Tom Kelly (basketball)

Thomas E. Kelly (March 5, 1924 – March 20, 2008) was an American engineer, who played professional basketball for one season with the Boston Celtics.

Early life

Thomas Edward Kelly was born at the New York Medical College, New York City, on March 5, 1924, to Edward Thomas Kelly, a New York City Alderman, and Anastasia Cecilia Kane. In 1929, the family moved to St. Francis Xavier Parish in the Bronx.

Kelly earned an academic scholarship to Regis High School, where he played basketball and graduated in 1941.

In 1942, at age 18, Kelly joined the United States Army Air Forces as an Aviation Cadet. He was trained in the United States Army Air Corps as a B-17 flying officer and commissioned a Second Lieutenant Pilot in 1944, assigned to the 486th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 833rd Bomber Squadron of the 3rd Division of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, stationed in Sudbury, Suffolk, England. Kelly flew twenty-nine combat missions over Germany, winning five battle stars and the air medal with oak leaf clusters.

After leaving the military, Kelly attended New York University's Bronx campus on the G.I. Bill, graduating after three years in 1948 with an engineering degree. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering school equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa.

While at NYU, he won a spot on the basketball team as a walk-on, joining such nationally recognized athletes as Dolph Schayes, Ray Lumpp, Sid Tannenbaum, and Frank Mangiapane. At NYU, Kelly was All-Metropolitan basketball forward on the team that reached the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) final game in 1948. In 1991, Kelly was inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame at NYU.

Professional basketball career

Kelly postponed his engineering career when he was drafted by the Boston Celtics in the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and farmed out to the Hartford Hurricanes in their American Basketball League. After leading the league in scoring, he was recalled to the Celtics and was high scorer in their victory over the Fort Wayne Pistons and labeled by the Boston sports media as a contender for "Rookie of the Year". He played 27 games in his one season, 1948-1949, with the Celtics.

Engineering career

After Kelly retired from basketball, he had a four-decades career building a successful business in commercial heating, ventilating and air conditioning sales in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County.

Beginning in 1954, Kelly lived for several years in Syosset, Long Island, where he served as Vice President and then President of the Board of Education for Central School District No. 2. As Board president, he was instrumental in the construction of Syosset High School, the first modern centrally air conditioned high school on Long Island.

In the late 1950s he assumed management of the New York office of the Trane Company and lived in Shippan Point, Stamford, Connecticut. He retired to Santa Barbara, California, in 1993.

Private life

In 1947, Kelly married Irene McGuire, a Bronx native, at Our Lady's Chapel in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. After her death, Kelly married his second wife, Joanie.

Over the course of his active life, Kelly was an avid golfer, sailor and tennis player. He was a member of the Birnam Wood Golf Club, the Stamford Yacht Club and the New York Athletic Club.

Kelly died in Santa Barbara, California, on March 20, 2008. He was survived by his second wife and six sons and four daughters.

Gallery

• Tom Kelly USAAF copy.jpg

  A picture of young Lt Kelly while stationed in England during World War II

• Tom Kelly Boston Celtics no6.jpg

  Tom Kelly, Boston Celtics, no.6 (number later retired by Bill Russell)

• Tom Kelly 2004.jpg

  Thomas E. Kelly, 2004

External links

• 486th Bomber Squadron photo