scab with a towel and doused the wound with whiskey. Luckily for Lapchick, the treatment worked. The Celtics joined the American Basketball League in 1926 and won two straight titles. So dominant were Lapchick, Nat Holman, and the rest of the Celtics that the league insisted the team disband. It did, in 1928. Lapchick and two other former Celtics then joined the Cleveland Rosenblums, a team owned by a department store magnate who had named the team after himself. With Lapchick starring at the pivot, the "Rosenblum Celtics" won two straight ABL titles. The Great Depression forced an end to the ABL in 1931. Still a young man, Lapchick re-formed the Celtics with Dutch Dehnert, Davey Banks, Nat Hickey, Johnny Beckman, Carl Husta and him. They hit the road for five years, with Lapchick handling driving duties, and Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" at games. In 1936 Lapchick landed the coaching job at St. John's University, New York City. In 11 seasons he steered the Redmen to a 180–55 record and two consecutive National Invitation Tournament titles, in 1943 and 1944. Overwhelmed by stress, Lapchick fainted during the second half of the 1944 final game. In 1947 he passed up a then-astronomical offer of $12,000 per year to stay at St. John's, opting instead to accept a job as coach of the New York Knickerbockers of the fledgling Basketball Association of America. Landing Lapchick was a big boost to the league, which was in only its second year of operation. He signed Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton to the Knicks, one of the league's first African-American players. As a star center with the Original Celtics and other barnstorming teams, a college coach at St. John's, an NBA coach with the New York Knicks, and an ambassador of the sport, Lapchick cast a broad shadow across the game and its history. Though a slick player and an admired coach, Lapchick was perhaps best known for his obsessive worrying and anxiety during games. He lived every second of every game as though it were the last tick of the clock. Stress related health problems ended his professional coaching career and caused an occasional on-court fainting spell and even a few heart attacks. Lapchick was respected for his motivational coaching style, which focused less on mechanics than on eliciting peak performances from his players. Stressing a freewheeling offensive approach and smooth ballhandling, Lapchick built