Album 6 Photos Contributed by Mickey Lascher
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When our ship was not carrying tanks or other cargo the tank deck was converted into a basketball court of sorts. One of the deck hands received permission from the Captain to get a pair of backboards installed that could be secured in a position that would not interfere with any of the normal cargo carrying capacity of the ship.
The Engineering department agreed to do the design and building of the backboards and to plug all the tie down "holes" in the deck. When the "court" was completed many of the crew enjoyed playing LST basketball, even when we were underway.
Forget about set shots. The overhead was too low. You could just make a foul shot if you kept the arc of the ball low enough. The most interesting shot was when we were underway and the ship was rolling. You had to "lead" the basket just the right amount to score a basket. If you aimed directly at the basket, the basket would have moved away by the time the ball got there. Dribling was also a challenge. If you bounced the ball on one of the plugged tie down holes the ball would take a strange bounce.
After lots of trial and error, a little bit of frustration, and lots of laughs,
the game evolved to one of lots of passing, little dribling, and mostly lay-up shots. It was still a lot of fun for many of the crew, as can be seen in the following photos.
You may remember the game that our ships team beat the Far East Champs in a game of LST Basketball. What a thrill. They had won 44 games straight but lost to our ship. Our teams superior skill was the deciding factor, of course, but the "losers" would not accept that. They griped about the non-standard court, the low overhead, the moving basket, and the uneven deck.
I guess they were really mortified, being beat by such a little ship. They insisted on a return match in the shore base court but we were unable to accomodate them. Our ship left port. How awful it would have been to get beaten twice by this little LST when they had beat the teams from Carriers, Battleships, and Cruisers. Oh well! That the way it goes in sports.
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In this photo you can see how close the basket is to the overhead. When the ball bounced off the overhead it made for some very interesting play.
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