COPY
5819 Malvern Ayenue,
Philadelphia, Pa.
November 21, 1944.

Dr. Forrest ©. Allen,

Director of Physical Education,
Varsity Basketball Coach,
University of Kansas,

Lawrence, K ans.

Dear Dr. Allen:

Your letter of November 9th has been received, together with the carbon copies of Mr.
Smith's letter of September 6th, your answer of September 22nd and the answer of the
Madison Square Garden Corporation dated October 24th. These were certainly very
interesting and rest assured they are received by the writer in the same confidence
with which you sent them.

I have nothing further in the way of evidence in the case but that which we are both
familiar with, but I believe I may be able to acquire some concrete facts for you.
However, at this time all I want to do is tear down a bit the letter of Ned Irish.

He states that the rumor was discredited completely in the Philadelphia newspapers.

I am an ardent reader of the sporting pages of every Philadelphia newspaper and I do
not remember seeing any statement of any sports writer discrediting this rumor. The
only thing that appeared at all after the game was a statement that one of the men had
injured his shoulder in the game and would be unable to play for several more weeks
and the other chap in question had played with a high fever and wuld be unable to
play any more due to being drafted in the Navy. I recall no other statement being
published in the Philadelphia papers about the entire matter.

 

 

I do know however, that immediately following the game (which the writer attended) among
many of the so called "sporting fraternity” there was talk about the protection of bets
of several thousand dollars made by certain men. Before the hall was cleared of these
individuals, the words “pay off" were being used quite commonly. Of course, one cannot
indict a person on hearsay evidence such as this and like yourself, I believe the fault
is with the system and nothing else.

I only wrote you and the sports writers about this entire matter because I did not think
it was fair to you (even though I have never met you) to take a blasting from these
sports writers claiming that you only caused all this due to the fact that you were
looking for. the job of “czar™ of basketball. I didn't even receive the courtesy of a.
reply from any of the three writers, although truthfully, I did not expect one.

If at any time there is anything I can do to help you in your endeavor along these
lines, please do not hesitate, but feel free to call upon me at any time.

Anticipating the pleasure of some day making your acquaintance, the writer begs to
remain,

Yours very truly,

(Signed) Leonard Orman