshrined into the

in 1965 as a contributor.

References

External links

Basketball Hall of Fame page on Mokray
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mokray, Bill 1907 births 1974 deaths Boston Celtics personnel Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Passaic High School alumni Writers from Passaic, New Jersey University of Rhode Island alumni