The Rochester Colonels were a short-lived franchise in the

Eastern Professional Basketball League The Continental Basketball Association (CBA), originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association, was a men's professional basketball m ...

(the forerunner to the

Continental Basketball Association The Continental Basketball Association (CBA), originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association, was a men's professional basketball m ...

) in the 1958-59 season. Playing its home games at Rochester War Memorial Auditorium, the franchise was supposed to play a 32-game schedule, but played just eight games — losing all of them — before folding on December 17, 1958. The team drew less than 900 fans for its home games. The team's roster included

Hubie Brown Hubert Jude Brown (born September 25, 1933) is an American former professional basketball player, coach, and analyst. Brown is a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, the honors separated by 26 years. Brown was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Bas ...

at center,

Bo Erias Baltico S. "Bo" Erias (July 30, 1932 – January 25, 2007) was an American professional basketball player. Erias was selected in the 1954 NBA draft by the Rochester Royals after a collegiate career at Niagara. He played for the Minneapolis Lake ...

, Hank Daubenschmidt, Charlie Hoxie and

Arnie Risen Arnold Denny "Stilts" Risen (October 9, 1924 – August 4, 2012) was an American professional basketball player. A center, he led the Ohio State University Buckeyes to two straight Final Four appearances. Risen had transferred to Ohio State f ...

as a player-coach. The biggest problem for the team's existence was finances. Rochester was distant from the locations of other teams in the league at the time, forcing the Colonels to pay more for travel expenses, referees, and ask for more pay when they were visiting other teams. In addition to this, they weren't drawing many fans for home games. Once the Colonels folded, the league decided to purge their games and individual statistics from the official league records. The team would remain forgotten until sports historian

Douglas Brei Douglas Brei (born December 29, 1964) is a former minor league sports executive who has recently garnered national attention as a sports historian in his hometown of Rochester, New York, United States. Historical contributions Throughout the ye ...

uncovered its existence in 2005, and successfully petitioned the CBA to reinstate the Rochester Colonels into the official record books.

References

Basketball teams in New York (state)

Colonels Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in char ...

Defunct basketball teams in the United States {{NewYork-basketball-team-stub