The Washington Bears were an all-black professional basketball team of the 1940s.
Sponsored by movie theater owner Abe Lichtman, the Bears played their home games at Turner's Arena in Washington, DC. Most of the team was composed of former New York Renaissance players, such as Pop Gates, Tarzan Cooper, Jackie Bethards, and John Isaacs. In 1943, the Bears achieved a 41-0 record and won the World Professional Basketball Tournament, defeating the Oshkosh All-Stars in the championship game.
Famous quotes containing the words washington and/or bears:
“I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
Tu-whit, tu-whoo!—
A merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)