In 1943 The West Point basketball team, the Cadets, had only
managed a 5-10 record, and for the 1944 season coach Ed Kelleher's
hopes in reversing Army's fortunes rested on his five starters.
They consisted of three seniors - team captain "Big Ed" Christl,
John "Three Star" Hennessey, and class president Bobby Faas - and
two juniors, Dale Hall and Doug Kenna. At the academy, Kelleher
molded his cadets into a new kind of team, and, as the new season
opened in January of 1944, Kelleher's strategy paid handsome
dividends. By the end of January, West Point was 6-0; by the end of
February, the team boasted a 13-0 record. Of course, during those
weeks, it only took a glance at the newspaper headlines to be
reminded that there were far bigger contests than intercollegiate
basketball afoot in the winter of 1944. The cadets would not be
able to play in the NIT or NCAA national tournaments for a likely
national championship. The world was at war, and the U.S. Army
needed its finest on the front line more than on the court. Just
after their incredible basketball battles ended, the three seniors
were about to enter other battles. Hennessey endured months of
front-line fighting, battling from the waist-deep snow of Alsatian
forests to the bombed-out rubble of German cities. Christl, a
fearless forward observer for his field artillery battalion, made
it all the way to Austria, where he would lose his life in the
final week of the war in Europe. Three months later, Faas was shot
down over Japan and forced to bail out over the Pacific Ocean.
Coach Kelleher would die overseas on his own special assignment
with the Army. In the years that followed, the Army's basketball
team would never again have a chance to again play in the NCAA
tournament and, in the modern era, few remember West Point's
perfect 1944 season. Although West Point's home basketball court is
named the Edward C. Christl Arena, and the National Invitational
Tournament's trophy is named after his coach, Edward A. Kelleher,
too few people fully appreciate why. But after reading Their
Greatest Season, they will.
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