By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
More than a million people lined the streets in New York City on Thursday to watch a flashy parade celebrating the Knicks basketball team winning its first NBA championship since 1973 last week.
The storied franchise now has a 3-6 record in NBA Finals. The first time the Knicks played for the title was 1951 and they lost because a young man who grew up near Northern Kentucky played exceptionally well.
The Rochester Royals won a seven-game championship series against the Knicks, 4-3, that year. Arnie Risen, a 1942 graduate of Williamstown High School in Grant County, averaged 21.7 points, 14.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists for the Royals. No player on either team had more points or rebounds than the lanky 6-foot-9 center in those seven games.
Risen, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 87, was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998 for playing on two NBA championship teams and being a three-time all-star team selection. But his shining moment was the 1951 series against the Knicks.
After Rochester took a 3-0 lead in the series, New York won the next three. It was the first time in NBA history that a seventh game was needed to decide the champion and it was between two teams from the same state.
That final game was played in Rochester and the Royals came away with a 79-75 victory. Risen led all scorers with 24 points and pulled down 13 rebounds.
In an online story about his career, Risen recalled the climatic final minutes of the 1951 championship game.
“The game was very tight in the second half,” he told writer Michael McClellan. “We stayed aggressive, and the Knicks ended up in foul trouble. I scored late, drew a foul, and completed the three-point play to put us up 75–74. (Royals teammate) Jack Coleman made a basket to put the final nail in the coffin, and that was it. We were finally champions.”
Risen was a three-year starter on the Williamstown High School basketball team. A road leading to the high school is named in his honor. He was living in Ohio when he passed away, but he was buried in Williamstown Cemetery with other family members.
In high school, he obtained the nickname “Stilts” because of his height. The United States had entered World War II a few months before he graduated, but he wasn’t drafted into the service because he was considered too tall.
He wanted to play basketball for the University of Kentucky, but coach Adolph Rupp didn’t offer him a full scholarship. So he started his college career at Eastern Kentucky State College, but the basketball program there was discontinued after his freshman season.
Risen then came to Ohio State University and played on two teams that made it to the region finals in the NCAA playoffs. In 1945, the Buckeyes’ last playoff victory came against Kentucky.
Unfortunately, he was declared academically ineligible during his senior season when a lengthly bout with pneumonia kept him from attending classes.
After playing three seasons for the Indianapolis Kautskys in the National Basketball League, Risen joined the Rochester Royals that was a member of the Basketball Association of America.
Those two leagues combined to form the NBA in 1949-50. One season later, Risen led the Royals to their first and only NBA title in the series against New York.
“Today, when teams win championships they are given championship rings,” Risen said in the online story. “Back then, rings weren’t such a big deal. We played, we won the title, and then we all went on to other jobs in the offseason. Basketball wasn’t as big.”
After six seasons in the NBA with Rochester, Risen was traded to the Boston Celtics in 1955-56 and played on that team’s first championship team. In the seventh game of the 1957 NBA Finals, Boston defeated the St. Louis Hawks, 125-123, in double overtime to take the title. Rison had 16 points and 10 rebounds in that historic victory at Boston Gardens.
Risen retired after the 1957-58 season. During his nine-year NBA career, he averaged 11.5 points and 9.7 rebounds in 577 games. He joined several of his former teammates when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, including Celtics’ legends Bob Cousy and Bill Russell.
“Back then you weren’t playing for enshrinement into the Hall of Fame since there wasn’t a Hall of Fame,” Risen told an interviewer. “I think it meant more coming to me late in life, rather than if it came to me on my first trip to the ballot box five years after retirement. It was the crowning point in my career. And joining all of those great players that I suited up with makes me feel like I’m on the team again.”
The Rochester Royals franchise moved to Cincinnati in 1957 and spent 15 seasons in the Queen City. During their first season, the relocated Royals had a 2-7 record against Boston in Risen’s final season with the Celtics.