Frank John Lubin (Lithuanian: Pranas Lubinas; January 7, 1910 – July 8, 1999) was an American-Lithuanian basketball player.
Lubin was born on the east side of Los Angeles, California, to a family of Lithuanian immigrants and died in Glendale, California.
Playing for the UCLA Bruins from 1928 to 1931, Lubin, a 6-foot 7-inch center, earned All-Pacific Coast Conference honors in his senior season. Following his college career, he joined the Twentieth Century Fox AAU team, which earned the right to represent the US as part of the first Olympic basketball tournament in 1936 in Berlin, winning the gold.
During the Olympics, Lubin was invited to come to Lithuania and became their first national coach. They won the EuroBasket title in 1937, using American-born players of Lithuanian heritage. When the team hosted the tournament in 1939, they again won the title, this time with Lubin playing and coaching.
Lubin fled Lithuania to California with his family in the face of the Russian invasion in 1939.
Lubin continued to play for the Twentieth Century Fox team until he was 54 years old.
For his contributions and for introducing the now basketball-mad country to the sport, Lubin is often called the "grandfather of Lithuanian basketball".
In 1997, Lubin was inducted into the UCLA Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the Helms Sports Hall of Fame.
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—Abraham Polonsky, U.S. screenwriter, Frank Butler, and Helen Deutsch. Mitchell Leisen. Col. Deniston (Ray Milland)
“A diff’rent cause, says Parson Sly,
The same effect may give:
Poor Lubin fears, that he shall die;
His wife, that he may live.”
—Matthew Prior (1664–1721)