Alvin Roth (basketball)

Roth was 6'4", weighed 210 pounds and played guard.[1] He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Erasmus Hall High School, where as a senior in 1947–48 he led them to a PSAL championship.[1][3] Due to his poor academic grades, Roth was ineligible to attend CCNY his freshman year;[3] one year later Roth was admitted to the school as a sophomore.[3] It was this season that CCNY won both national basketball championships (the NIT was actually considered the premier national championship at the time). One year later, news broke about a point-shaving scandal that was sweeping east coast universities, and at its heart was CCNY's squad led by Nat Holman.[1][3] Roth was one of the players arrested in the scandal.[1] In July 1952, a judge suspended his sentence after Roth volunteered to join the United States Army as a private in the following month.[4]

Roth's admission into CCNY despite his poor grades was a result of transcript altering by Holman.[3] Nationally, all of the players who were convicted of participating in the scandal were banned from ever playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA).[1]

After his playing days, Roth went back to CCNY to earn his business degree, then moved to the suburbs of New York City to sell insurance.[1] He died June 19, 2003, in Rockford, New York.[5]