You probably don’t remember Clifton McNeely. He played basketball for Texas Wesleyan. Not Texas Western. Texas Wesleyan. The one in Fort Worth.
The Pittsburgh Ironmen of the Basketball Association of America selected McNeely as the first pick of the 1947 BAA draft. The Ironmen disappeared shortly afterwards but the BAA is very much still with us, although we know it as the National Basketball Association.
McNeely never played for the Ironmen. He was 28 in 1947, a World War II vet and just married. And he had an offer to coach high-school basketball in Pampa, Texas.
Pampa High School seemed like a better bet than a fledgling pro basketball league.