Clair Bee - Misplaced Pages

American basketball coach (1896–1983)

Clair Bee
Biographical details

Born	(1896-03-02)March 2, 1896 Grafton, West Virginia, U.S.
Died	May 20, 1983(1983-05-20) (aged 87) Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Playing career
1922–1925	Waynesburg (football, baseball, tennis)

Coaching career (HC unless noted)
Football
1929?–1930?	Rider
1931	LIU Brooklyn
1939–1940	LIU Brooklyn
Basketball
1925–1926	High school
1928–1931	Rider
1931–1943	LIU Brooklyn
1945–1951	LIU Brooklyn
1952–1954	Baltimore Bullets
Baseball
1929	Rider
1934–1938	LIU Brooklyn

Administrative career (AD unless noted)
1929–1931	Rider
1954–1967	New York Military Academy

Head coaching record
Tournaments	Basketball 6–5 (NIT)
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
Basketball Helms National (1939) 2 Premo-Porretta National (1936, 1941) 2 NIT (1939, 1941)


Basketball Hall of Fame Inducted in 1968 (profile)
College Basketball Hall of Fame Inducted in 2006

Clair Francis Bee (March 2, 1896 – May 20, 1983) was an American basketball coach who led the team at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York to undefeated seasons in 1936 and 1939, as well as two National Invitation Tournament titles in 1939 and 1941.

Biography

Bee was born in Grafton, West Virginia to James Edward Bee (1871–1933) and Margaret Ann Skinner. Later, Bee was a graduate of Waynesburg University (then Waynesburg College) where he played football, baseball, and tennis.

Bee's teams posted a winning record in 21 of his 23 seasons, and compiled a 43-game winning streak from 1935 to 1937. Bee holds the Division I NCAA record for highest winning percentage, winning 83% of the games he was head coach. Bee resigned in 1951 after several of his players were implicated in the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal. LIU shut down its athletic program shortly afterward.

Bee also coached the football team at LIU until it was disbanded in 1940.

He coached the National Basketball Association's Baltimore Bullets from 1952 to 1954, amassing a 34–116 record under his tenure.

Bee was known as the "Innovator". His contributions to the game of basketball include the 1–3–1 zone defense and the three-second rule. Bee also served as co-host of the early NBC sports-oriented television program "Campus Hoopla" on WNBT from 1946 to 1947.

His influence on the game also extended to strategies sports camps (Camp All-America), (Kutsher's Sports Academy), writing technical coaching books, and conducting coaching clinics around the world. By the time he left coaching in the 1950s, Bee had already begun writing the Chip Hilton Sports Series for younger readers.

Bee was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1968 and was a member of the Inaugural Class inducted into the NYC Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990. The Clair Bee Coach of the Year Award is awarded every year to a coach who makes an outstanding contribution to the game of college basketball, and the Chip Hilton Player of the Year Award is awarded to a men's basketball player.

In 1968, he cofounded the Kutsher's Sports Academy.

One of Bee's grandfathers was Ephraim Bee, a member of the first West Virginia Legislature.

Head coaching record

College

Football


Year	Team	Overall
Rider Roughriders (Independent) (1929?–1930?)
1929	Rider
1930	Rider
Rider:
Long Island Blackbirds (Independent) (1931)
1931	Long Island	7–1
Long Island Blackbirds (Independent) (1939–1940)
1939	Long Island	5–3
1940	Long Island	5–1
Long Island:		17–5
Total:

Basketball

Statistics overview
Season	Team	Overall	Postseason
Rider Roughriders (Independent) (1928–1931)
1928–29	Rider	19–3
1929–30	Rider	17–3
1930–31	Rider	17–2
Rider:		53–8 (.869)
Long Island Blackbirds (Independent) (1931–1943)
1931–32	Long Island	16–4
1932–33	Long Island	6–11
1933–34	Long Island	26–1
1934–35	Long Island	24–2
1935–36	Long Island	25–0	Premo-Porretta National Champions
1936–37	Long Island	28–3
1937–38	Long Island	23–5	NIT Quarterfinals
1938–39	Long Island	23–0	Helms Foundation National Champions NIT Champions
1939–40	Long Island	19–4	NIT Quarterfinals
1940–41	Long Island	25–2	Premo-Porretta National Champions NIT Champions
1941–42	Long Island	25–3	NIT Quarterfinals
1942–43	Long Island	13–6
1945–46	Long Island	14–9
1946–47	Long Island	17–5	NIT Quarterfinals
1947–48	Long Island	17–4
1948–49	Long Island	18–12
1949–50	Long Island	20–5	NIT Quarterfinals
1950–51	Long Island	20–4
Long Island:		360–80 (.818)
Total:		413–88 (.824)
National champion Postseason invitational champion Conference regular season champion Conference regular season and conference tournament champion Division regular season champion Division regular season and conference tournament champion Conference tournament champion

Baseball

Statistics overview
Season	Team	Overall
Rider Roughriders (Independent) (1929)
1929	Rider	3–2
Rider:		3–2 (.600)
Long Island Blackbirds (Independent) (1934–1939)
Long Island:		75–22–4 (.762)
Total:		78–24–4 (.755)
National champion Postseason invitational champion Conference regular season champion Conference regular season and conference tournament champion Division regular season champion Division regular season and conference tournament champion Conference tournament champion

Professional

NBA

Legend
Regular season	G	Games coached	W	Games won	L	Games lost	W–L %	Win–loss %
Playoffs	PG	Playoff games	PW	Playoff wins	PL	Playoff losses	PW–L %	Playoff win–loss %


Team	Year	G	W	L	W–L%	Finish	PG	PW	PL	PW–L%	Result
BAL	1952–53	70	16	54	.229	4th in Eastern	2	0	2	.000	Lost in Div. Semifinals
BAL	1953–54	72	16	56	.222	5th in Eastern	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
Career		142	32	110	.225		2	0	2	.000

References

"LIU streaks". Archived from the original on December 22, 2004. Retrieved January 6, 2005.
"Player Bio: John Calipari - KENTUCKY OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE". Archived from the original on July 26, 2009. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
Luchter, P.S. (May 21, 2010). "Long Island University All-Time Football Records". List Of Amazing Sports Lists. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
"Basketball Hall of Fame bio". Archived from the original on October 3, 2007.
ESPN, ed. (2009). ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Men's Game. New York: ESPN Books. p. 544. ISBN 978-0-345-51392-2.

External links

Clair Bee at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Links to related articles

v t e Rider Broncs men's basketball head coaches
Clair Bee (1928–1931) Paul Frank (1931–1932) Frank Donlon (1932–1940) Rex Ellis (1940–1942) Thomas Leyden (1942–1943) Frank Donlon (1943–1946) Thomas Leyden (1946–1962) Robert Greenwood (1962–1965) Dick Harter (1965–1966) John Barker Carpenter (1966–1989) Kevin Bannon (1989–1997) Don Harnum (1997–2005) Tommy Dempsey (2005–2012) Kevin Baggett (2012– )

v t e Rider Broncs athletic directors
Clair Bee (1929–1931) Frank Donlon (1932–1940) Rex Ellis (1941) Thomas Leyden (1942–1944) Frank Donlon (1944–1953) Robert W. Killgus (1953–1967) John Barker Carpenter (1968–1989) Martin Devlin (1989–1991) Curt Blake (1991–2005) Don Harnum (2005– )

LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds men's basketball head coaches

Herbert Raubenheimer (1928–1930)
Arthur T. Carroll (1930–1931)
Clair Bee (1931–1943)
George Wolfe (1943–1945)
Clair Bee (1945–1951)
No team (1951–1957)
Buck Lai (1957–1961)
Roy Rubin (1961–1972)
Ron Smalls (1972–1975)
Paul Lizzo (1975–1995)
Ray Haskins (1995–1998)
Ray Martin (1998–2001)
Ron Brown (2001–2002)
Jim Ferry (2002–2012)
Jack Perri (2012–2017)
Derek Kellogg (2017–2019)

LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds head baseball coaches

Herbert Raubenheimer (1929)
Arthur T. Carroll (1930)
Lew Malone (1931)
No team (1932–1933)
Clair Bee (1934–1938)
Buck Freeman (1939)
Al Caruso (1940)
No team (1941–1948)
Buck Lai (1949–1960)
Saverio Picariello (1961)
Tony Russo (1962–1965)
Dick Vining (1966–1974)
Paul Lizzo (1975–1976)
Frank Giannone (1977–2004)
Don Maines (2005–2014)
John Suarez # (2014)
Alex Trezza (2015–2016)
Dan Pirillo (2017–2019)

# denotes interim head coach

Baltimore Bullets (1944–1954) head coaches

Ben Kramer (1944)
Red Rosan (1944–1946)
Buddy Jeannette (1946–1951)
Walt Budko # (1951)
Chick Reiser (1951)
Fred Scolari (1951–1952)
Clair Bee (1952–1954)
Albert Barthelme (1954)

# denotes interim head coach.

v t e Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 1968
Coaches	Howard Cann Slats Gill Doggie Julian
Contributors	Clair Bee

Members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Players

Guards	R. Allen Archibald Barnett Beckman Belov Billups Bing Blazejowski Borgmann Braun Brennan Bryant Carter Cervi Cheeks Clayton Cooper-Dyke Cousy Dampier Davies Drexler Dumars Edwards Endacott Frazier Friedman Galis Gervin Ginóbili Goodrich Greer Grentz Guerin Hammon Hanson Hardaway Haynes Holman Hyatt Isaacs Iverson Jeannette Jenkins D. Johnson M. Johnson K. Jones S. Jones Jordan Kidd Lieberman Maravich Marcari Marčiulionis Martin McDermott McGrady D. McGuire Meyers R. Miller Moncrief Monroe Moore C. Murphy Nash Page Parker Payton Petrović Phillip Posey Richmond Robertson Rodgers Roosma J. Russell Schommer Scott Sedran Sharman K. Smith Staley Steinmetz Stockton Swoopes Thomas D. Thompson Timms Vandivier Wade Wanzer Weatherspoon West Westphal Whalen J. White Wilkens Woodard Wooden
Forwards	Arizin Augustus Barkley Barry Baylor Bird Bosh Boswell Bradley R. Brown Cash Catchings C. Cooper M. Cooper Cunningham Curry Dalipagić Dandridge Dantley Davis DeBusschere Dehnert Duncan English Erving Foster Fulks Gale Garnett Gasol Gates Gola Hagan Havlicek Hawkins Hayes Haywood Heinsohn Hill Howell Hudson L. Jackson G. Johnson B. Jones King Korać Kukoč Lucas Luisetti K. Malone McClain B. McCracken J. McCracken McGinnis McHale Mikkelsen C. Miller Mullin Nowitzki Pettit Pierce Pippen Pollard Pullins Radja Ramsey Rodman Schayes E. Schmidt O. Schmidt Stokes C. Thompson T. Thompson Twyman Walker Webber N. White Wilkes Wilkins Worthy Yardley
Centers	Abdul-Jabbar Barlow Beaty Bellamy Chamberlain T. Cooper Ćosić Cowens Crawford Daniels DeBernardi Divac Donovan Ewing Gallatin Gilmore Griffith Gruenig Harris-Stewart Houbregs Issel Jackson W. Johnson Johnston M. Krause Kurland Lanier Leslie Lovellette Lapchick Macauley Maciel M. Malone McAdoo Meneghin Mikan Mourning S. Murphy Mutombo Olajuwon O'Neal Parish Reed Risen Robinson B. Russell Sabonis Sampson Semjonova Sikma Thurmond Unseld Wachter Wallace Walton Washington Yao

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