Peter Todd Lalich (June 23, 1920 – February 1, 2008) was an American professional

basketball player Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's ...

. He played for the

Cleveland Rebels The Cleveland Rebels were a basketball team in the Basketball Association of America (BAA), a forerunner of the modern National Basketball Association (NBA), based in Cleveland. Franchise history The Rebels were an inaugural franchise in the BAA ...

of the

Basketball Association of America The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. Following its third season, 1948–49, the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (United States), National Basketball Lea ...

(now known as the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

High school career

Lalich played basketball for

East Technical High School East Technical High School or East Tech is a secondary school under the operation of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in Cleveland, Ohio. History The school, when it opened on October 5, 1908, was the first public trade school in the ...

in Cleveland, Ohio, where he captained a championship team in 1938.

College career

A multi-sport athlete, Lalich played basketball and baseball at

Ohio University Ohio University (Ohio or OU) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Athens, Ohio, United States. The university was first conceived in the 1787 contract between the United States Department of the Treasury#Re ...

. Playing the center position, he was a four-year starter for the basketball team. In 1987 he was inducted into the Ohio University Athletics Hall of Fame.

Professional career

Lalich played professionally in the National Basketball League with the

Sheboygan Redskins The Sheboygan Red Skins (or Redskins) were a professional basketball team based in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which was an original National Basketball Association franchise during the 1949–50 season. History Overview The Redskins played in thre ...

, the

Cleveland Chase Brassmen Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania stat ...

, the Pittsburgh Raiders and the Youngstown Bears. In 1946, Lalich joined the

. He appeared in one game for the team in the

where he attempted one field goal and was credited with one personal foul.

Later life

Following his basketball career, Lalich worked for 35 years for Western & Southern Life Insurance Company, retiring in 1980 as divisional vice-president of sales.

Personal

He was the son of Serbian immigrants and his older brother, Nick Lalich, was also a professional basketball player for the 1945–46 Youngstown Bears in the NBL and was the leader of the

OSS OSS or Oss may refer to: Places * Oss, a city and municipality in the Netherlands * Osh Airport, IATA code OSS People with the name * Oss (surname), a surname Arts and entertainment * ''O.S.S.'' (film), a 1946 World War II spy film about ...

team that rescued about 550 downed air crews during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Operation Halyard Operation Halyard (or Halyard Mission), known in Serbian as Operation Air Bridge (), was an Allies of World War II, Allied airlift operation behind Axis powers, Axis lines during World War II. In July 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) ...

, without losing a single life or a single plane.

BAA career statistics

Regular season

References

External links

* 1920 births 2008 deaths American men's basketball players American people of Serbian descent Cleveland Chase Brassmen players Cleveland Rebels players Forwards (basketball) Ohio Bobcats baseball players Ohio Bobcats men's basketball players Pittsburgh Raiders players Sheboygan Red Skins players Youngstown Bears players People from Lorain, Ohio 20th-century American sportsmen {{1920s-US-basketball-bio-stub