January 28, 1948: Nat Hickey, the NBA's Oldest Player

January 28, 1948: For the 2nd night in a row, Nat Hickey, head coach of the Providence Steam Rollers, inserts himself into his team's game.

It did no good, either time. On January 27, the Rollers -- named for the city's former NFL team -- lost to the St. Louis Bombers, 94-61 at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence. Hickey took 5 shots from the field, and missed them all. He made 2 out of 3 free throws, for 2 points.

It almost worked on January 28, but not quite: The Rollers lost to the New York Knicks, 75-73 at the old Madison Square Garden. Hickey played 3 minutes, missed his only shot, and committed 4 fouls. A poor performance, by any standard.

A photo from that game. Hickey is Number 11.

Hickey was desperate to improve a team that had just fallen to 4-24 on the season, and would finish 6-42, easily the worst overall record in the Basketball Association of America, in its 2nd season. He was fired as head coach. Ken Loeffler coached the Rollers in the 1948-49 season, and they finished last again.

For the 1949-50 season, the BAA merged with the National Basketball League, and formed the National Basketball Association. To this day, the NBA traces its founding to the founding of the BAA in 1946, and so all BAA records -- but no NBL records -- are counted as NBA records. (Example: The Los Angeles Lakers count all 4 of their NBA Championships as the Minneapolis Lakers as "World Championships," and their 1949 BAA title as one as well; but not their 1948 NBL title.) The Steam Rollers were not among the BAA teams invited into the NBA, and Providence has not had a major league team in any sport since.

Hickey was the 1st NBA head coach to activate himself to try to help his team. He wouldn't be the last: In 1969, Boston Celtic legend Bob Cousy was coaching the Cincinnati Royals, and returned as a player, with only slightly more success than Hickey. Lenny Wilkens and Dave Cowens were later appointed head coach for their teams while still playing for them; Cowens only coached the one season, while Wilkens had more success as a coach after retiring as a player.

So what's the big deal about Hickey? Since those appearances in late January 1948 are counted as NBA games, they make him the oldest player in NBA history: He was 2 days short of his 46th birthday.

He was born on January 30, 1902 -- that's right, an NBA player was born in the 1st full year of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidency -- on Korčula, an island in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Croatia, then part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was born with the name Nicola Zarnecich.

The family came to America, and he grew up in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. He anglicized his name to Nicholas J. Hickey, and was nicknamed "Nat." He grew to be 5-foot-11, which is short compared to today's basketball players, but not then. For comparison's sake: My grandfather, George Goldberg, born 4 years later, was 5-foot-8, and was the tallest player on his team at Theodore Roosevelt High School in The Bronx, and they won the City Championship in 1924.

A guard and a forward, Hickey did not attend college, but played for some early pro basketball teams, including the dominant New York team known as the Original Celtics, featuring 2 men who became even bigger legends as coaches, Nat Holman and Joe Lapchick; the Cleveland Rosenblums, who, like the Original Celtics, won titles in the 1920s version of the American Basketball League; and the Chicago Bruins, a team run by Chicago Bears boss George Halas.

Hickey also played minor league baseball, as an outfielder. In 1938, 10 years before his record-setting basketball game, he managed the Williamson Colts of Williamson, West Virginia, a farm team of the St. Louis Cardinals, in the Mountain State League, which was in Class D, equivalent to today's Rookie Leagues. This post made him the 1st professional manager of Stan Musial.

West Virginia would also be a site of tragedy for Hickey. On January 11, 1951, he was coaching the Johnstown Clippers, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the All-American Basketball League. He was driving some members of his team back home after a game in Wheeling when he lost control of his car on U.S. Route 30, the Lincoln Highway, and crashed. George Karmarkovich, a fellow Yugoslav (although Serbian as opposed to Croatian) and his best player, was thrown from the car and killed. He was only 24 years old.

An inquest ruled that Hickey was not responsible for Karmarkovich's death, but the team was soon disbanded, and he never coached again. He remained in Johnstown, and died on September 16, 1979.

Because Hickey played only 2 games -- really, only a few minutes in total -- in the early days of the NBA, before it even had the NBA name, and for a team that didn't last much longer after that, he was forgotten for a long time. When Cousy played his last game with the Royals in 1970, he was 41, and thought to be the oldest player in NBA history. In 1989, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired at age 42, and was then thought to have broken the record. In 1997, Robert Parish played at 43, and that was then thought to be the record. And in 2007, Kevin Willis played for the Dallas Mavericks at 44 years, 224 days old.

But the records were checked, and Nat Hickey was found to be the oldest: 45 years, 363 days old. As of January 28, 2022, the oldest active player is Udonis Haslem of the Miami Heat, 41. He shows no desire to retire. But to break Hickey's record, he would have to play in the NBA until June 8, 2026 -- which means that whatever team he is on in the 2025-26 season would have to make the NBA Finals that season to make it official, or else he'd have to play the 2026-27 season opener at 46 years and 4 months.

*

January 28, 1948 was a Wednesday. The Steam Rollers-Knicks game was the only one in the NBA that night. Baseball and football were in their off-seasons. But all of the NHL's "Original Six" teams were in action that night:

* The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a 3-3 tie at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.