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Show Co monger ujEiqei? DALE SCHOFIELD their prolonged visit by putting put-ting together a Lithuanian basketball team that surpassed sur-passed anything the locals had ever seen. Returning to the US in November, Frank took a job at 20th Century Fox and became the center and star of the AAU basketball team by that name. In 1938, however, the Lu-bins Lu-bins were lured back to Lithuania to instigate a modern mod-ern basketball program for that country and to help organize or-ganize the 1939 Lithuanian Olympic Games. When Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia in 1939, the Lubins were caught in Italy on tour with a girls basketball basket-ball team. All borders were immediately closed and only through an appeal to the son of Mussolini, were they Don't ever play pinochle with Clyde Algood. A former for-mer card playing buddy paid a visit to Clyde and Bernice in Beaver last week and if this man's fame on the basketball court is matched by his fame at the card table then Clyde is world class. The name is Frank Lubin. Does that ring a bell with some of you basketball buffs? Frank is one of the all time greats of the hardwood court; but let me tell you the story of this amazing athlete. The year is 1936. Frank had had a great career at UCLA and was playing for Universal Pictures, an AAU team in the finals of the American Olympic Basketball Basket-ball Trials. He was selected select-ed as a player on the American Ameri-can team that eventually won the gold medal in the 1936 Olympics at Berlin, Ger- " many. The Lithuanian background back-ground of this Olympic hero caught the eye of the Lithuanian Lith-uanian Government and Frank, and wife, and his parents were invited to visit that country on an expense paid tour. They happily accepted and what started out as a two week tour ended up as a seventy five day stay, as his wife, Mary Agnes suffered a broken leg after crossing the border. Her husband made the most of able to get back to Lithuania. The Lubins lost a good chunk of their capital but were able to get passage on a ship Frank resumed his association associ-ation with the 20th Century Fox AAU Basketball team. The players were not paid to play but were given a jod by the sponsoring company. Frank played basketball for many years as a 6'5" center and was named to the All American AAU team for ten of those years. He was still playing in 1955 at the age of forty-five! forty-five! And that year at the National AAU Tournament in Denver, he scored 37 points in one of the games which was high for the tourney. Frank is now sixty nine years young and gives lots of his time to raising money for the American Olympic i Committee. He speaks many I places - and what do you think he talks about? He talks about the importance of physical fitness. He still looks like he could walk into any basketball game and blow you right off the court. |