61. Basketball
Samuel Schmidt ’19, pictured here, played basketball at Princeton for two years and served as the team’s manager during his senior year. The sport of basketball was only 12 years old when Princeton’s first team was formed in 1901 and achieved a winning record of 7-5. The University Gymnasium, built in 1903 to supercede the old Bonner-Marquand facility, was the team’s home until that building was consumed by fire in 1944 and replaced by Dillon Gymnasium on the same site three years later. Princeton’s basketball team did poorly in its early years, improving when a resident coach was appointed in 1911 but winning only occasional league championships before World War II. Under the leadership of Coach Franklin Cappon, Princeton produced a number of winning teams in the 1950s before the team reached its pinnacle in the next decade, winning seven titles and showcasing the performance of the legendary Bill Bradley ’65, whose school point record of 2,503 remains unchallenged to this day.
- To learn more about Bill Bradley, see quotation
#21.
- To learn more about basketball at Princeton, see
quotation #21 and Café Vivian picture
#126.
- To learn more about athletics at Princeton, see
quotation #4, 9, 21,
and 22, and Café Vivian picture #6,
7, 9, 18,
22, 39, 48,
49, 54, 56,
69, 72, 97,
102, 111, 123,
and 126.
- To learn more about Princeton’s athletic
facilities, see Café Vivian picture #6,
7, 48, 49,
56, and 111.
- To learn more about campus grounds and buildings,
see icon #1, 5, and 8,
quotation #5, 7, 9,
28, and 39, and Café
Vivian picture #4, 6,
7, 8, 11,
16, 20, 25,
30, 33, 37,
40, 46, 48,
54, 58, 62,
67, 68, 71,
78, 85, 87,
95, 100, 101,
102, 104, 105,
108, 109, 111,
118, 124, 127,
and 133.
- To learn more about campus fires, see icon #5 and Café Vivian picture #4, 8, 46, 58, and 78.