Dan "Danny" Cramer (born June 2, 1952) is a former American-Dutch professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player. Following his college career at

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

, he played ten years of professional basketball in the Netherlands and won seven

Eredivisie The Eredivisie (; "Honour Division" or "Premier Division") is a professional association football league in the Netherlands and the highest level of the Dutch football league system. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start o ...

championships. Cramer also represented the Netherlands national team in 98 games.

College career

Cramer starred at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1864, it has an enrollment of approximately 5,700 undergraduate students and 7,200 graduate students. It is classified among "R1: D ...

from 1971–1974. A 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) tall forward, he scored 504 points in 77 games (6.5 per contest) and grabbed a total of 173 rebounds (2.2 per contest). He broke the school’s record for points in a single game when he scored 50 against

Southern Mississippi The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bac ...

on February 4, 1974. He left school as a

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration A Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is an undergraduate degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of four years and typically 120 credits of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business ...

and had majored in

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

Professional career

Cramer spent his professional career in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

: From 1974 to 1977, he played for Kinzo Amstelveen, winning the Dutch national championship in 1976 and 1977. Cramer emerged as an efficient scorer in the Dutch league, averaging 26.1 points a game in the 1974–75 season, 20.5 in 1975–76 and 18.3 in 1976–77. After spending the 1977–78 with the

Arke Stars Enschede Arke Stars Enschede was a Dutch professional basketball club based in Enschede. In the 1970s, the team played in the Eredivisie, the national top flight league. The team played in the Diekmanhal, which was destroyed in a fire in 2007. The Arke Sta ...

, scoring 20.7 points per contest, Cramer joined

EBBC Den Bosch Heroes Den Bosch is a Dutch professional basketball club based in 's-Hertogenbosch. The club plays in the BNXT League since 2021 and in the top basketball division in the Netherlands since 1972. Founded as EBBC in 1951, the club had several sponso ...

(later known as Nashua Den Bosch), where he played from 1978 to 1984. In his six years with Den Bosch, Cramer won Dutch national championships in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983 and 1984. The best scoring average of his Den Bosch stint came in 1978–79, when he had 18.2 points per outing in the Dutch league. Cramer also appeared in European cup competitions with Den Bosch. In the 1982–83 season, he was instrumental in Den Bosch’s win over Spanish powerhouse

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça (), is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of ...

in the

Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The competition's official name was originally the European Cup Winners' Cup; it was renamed the UEFA Cup Winne ...

: Cramer had 18 points in the 86–76 upset on January 17, 1983. Cramer and Den Bosch advanced to the semi-final of the competition that season.

National team career

He won 98 caps for the Dutch men’s national team and participated in the

European Championships A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

in 1975, 1977, 1979 and 1983. His best single-game performance was at a European championship game in 1975, when he led the Netherlands to a 66–65 win over Greece, scoring 28 points.

Post-playing career

In 1977, he started working for an accounting firm in the Netherlands. Cramer ended his professional basketball in 1984 and returned to the United States. While working in accounting in

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, he also started a TV production company, which did TV productions of high school sports. In 1989, Cramer started organizing and promoting

3x3 basketball 3x3 basketball (stylized as ''ƐX3'', pronounced ''three-ex-three'') is a Variations of basketball, variation of basketball played three-a-side, with one Backboard (basketball), backboard and in a basketball court, half-court setup. This basketba ...

and later

3v3 soccer 3v3 Soccer is a variety of football played between two teams. Each team may only have three players on the field at a time (hence providing the name, "3 v 3", "3 versus 3", or "3 on 3"). This style of soccer is more commonly referred to as a "sm ...

as well as 4on4 football.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cramer, Dan 1952 births Living people American expatriate basketball people in the Netherlands American men's basketball players Forwards (basketball) Dutch men's basketball players Dutch Basketball League players Denver Pioneers men's basketball players 20th-century American sportsmen 20th-century Dutch sportsmen