It was an ordinary day. The full-length headline in the local LNP newspaper read: "Whitey Von Nieda's Basketball Journey Spanned Decades." As I read the story I realized that the fellow in the story was someone that my Dad talked about many times. Whitey was a Lancaster County native and played basketball for the Lancaster Red Roses. Stanley Lee "Whitey" VonNeida was born in nearby Ephrata on June 19, 1922. Stan's uncle Harry VonNieda also went by "Whitey" and was a star basketball player at Ephrata High School about the time that Stan was born. Harry went on to an impressive college basketball career at Penn State where he excelled as a player and was the team captain in 1928. Stan followed in his uncle's footsteps in more ways than just name when he was a star player at Ephrata and where he was Lancaster county's top scorer in 1940 before gaining success at Penn State as a player. In 1942, Harry was the lone sophomore to play on the varsity Nittany Lions and was also the team's leading scorer. The following year he left Penn State to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1943, joining the paratrooper school at Fort Benning, Georgia, after basic training. While there he played for the paratrooper school's basketball team, competing in the Main Post league, which was made up of teams from various military units stationed in that area. He also played for a local team, the Nehi Reds. He scored an incredible 931 points in 44 games during his short time in Georgia, before shipping out to the European theater of WWII. After the war, Whitey returned home and played for the Lancaster Red Roses in their first season of competition, 1946-47. He was a fantastic player and scorer and packed the Lancaster Armory with his on-court prowess during home games. In the very first game that year, the Red Roses played the Reading Keys, and Whitey led the team to victory in front of 1,600 paying fans at the armory. He went on to lead the Eastern Professional Basketball League in scoring for the season. His success in the EPBL led to his signing in the NBL for the Tri-City Blackhawks, a team based in Moline, Illinois. Whitey played for three seasons in Moline during which the Blackhawks clinched two National Basketball League division titles. Then in 1949 the NBL merged with the Basketball Association of America to form the NBA, and Whitey played his final professional season with the Blackhawks in the new league. During that season, Whitey suffered an eye injury and was traded to the Baltimore Bullets in January of 1950. At the end of the season he decided to call it quits and ended his NBA career. His love of the game led him to take over the head-coaching job at Elizabethtown College the following year. He coached there for three seasons as well as playing semi-pro games on weekends. His semi-pro games lasted for many years. Tough to give up something you love! He eventually gave up his playing days in his early 60s. I taught school with Mr. George Ehemann who was the chairman of the IndustrialArts Department at Manheim Township High School were I attended as a student and than as a teacher. Mr. Ehemann was a great basketball player himself and we often talked about his playing days and the fact that he played a few games against Whitey. My dad was also a good basketball player, but not on the same level as Whitey and George. Dad and I often talked basketball and the names of Whitey and George were brought up quite often. Oh, for the good 'ole times. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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