Marty Blake

 

Starting his 52nd year in the National Basketball Association and his 59th year in professional basketball, Marty Blake has long been regarded as the number one authority on college and professional basketball in the world.

 

He was the General Manager of the St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks for 17 years during which time his record was second best to that of Arnold (Red) Auerbach of the Boston Celtics.

 

Under Blake’s guidance, the Hawks won seven Division titles and finished second eight other times. The Hawks won the NBA championship in l958, beating the Boston Celtics. The Hawks were one of only two clubs to accomplish that feat over a 13-year span.

 

Blake also served as President of the Pittsburgh Condors of the American Basketball Association for one year.

 

Today, international players make a huge impact on the NBA. More than 65 international players are on NBA rosters, and some of the NBA’s biggest stars are international players. Blake was the first NBA official to tap this market.

 

In 1970 while GM of the Atlanta Hawks, Blake drafted Italian superstar Dino Meneghin, a 6-foot-10, 260-pound center, and powerful Manuel Raga, considered the greatest player in the history of Mexico, who were teammates playing for Italian League power Varese.

 

Shortly after the 1970 NBA Draft, Blake left the Hawks to become President of the Pittsburgh Condors of the ABA, and the Hawks failed to follow up and attempt to sign the two international stars.

 

Fifteen years after Blake drafted Meneghin, the Italian was voted the greatest player in the history of International Basketball. He played 28 years in Italy and in 2003 was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

 

In 1971, Blake formed Marty Blake and Associates - an organization devoted primarily to consultation and scouting in the field of professional basketball.

 

In an era in which two rival leagues - the ABA and the NBA - were in direct conflict with each other, Blake's reputation for integrity was so undisputed that he worked for both leagues simultaneously.

 

Today Blake is credited with establishing the scouting system used by the NBA teams and he also instituted many of the promotional ideas now considered standard in professional sports.

 

Although Blake’s impact on professional and college basketball is immense, his sports background is not limited to basketball.

 

He worked for the Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers and the then New York Giants in baseball; the Detroit Lions in football and operated the Wilkes-Barre (Pa) Bullets of the American Football League when it was considered the top minor league in the country in the late l940s.

 

He also served as Director of Scouting for the Continental Basketball Association for many years - a league he helped found in 1946.

 

In his colorful and diverse career, Blake has also handled public relations for such famous clients as Sugar Ray Robinson,

 

considered the greatest fighter pound for pound in the history of boxing; Joey Chitwood, the great daredevil of auto racing; the Sports Club of America and the famed Harlem Globetrotters.

 

His association with the Globetrotters and their co-teams - the Washington Generals and Boston Whirlwinds - covers nearly 60 years and he promoted Globetrotters games for many years as a product of his personal relationship with the founder of the Globetrotters, Abe Saperstein.

 

He has served as a consultant to the Globetrotters in the field of scouting and player evaluation and received the inaugural Abe Saperstein Award for service to basketball at the NCAA Final Four in April of 2001.

 

He was honored by the Globetrotters a year later on the 75th anniversary of their inception at a gala at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.

 

Blake has been an associate member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches for 42 years and each year works with that organization to help select players for their annual NABC All-Star Game at the site of the Final Four.

 

Six years ago, Blake revitalized the NABC All-Star Game by developing the concept of having the College All-Stars play the Globetrotters. The second game pitting the All-Stars against the Globetrotters in Minneapolis drew the largest crowd in the long history of the NABC game with more than 15,600 fans in attendance. Each year since the game has drawn in excess of 13,000 fans. 

 

Blake has assisted virtually every national basketball federation in the world as an advisor in the field of player evaluation. He has also aided the United States Olympic Committee and USA Basketball. Numerous international accounting firms rely on his expertise to evaluate acquisitions of NBA franchises. When a professional basketball franchise is sold or purchased, he is usually retained to place a value on the player contracts of that franchise.

 

Blake appears regularly as a guest on numerous sports talk shows throughout the country and had his own national talk show  - “Marty Blake's Basketball Sunday” - for two years.

 

He also has written on college basketball for magazines in England, Spain and Italy.

 

In l994, he appeared in the movie BLUE CHIPS - a basketball-oriented film staring Nick Nolte and a number of NBA and college personalities. The movie was directed by Academy Award winner William Friedkin.

 

Blake has appeared in numerous stage productions, including a l6-week stint in Arsenic and Old Lace - while in the military service. He also appeared on two separate occasions on the stage of the famed St. Louis Municipal Opera in the outdoor production of Wish You Were Here.

 

He also had a cameo role in the l946 movie THEY WERE EXPENDABLE - a war epic staring John Wayne - about PT Boats. Blake played (of all things) a dead soldier.  The movie was filmed in Biscayne Bay in Miami in 1944.

 

His thespian efforts in college included the role of Ed Keller in the Male Animal (James Thurber) and roles in several other plays - mostly comedies.   

 

While in college at the University of Pennsylvania and Wilkes University he wrote a sports column and was a columnist for the Wyoming Valley (Pa.) Sports Journal for two years.

Many of the players now in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame have either played or coached for Blake. Alex Hannum, who coached the St. Louis Hawks to the NBA title in l958, entered the Hall three years ago. Two years ago, John Thompson (the former Georgetown coach) and former trailblazing NBA GM Wayne Embry joined the more than 25 players, coaches and officials who played or coached for Blake. In 2001, Blake was appointed to the position of Historical Consultant to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

 

He is a member of the Wyoming Valley (Pa.) Sports Hall of Fame and serves on the HONOR COURT of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, helping to select the basketball nominees and inductees to that Hall.

 

He is on the National Committee to select the John R. Wooden Award; is a member of the Naismith Award nominating committee and serves on the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame selection committee.

                       

He is married to the former Marcia Ruth Whitworth, an Atlanta artist-photographer. Marty and Marcia are the parents of three children: Eliot, an attorney who recently received his PHD at the University of Iowa; Sarah, who is employed as a senior research scientist in managed health care at Emory University in Atlanta where she also teaches; and Ryan, who retired after six years on the ATP men’s professional tennis tour and who now assists his father as Assistant Director of NBA Scouting.

 

Marcia Blake was a professional tennis umpire who has worked the Olympics, the United States Open and the Davis Cup, and for many years was one of the few women ever to work as a chair umpire at the NCAA Men's Tennis National Championships in Athens, Georgia. She also has been tournament director for the Georgia State Seniors tennis tourney and several national tourneys.

                       

Both Blakes are long-time members of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and the U.S. Tennis Writers Association. Marty is also a member of the Football Writers of America.