Joe Cephis Fortenberry (April 1, 1911 – June 3, 1993) was an American

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 who competed in the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...

. He was a captain of the American basketball team, which won the gold medal in the first Olympics to include basketball. After college, Fortenberry played for the Ogden Boosters in Utah, and then with the McPherson Oilers in McPherson, Kansas. This was the team that won the AAU National Championship in 1936, prior to the Olympics. He played two games at the Olympics, including the final. He was the high scorer in the gold medal game, scoring 8 points in a 19–8 victory, and averaged a tournament-leading 14.5 points per game. The game was held in appalling conditions, outdoors on a muddy clay court, that made dribbling almost impossible, in steady rain and with winds that "blew the ball around wildly". After he played in the Olympics, Fortenberry played five seasons with the

Phillips 66ers The Phillips 66ers (also known as the Oilers) were an amateur basketball team located in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, sponsored and run by the Phillips Petroleum Company. The 66ers were a national phenomenon that grew from a small-town team to an orga ...

, the perennial power in the AAU basketball league, the premier basketball league in the United States before the NBA. He played from the 1936–1937 season through the 1940–1941 season, winning an AAU national championship in 1940. He is credited with being one of the first to

slam dunk A slam dunk, also simply known as a dunk, is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air, controls the ball above the horizontal plane of the rim, and scores by shoving the ball directly through the basket with on ...

the basketball; this appeared in a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' article by Pulitzer Prize winning sports reporter,

Arthur Daley ''Minder'' is a British comedy-drama series about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television, and shown on ITV for ten series between 29 October 1979 a ...

, in 1936. He could still dunk when he was 55 years old, according to his son. His Olympic gold medal was appraised on ''Antiques Roadshow'' on PBS. The estimated value of the medal was $100,000 to $150,000.

References

External links

Joe Fortenberry at databaseOlympics.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fortenberry, Joe 1911 births 1993 deaths American men's basketball players Basketball players at the 1936 Summer Olympics Basketball players from Texas Medalists at the 1936 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball Sportspeople from Wise County, Texas Phillips 66ers players United States men's national basketball team players West Texas A&M Buffaloes basketball players Centers (basketball)