Bill Spivey
William Edwin Spivey was an American basketball player. A center, he played college basketball for the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Kentucky Wildcats from 1949 to 1951. After his high school career, Spivey was recruited by the University of Kentucky. During his time with the Wildcats, he led the team to the 1951 NCAA tournament championship. When a point shaving scandal was revealed that year, Spivey was accused of being involved, which he denied. He left the Wildcats in December 1951, and the university banned him from the squad in March 1952.
After he testified before a grand jury in New York, he was indicted on perjury charges. Although Spivey was not convicted when the case went to trial in 1953, he was prevented from competing in the National Basketball Association afterward. Spivey instead played professionally for various minor league teams. In 10 Eastern Professional Basketball League seasons, his teams won three championships. Spivey retired in 1968 and became a businessman, working in sales and operating restaurants. Upset by the accusations against him in the early 1950s, he was reclusive in his final years.
Early life
William Edwin Spivey was born in Lakeland, Florida, and had moved to Columbus, Georgia, by 1944, at which time he was. After taking up basketball, he played for his high school's team and had 18 points in his first half of game action. The following year, he moved to Warner Robins, Georgia, which did not have a basketball team before he arrived. The principal of Warner Robins' high school created a team, however, once Spivey came. During one of his high school seasons, he was forced to play without shoes—since none of the school's shoes fit him—and wear three pairs of socks. Spivey had over 1,800 points in his three-year high school career.College career
Recruitment
Several universities wanted to give Spivey a basketball scholarship in 1948. The University of Kentucky first became aware of Spivey when a Georgia newspaper executive told Fred Wachs, whom writer Earl Cox said "pretty much ran Lexington", about him. After hearing of Spivey from the executive, Wachs notified Kentucky's men's basketball coach, Adolph Rupp, who elected to have a former Wildcats player watch Spivey. Following positive feedback from the player, Rupp invited Spivey to try out for a spot on the team against other leading high school players. After the tryout, Spivey received a scholarship.1948–49 to 1949–50
Even though he offered a scholarship to the seven-foot Spivey, Rupp was concerned about his weight, which was between 160 and 165 pounds. Rupp told him that he would play only if he added, and Spivey bulked up to during the summer of 1948. Spivey spent his first year at Kentucky on a freshman team, while the varsity team won its second consecutive NCAA Basketball Championship in 1949. The U.S. Olympic team, which had six Wildcats players on it, practiced in Lexington, and Spivey gained knowledge and skills from team members Alex Groza, Vince Boryla and Bob Kurland. Spivey also competed in games against other freshman teams, including one against Xavier in which he posted 31 points. In 15 games, he averaged about 20 points per game.In the 1949–50 season, the Wildcats lost several of the leading players from their championship-winning teams to graduation, including Ralph Beard and Groza. In response, Rupp made Spivey the focal point of the team, and the team exceeded expectations. In a February 18, 1950 game against Georgia Tech, which the Wildcats won 97–62, Spivey broke the team record for points in a game with 40, two more than Groza scored in a game the previous season. That record has since been broken, but his 42 field goal attempts remain a school record as of 2017. Spivey tied another of Groza's point-scoring records on March 5 with a 37-point performance in a Southeastern Conference men's basketball tournament game. Kentucky won over Tennessee 95–58 to win the SEC Tournament for the seventh consecutive season. Kentucky ended the regular season with a 25–4 record, and Spivey averaged 19.4 points a game. Despite the Wildcats' record and SEC title, the NCAA Tournament selection committee did not give the team a berth in the 1950 tournament. Kentucky did gain a berth to the National Invitation Tournament, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by City College of New York, 89–50. In that game, Spivey was forced to the bench for the final nine minutes of the first half after accumulating four personal fouls. At the end of the season, Spivey was named to the All-SEC team, and the Associated Press selected him for its 1950 All-American third team.
1950–51
Kentucky played a much-anticipated game versus Kansas on December 16, 1950, with Spivey matched up against Jayhawks center Clyde Lovellette. The Wildcats won by 29 points as Spivey outplayed Lovellette, in what he later called the best performance of his college career. After one steal, he drove to the Kansas basket and did a slam dunk; this was rare for Kentucky basketball at the time, as Rupp instructed players not to dunk during games. Spivey set another school record in a February 13, 1951, game, gathering 34 rebounds. As of 2017, he remains tied for the team record with Bob Burrow, who had the same number of rebounds in a 1955 game. For the season, Spivey again averaged more than 19 points per game, and he added 17.2 rebounds per game. His point total led the SEC, and his 479 regular season points were the third-most in league history at the time.The Wildcats had a 28–2 record during the regular season, and entered the postseason as the top-ranked team in the country. One of those losses came in the SEC Tournament against Vanderbilt, but it did not affect the team's prospects for an NCAA Tournament berth because the SEC had decided to send its regular season champion to the newly expanded 16-team tournament. Kentucky advanced to the Tournament's Final Four, where Spivey had 28 points and 16 rebounds in a 76–74 win over Illinois. The Wildcats then faced Kansas State in the NCAA championship game. Despite falling behind early in the contest, they took the lead in the second half and pulled away to win 68–58. Spivey played an important role in the victory, scoring 22 points and pulling down 21 rebounds. Rupp said after the game that "Spivey made the difference after he went to work." Although some sources printed many years later state that Spivey was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, no official vote occurred after the game and no player was officially presented as the winner. He was later selected to the 1951 All-American team, as well as the All-SEC team for the second straight season.
Implication in gambling scandal
The CCNY point shaving scandal was revealed in 1951. A series of college basketball players had conspired with gamblers to shave points to ensure that their teams lost against the point spread. According to Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan, 32 players were involved in point shaving or match fixing, and 86 games were affected. That figure included three ex-Kentucky players: Dale Barnstable, Beard, and Groza, who engaged in point shaving during a 1949 National Invitation Tournament game. Having been sidelined in the early part of the 1951–52 season after knee surgery, Spivey gave up his eligibility to play for the Wildcats on December 24, 1951. He denied rumors that he was involved in the scandal, calling them "false and malicious".Spivey intended to return to the Wildcats once the situation was resolved, which Kentucky's athletic association expected before reinstatement. On February 16, 1952, he and the association's directors agreed to have him testify before a grand jury in New York. After Spivey's grand jury appearance later in February, however, the university banned him permanently on March 2. In its statement, Kentucky's athletic board said evidence pointed to him fixing games during the 1950 Sugar Bowl basketball tournament. Gambler Jack West was charged with bribing two Wildcats players, Spivey and Walter Hirsch, to engage in point shaving during one of the tournament's games, and eventually pleaded guilty. In his grand jury testimony, Spivey denied receiving $1,000 to shave points in games from December 1950 to January 1951, or talking about doing so with gamblers. He was the only implicated player to deny allegations of point shaving. In April, the grand jury indicted him on charges of perjury for lying under oath during his testimony, claiming he had done so on seven occasions.