Eastern Basketball Association (1958-1978)
Continental Basketball Association (1978-1981)
Tombstone
Born: 1958 – The Wilmington Jets relocate to Allentown
Folded: August 4, 19811NO BYLINE. “Sports A.M.” The Daily News (Bangor, ME). August 5, 1981
First Game:
Last Game:
EPBL/EBA Championships: 1962, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1975 & 1976
CBA Championships: None
Arenas
1960-1961: Rockne Hall
1964-65: Rockne Hall
1967-68: Louis E. Dieruff High School (2,000)21967-68 Allentown Jets Program
1978-79: Rockne Hall (3,500)31978-79 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide
1980-81: Northampton Community College (4,100)41979-80 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide
Marketing
Team Colors: Royal Blue & White51978-79 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide
Ownership
Owners:
- 1958-1976: Frank Wagner, et al.
- 1976-1981: Frank Martin
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Background
Long-time minor league basketball entry in the Eastern Professional Basketball League, later known as the Eastern Basketball Association. The Allentown Jets were a minor league basketball powerhouse in the 1960’s and 1970’s, winning eight championships between 1962 and 1976. During these years, the Jets had a special but informal relationship with the New York Knicks of the NBA. The Knicks used the Jets as a training ground for prospects and high draft picks such as Tom Riker, Mike Riordan and Harthorne Wingo who helped fuel Allentown’s success in the Eastern league.
For most of the Jets’ history, the EPBL/EBA was a local bus league based in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and neighboring states. In 1977, the EBA added an expansion team in Anchorage, Alaska (Allentown was actually their closest rival). The following year, the league re-branded itself as the Continental Basketball Association and began to expand aggressively across the continent. The lower-budget Pennsylvania teams gradually died off over the next few seasons.
The Jets changed their name to the Lehigh Valley Jets for their final two seasons in the winters of 1979-80 and 1980-81. The club folded in 1981 after 23 seasons in the Lehigh Valley region. Allentown’s long-time Eastern League rival Scranton dropped out of the CBA at the same time. Both Jets owner Frank Martin and Scranton owner Art Pachter cited the increased expense of air travel to play the CBA’s Western Division teams in Alaska and Montana, along with the CBA’s desire for longer game schedules, as factors that drove their cities out of the league (Allentown Morning Call 8/6/1981).
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Editor's Pick
Boxed Out
Remembering The Eastern Professional Basketball League
In Boxed out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League, Syl Sobel and Jay Rosenstein tell the fascinating story of a league that was a pro basketball institution for over 30 years, showcasing top players from around the country. During the early years of professional basketball, the Eastern League was the next-best professional league in the world after the NBA. It was home to big-name players such as Sherman White, Jack Molinas, and Bill Spivey, who were implicated in college gambling scandals in the 1950s and were barred from the NBA, and top Black players such as Hal “King” Lear, Julius McCoy, and Wally Choice, who could not make the NBA into the early 1960s due to unwritten team quotas on African-American players.
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In Memoriam
Guard Kevin Cluess (Jets ’76-’78) passed at age 33 after a battle with leukemia on September 28, 1986. New York Times obituary.
Long-time Jets General Manager / Owner Frank Wagner passed away in November 2007. Morning Call coverage.
Links
1971 Sports Illustrated profile: “Toughing It Out Around The Purgatory League”
One Response
I always liked when SI went off the major league path and reported on the minors. Actually I was kind of impressed with 900+ crowd figure that would have been a good crowd for the ABA’s Houston Mavericks from a couple years earlier.