Jack Rose, now 86 years old, was in the crowd that night.
“He jumped up higher than all the defenders, and he shot it one-handed,” Rose recalls. “We’d never seen anything like it. We all looked at each other like, ‘What was that?'”
What it was, history has come to show, was a glimpse into the future — a firsthand look at a shot so bold in its imagination, so revolutionary in its impact, that it would one day inspire comparisons to the wheel, the airplane, the computer.
“That was the shot,” as current Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt puts it, “that changed everything.”
If you’ve never heard of Kenny Sailors, you’re not alone. Chances are, you’re also not from Wyoming, particularly Laramie, where Sailors, the man most widely credited as the inventor of the modern jump shot, is something of a folk hero. At 94 years old, he doesn’t get out as often, or as easily, as he did a few years ago, but when he does he still happily poses for pictures around town. Still shakes a lot of hands when he’s out to lunch. His No. 4 jersey, the one he wore when leading little ol’ Wyoming on an improbable, Hoosiers-esque run to the 1943 national championship, is the only one hanging in the school’s Arena-Auditorium rafters. As we speak, plans to erect a 22-foot statue of Sailors, which will stand in the arena’s entrance, are underway.
“That’s really going to be something,” Sailors told CBSSports.com, shyly chuckling at the surreal thought of
Article source: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/feature/25067625/jump-shot
