McDermott, "Bobby" (Robert)
Basketball
b. Jan. 7, 1914, Whitestone, NY
d. Oct. 3, 1963
Al Cervi, a great defensive player who often had to guard him, said of McDermott, "Oh, he could shoot! If he shot ten times from thirty feet, I'd guarantee he'd make eight in game conditions."
A 5-foot-11 guard, McDermott dropped out of high school and became a legendary playground star before joining the Brooklyn Visitations of the American Basketball League. Brooklyn won the 1934-35 ABL championship and McDermott led the league in scoring.
After a year in the New York Professional League, where he set a record with 32 points in a playoff game, he was with the reorganized Original Celtics for three seasons. He went back to the ABL and was again the league's scoring leader, returned to the Celtics for another season, then settled down for a while with the Ft. Wayne Zollner Pistons of the National Basketball League in 1941.
Led by McDermott, the Pistons won three consecutive NBL titles, 1944-46, and they also won the world professional championship tournament in Chicago all three years. McDermott was named to the all-tournament team each year and he was the tournament's most valuable player in 1944. In 1944/45, he set an NBL record with 36 points in a game.
McDermott was player-coach of the Pistons in 1946-47, then took the same position with the Chicago Gears, who won the NBL championship. He went to the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in 1947-48, to the Hammond Buccaneers the following season, and he finished his career with the Wilkes-Barons in 1950.
The NBL in 1946 named McDermott the greatest player in league history and Collier's magazine chose him to an "All-World" team in 1950. McDermott died of injuries suffered in an automobile accident.